And I was sure many millions of women had thought that exact same thing in my exact position before.
I was shocked too. I’d seen violence. Lived a life of it. My best friends had been subjected to some of the most brutal and ugly acts that could be dealt at the hands of men. Most of them had not only managed to survive it but thrive after it.
One of my most treasured girls didn’t survive. I thought witnessing that, seeing the people I loved most in the world being broken like that, was worse than anything I could experience.
And it was.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t freeze from the surprise of experiencing this violence firsthand from a man for the first time in my life.
Kevin utilized that, my shock, kicking me in the ribs. I grunted as the force of the kick expelled a painful gasp from my lungs and rolled me toward the coffee table.
“See, you’re a hot piece, babe. The hottest. And I care about you, I really do. But you just have to piss me off. Why do you do that?” he asked, as if I was the one hurting him. As if it was my fault.
I barely listened to him. I blinked through the pain that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been since he was barefoot. My eyes focused on my purse, which, thanks to the kick, was now within reach.
I wasn’t frozen anymore. I didn’t hesitate to dart my hand forward, into the opening, and clutch the gun that was always in there.
I turned onto my back with some pain the moment he reached my side, standing above me. The barrel of the gun blocked out his handsome face.
“You don’t touch me again unless you want it to be the last thing you do,” I said, my voice even.
It was his time to freeze. And he did it long enough for me to scramble clumsily to my feet.
By the time I’d done that, still pointing my gun at him, his face changed from dumb shock to a dumb snarl. A cocky confidence fed by women who didn’t have enough strength to stand up to him.
I was doing this for them, and, of course, myself.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
He barely got the words out before I replaced them with a gunshot.
His screams were embarrassingly loud for someone who prided himself on being the big bad drug dealer who beat women.
“You fucking bitch! You fucking shot me!” he bellowed from the floor, which he’d collapsed onto as soon as the bullet went through his lower leg.
I raised my brow. “I don’t do empty threats, babe,” I said, then snatched my purse from the ground, keeping my gaze on Kevin while I did. “You know, I think we should break up.”
“I’m going to fucking—”
“Tut tut. I wouldn’t go about making promises you can’t keep.” I narrowed my eyes. “And trust me, you can’t keep any promises of revenge that you’re going to throw at me like that weak punch.” I rubbed my cheek. “I’m not like the other girls. In all the best ways. And all the worst. That means I will fucking kill you if you come near me again. I’ll make sure I chop your dick off first. Oh, and I’ll be having someone keep an eye on you. And your next girlfriend. If she has as much as a hangnail, I’ll come back. And I’ll give you a lot more than a hangnail.”
I eyed him, clutching his leg and glaring at me. He was angry. Furious. This was probably the first time a woman had ever got the best of him.
I really hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
I also hoped that he wasn’t stupid enough to mess with me again.
I should’ve known better than to hope.
It took a while for everything to line up just perfectly for my life to be ruined. I’d pretty much forgotten about Kevin by the time all the drama with Bex came to a head. Which was comical, since it was him, not the drama with Bex, that ruined it all.
It was a strange thing when all the seemingly isolated clouds in your life joined together, creating the perfect storm that even George Clooney wouldn’t dare sail through.
It shouldn’t happen, such a storm. Even in my dramatic and barely believable life, such events, like the one of that fateful day, should not have stitched together like at the hand of Frankenstein itself, creating a monster I’d provided all the parts for.
Like most of the shouldn’ts’ in my life, it got turned into a “surely will.” Imagine that in a Southern accent too, just for kicks.
It was just another Sons of Templar courtship. The most recent of the five, and this time, finally, Lucky got his girl. But shadows as black as midnight yanked at the both of them, taking two members of my family on the darkest journey the club had seen since Laurie.