Page 222 of Affair

Raphael hopped into the car, and Gene rode shotgun. As they started off, he was sitting there, quietly staring out the window.

Ethan had asked Raphael to keep an eye on Gene, and if he was troubled, to help him out. Since Raphael wanted Ethan to be happy, he knew this man had to be part of the process.

“You’re pissed,” he stated.

Gene was more than pissed.

He was scared.

Glancing over, he was honest with Raphael.

“I wanted to kill him with my bare hands,” he admitted, sipping his coffee. “When he went at Elizabeth, trying to punch her, after he decked me, I wanted to end him for fucking with my family. With my people.”

Raphael got that.

They were all particularly protective of the Blackhawks.

Raphael said one thing.

“He shouldn’t have put his hands on you. Love doesn’t hurt people like that.”

No, he shouldn’t have, and now, he was facing down that everything he’d believed about Tommy before was nothing but a lie.

In the end, he’d been a master manipulator. He’d been controlling, and he’d not seen it until he got out from under it. Someone had been blind.

Or just desperate to be loved.

Now, he saw the truth. Tommy was nothing more than an abuser.

That he’d try to hit a woman…

That didn’t sit well with him at all. Tommy could do whatever he wanted to him, but to go at a woman, even if that woman was Elizabeth…

That.

Was.

Foul.

Raphael just said one thing.

“Talk it out. You’ll feel better.”

Would he?

Gene wasn’t so damn sure he would. Only, he was willing to try.

“I’m also angry that I thought he was a good person. I don’t like that he’s going to try to hurt Ethan. I don’t buy for one second that he wouldn’t kill him to hurt me for leaving him. I was in over my head, Raph. I didn’t see what he really was until now. I saw the rage in his eyes, the hate, and the ability to kill. I always believed Tommy was calm, patient, and kind. I think I was wrong.”

Raphael reassured him.

“We don’t always see what people are like until they are at their worst moment. Losing you broke him, but that’s not on you. If he laid down the law, and you didn’t want to be bossed around, you’re entitled to do what you want to do, Gene. It’s your life too. As for him hurting Ethan…he won’t get near my boo.”

That made him laugh.

How could it not?

It was said so ridiculously.