The last thought was a shard of ice through my head.
I moved fast, breaking into a sprint, dropping everything but the bottle of wine. That I gripped by the neck, ready to crack the fucker’s head in.
The ice bucket clattered to the wooden deck, the noise like a gunshot in the calm afternoon quiet.
I saw the man standing in front of Ronnie flinch. Saw him swing towards me as I ran towards him.
Saw Ronnie snatch up her towel—and something else, something that looked like a police baton.
Tonfa. She’s got the Chinese melee weapon from the gym. She’s armed herself.
Pride rolled through me, just as she swung her arm upward in a blurring arc and smashed the end of the tonfa into the man’s jaw.
Bone cracked. There was no mistaking the sound. Blood spurted from the man’s mouth in a bright red spray a heartbeat before he lurched backward.
His calves struck the sun lounge. His head lolled back on his neck. His body turned boneless.
Ronnie brought the tonfa down in a sweeping strike, hitting him on the cheek as he began to collapse.
His head snapped to the side under the blow, and he crashed to the ground, motionless, his gun clattering across the pavers just as I reached Ronnie’s side.
I grabbed her, hauling her to my body, enveloping her in my arms.
“Did you see what I did?” she asked, wriggling against my hold. Her voice was high. Almost brittle. She pushed her palms against my chest, her eyes shining with adrenaline. I recognized the light in them. It had been there when Detective Dewey had tried to use her to bring me to heel last week. The whole flight side of fight-or-flight didn’t seem to exist for her. “Did you see?”
Checking the fucker was still motionless on the ground, I kicked his gun into the pool with a slashing swipe of my foot, and then allowed Ronnie a little freedom in my arms.
A little.
Fuck.
Fuck, she’d been in danger. Right here. In the safety of the home I’d built for her.
I looked at her, fighting to calm the insane rage building inside me. Whoever the guy was, he would be wishing he was dead when I finished with him.
And then he would be—
“Did you see, Lucas?” she repeated, her fingers gripping my biceps. “I took him out. I freaking knocked him out! I freaking knocked him—” She slid her wide-eyed stare to the unconscious fucker on the ground behind me. “Is that blood?”
The color drained from her face.
She blinked. Once. Twice. And then pressed a shaky hand to her mouth. “Oh God, that’s blood,” she said, the whispered exclamation muffled by her palm.
I stole a moment to cup her cheek in my hand, bringing her focus back to me. “You brought the tonfa out here to protect yourself?”
She barely nodded her head. “Just in case,” she whispered, the words a husky scratch.
“Just in case,” I echoed, love and pride and contempt for the life I’d dragged her into searing through me. Fuck, I should never have spoken a word to her. I should have shut her out of my life years ago. “That’s good, babe. I’m proud of you.”
Her eyebrows dipped. “Thanks.”
Heart racing, I gave her a gentle smile. “Very proud. I want nothing more than to show you how proud of you I am right now, but I’ve got to deal with the fucker you KO’d, and I can’t do that with you here.”
Her eyes grew wider. “What are you going to—”
I shook my head, brushing my thumb over her lips to halt her question. She really didn’t need to hear the answer. “What did he say to you? That’s all I need to know right now.”
She flicked the unconscious turd on the ground a quick look. Distaste and anger twisted her eyebrows. The latter made me want to smile. Anger meant she wasn’t scared. Distaste worried me though. Was it the blood? Or the violence that upset her? Because if it was violence… Fuck, so much of my past life was violent, and no matter how much I wished it otherwise, my gut told me my past life wasn’t done with me.