The red coloring my vision now ran down Logan’s face and over my hands.
Punch after punch.
“Van, stop,” Lena said as she reached for my arm.
Her pull was nearly nonexistent. Nothing more than a butterfly landing on a flower. It was the tone in her voice that affected me, that caused me to stop, to turn, and to see the woman before me. In the cunning world of lies, deceptions, and money, Lena and I found one another. Our common goals of power and unimaginable wealth should have made us enemies. Instead, somehow, they’d united us.
Lena and I didn’t have a relationship made of romance or love, not in the true meaning of the words. Sex wasn’t our connection. Our bond went to our core—our common love of someone else.
I spun around, cupping Lena’s face, momentarily ignoring Butler’s blood on my hands but seeing Lena’s blood, dried and caked upon her alabaster skin, the purple of the bruise on her left cheek. Leaving red fingerprints on her cheeks, I took a step back, reached for her hands, and lifted her arms. Her painted fingernails were jagged.
She’d given him hell.
The purple fingerprints on her wrists and arms confirmed she’d gotten it too.
“I’m fucking suing you, Thomas,” Butler said, lying against the wall, spitting more blood down his bare chest and on Lena’s marble floor.
“He did this,” I said to Lena, not questioning but wanting to hear it from my friend.
“I…” she looked down. “Infidelity.”
“Fuck that company.” I turned to Logan Butler. “The contract isn’t in your name. You have no rights to her.”
Butler groaned as he stood. “This is my apartment. My name’s on the damn lease. I bought out the contract from Nicholson.” His beady stare lingered too long on Lena. “She’s mine for another six months.”
I stepped in front of her. “Tell that to the cops when they arrest you on domestic violence charges.”
“You’re the one going down.”
“Fucking try,” I said, reaching for Lena’s arm, rougher than I should. “Go get your things.” Taking a breath, I loosened my grip. “You’re coming home with me.”
Lena’s brown eyes searched from me to Logan and back.
“Go,” I repeated.
“If you walk out of here, Lena,” Logan said, “you’re not coming back. I’ll call Infidelity. I’ll get back every fucking dime I paid. You’ll owe me hundreds of thousands.”
“You didn’t pay,” I reminded him, “not directly to Infidelity. You have no say on what happens. And what you just did nullifies the contract. I take Lena to the hospital, and she presses charges, Infidelity won’t refund your money. You’ll lose either way.”
A slimy smirk quirked his lips as he used his hairy arm to wipe away the blood still coming from his nose. He spoke to Lena, but he was looking at me. “Maybe I’ll fuck with your sister instead.”
My neck straightened and my clenched jaw threatened to splinter my teeth with the pressure. It wasn’t my sister, Olivia, that he was talking about but Lena’s. Her younger sister. The real reason Lena had entered into a contract with the companionship service, Infidelity. She’d been promised that Infidelity didn’t sell sex; it sold class, poise, companionship, and compatibility.
I took a step closer. “Get the fuck out of here before I pound you to a bloody pulp. When I’m done, even your brother won’t recognize you.”
“Touch me again, Thomas, and jail is the only place you’re going.”
I smirked. “Maybe they’ll let us share a cell. Just so you know, I’ll top.”
I turned to Lena.
It was the first time I’d noticed that she was wearing a long satin nightgown with a matching robe that hung from her slender shoulders. Her feet were bare, her painted toenails peeking out from the hem of the nightgown. “Put on clothes. Grab what you want. You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving without you.”
My expression and tone left no room for argument.
Finally, Lena nodded and turned away toward the bedroom.
When Logan began to protest, screaming demands her direction, I pushed the fucker against the wall with my forearm at his neck. The pressure to his windpipe caused his beady eyes to bulge. “You like to beat up girls, fucker? If she or Madison so much as has a scratch because of you, I’m coming after you. I’m taking you down. I’m going to watch as you lose everything.”