Page 54 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

“S-Storm? What are you doing here?” Shae’s voice is like a song in my ears, and if I close my eyes and listen closely, I can hear what I’m sure is an edge of want in her tone.

Or maybe that’s just me being delulu as fuck.

“I was coming to check on you,” I say, sort of a lie, sort of not. “And I saw this asshole rubbing up on you as I came to the door. Didn’t look like you wanted it. Do you want it?”

My voice turns to steel on that last part, daring her to lie to my face.

I watched her knee him in the balls and tracked the way she clutched her piece in her pants pocket.

Thank God for technology.

“I’m fine, Storm,” she bites out. “I have it handled.”

I smile. “You’re not really answering the question, Sweetness.”

“Don’t call me that!” she snaps. “Let him go, you psycho! Zane, let’s cool off. I’ll see you later so we can get back to business as usual. Okay?”

Zane’s face is a sickly red-purple, and his eyes are so wide he looks like the zombie version of Michael Jackson in the “Thriller”music video.

I release my hold around his neck and remove my gun from his head…but not before pressing the barrel hard into his flesh to make a point.

The point being that I will not hesitate to blow this dickhead’s brains to bits.

“Fine,” Zane snaps, stumbling into the hallway. I wait with my back pressed to the doorjamb and ankles crossed as I watch him march to the elevator and slide into the waiting car. Before the doors slide closed, he gives me what I’m sure he thinks is a menacing look. I return the expression with a smile and light wave.

“You can go, too,” Shae says, but I don’t look at her when she speaks. Instead, I count to ten.

I know Shae has been with other people. But knowing that in my brain and seeing proof of her lovers, having onekissher, is another thing.

Does it make me a hypocrite? Maybe. I haven’t been a monk since our separation either. And yet, does understanding this mean I don’t want to make Zane disappear and fuck Shae against this wall until her brain and her body remember no one else but me?

“Um,hello,” Shae shouts, and I grin, my mouth lifting at one corner.

“Really, Shae?Thatnigga?” I say, moving lazily from the threshold and into the foyer. I shut the door and lock the top.

Shae releases a puff of air, and I search the part of the condo I can’t see from my place across the street.

“Why are you here? How do you know where I live? Why the fuck aren’t you leaving?” Shae throws all the questions at me as I walk toward the main living area. The space is clean and cold. There isn’t much personality here, except for the pictures on the wall. I take a step closer to see them clearly, but Shae slides in front of me and pushes me back.

“I didn’t say you could come in here,” she hisses, and I take big steps backward until I’m back in the foyer.

“You’re really not about answering my questions, are you, Shae?” I reply, trying to keep my tone light and not hiss at the feeling of her small palm against my chest.

She sucks her teeth.

“Well, ditto, asshole! Plus, I don’t owe you any explanations about my life, Storm,” she says, her patience clearly wearing thin.

I tilt my head from side to side.

“Whatever you say, Sweetness. I just know you can do better than that. He was about to shit a brick?—”

I stop speaking when Shae backs me up against the door, and there’s the unmistakable press of a gun barrel to the underside of my jaw.

“I told you,” she mutters, “not to fucking call me that.”

This close to me, Shae’s familiar yet new scent wraps around me, and I almost forget she has a gun positioned to blow my brains out. I look into her eyes, and I see so much fury there.

But there’s something else present, too.