“I do.”
My head snapped to Vincent, but he had eyes for no one but Caleb. Vincent’s body shuddered like he was visibly holding himself back.
I picked up the bone he’d thrown me and ran with it. “We have a date, Friday night at seven.”
Vincent instantly nodded in agreement.
Caleb looked ready to explode. “We had an agreement, and if you don’t hold up your end of the agreement, I will bury you. Your father won’t ever get another contract. And I’ll have your stepmother washing my dishes, while your brother and sister shine my fucking shoes. That’s how far I will ruin you, Bethany-Melissa. I will not be publicly embarrassed by you. You don’t want to try me.”
In a heartbeat, I could see it all come true.
In the next I saw the opposite.
I saw myself turn Psychos into something bigger and better than it even was now. I saw me as the savior of my family, the one who brought home enough money that my father could retire.
Nichelle and my siblings would have everything they needed.
I wouldn’t be beholden to any man.
Especially not a violent asshole like Caleb.
I struggled to pull his ring off, tugging at the too small band painfully until it slipped from my finger. I threw it at him. “Get in your car and drive away, Caleb. We’re done. Do your worst.”
The ring bounced off his chest and onto the ground at Vincent’s feet.
Caleb gaped at me. “That’s a thirty-thousand-dollar ring, Bethany-Melissa!” He crouched to pick it up.
The heel of Vincent’s boot drove down on Caleb’s fingers.
Nausea swirled my stomach at the crunch of breaking bone.
Caleb let out a blood-curdling scream, but Vincent didn’t remove his foot. He ground down harder, twisting his heel slowly and deliberately, leaving Caleb howling.
I knew Josie was probably having a conniption inside the center. There was no possible way she hadn’t heard Caleb’s screams.
“Get off me! Get off!”
Vincent watched Caleb writhe on the ground for a moment before he squatted down beside him.
In his arms, Little Dog went crazy, barking, growling, and snapping at Caleb’s face.
Vincent’s voice was barely a murmur when he spoke. “When I get off your hand, you’re going to take your cheap ring, get in your car, and then forget that Bliss ever existed. You say her name, I will end you. You think her name, I will hunt you down and put a bullet through your skull. You so much as accidentally drive past her on the street, and I will chase you down, gut you, and feed your intestines to my dog.”
Vincent stood and removed his heavy boot from Caleb’s mangled fingers.
I stared at Vincent’s profile in shock.
Caleb scrambled backward until he hit his car. His cheeks blazed with red spots, and he clutched his fingers to his chest. Two were bent at very unnatural angles, and blood dripped down his arm, soaking the cuff of his button-down shirt. “You think you’re so tough? Wait until you hear from my lawyer. Then we’ll see if you’re such a big man.”
He got into the car, but his gaze narrowed in on me through the open window. “You’ll be at the company dinner on Saturday night. You will smile. And then I’ll fuck you in the coatroom like the dirty whore you are. I’m not scared of your bodyguard here. He’ll be in jail by the end of the day. So don’t think you can hide behind him.”
Caleb spat out of the window, put his foot down on the accelerator, and sped through the parking lot with a squeal of tires and exhaust fumes.
Vincent watched him drive away and then turned to me. “We’re late for work. Shall we go inside?”
All I could do was nod.
16
BLISS
Vincent walked inside the daycare center like he and Caleb had just had a chat about the weather.
It took two hours for my fingers to stop trembling.
As predicted, Josie and Sarah had heard everything. They’d practically had their noses glued to the window when Vincent and I came inside. Vincent had greeted them in his usual formal way and then gotten straight to work, going over some number skills with Kellan and his little friends.
Josie had stared at him in a mixture of terror and awe. Sarah had swallowed thickly, whispered a hurried, “Are you okay?” But when I’d nodded, she’d scuttled off to the opposite side of the room, giving Vincent a clear berth.
Josie eventually got herself together enough to pin me with a solemn stare. “I have meetings this morning with two potential families. And then I’m taking a long lunch that will very likely involve alcohol after what I witnessed this morning. But when I return, we need to talk.”