Page 48 of Broken Discipline

I stepped toward Blister, but the bouncers tightened their grips on my arms. I bared my teeth, and that sniveling cockroach snickered at me.

You’re safe here,I thought,but I know where you live.

“All right,” Bunny said, motioning at the customers who had circled around us. “There ain’t nothing to see here. Go back to your beers.”

As the crowd shuffled out of the area, the bouncers let go of my arms and I put a protective arm around Ramona. For once, she didn’t stiffen at my touch. She kept her eyes focused on Blister, waiting for him to do something worse.

As if this wasn’t the only time he had wronged her.

“So it’s like that, huh?” Blister said, glaring at her. “You think you’re tough now because you’ve got a rich boyfriend? Go fuck yourselves. I’m going to sue you for everything you have, asshole.”

I flexed my knuckles, ready to beat the shit out of him again, but Ramona squeezed my arm, urging me to stop.

“Husband,” Ramona corrected. “He’s my husband.”

Heat surged inside of me, shocked at that word. She was claimingme.

“Why did you agree to a lap dance if you’ve got a possessive husband?” he asked.

I leaned forward, but Ramona put a hand on my chest. “Go home, Blister,” she said. “It’s over.”

“Fine,” he said, narrowing his eyes at us. He limped toward the entrance. “I don’t hit girls. You know that,” he mumbled. He faced me, glaring like he had actual power over me. “But your husband can’t protect your son forever.”

Everything was blurry, except for Blister’s face.

I could take him disrespecting me. I could take his empty threats. He was an insect, nothing more.

But when it came to my family? Threatening my son? A four-year-old?

You couldneverget a pass from that.

I gripped him by the shoulders and forced him to the ground. As the bouncers reached for me, I shoved my boot into Blister’s chest, the steel-toed tip cutting off his windpipe. His beady little eyes blinked up at me, red and sore and full of terror. I could crush his neck right then if I wanted to.

And damn it,I wanted to.

“I never liked you,” I said in a low voice. “You’re a cockroach. And I’m going to squash you like a bug.”

He struggled to raise my boot, his face turning purple. Finally, I lifted my boot. He gasped for air, his chest swelling. He quickly got to his feet.

“You guys are just going to stand there?” he wheezed, gawking at the bouncers. “You’re fucking useless!”

This time, Blister ran out the door. A waitress followed him out, but the bouncers stayed next to me. Ramona’s mouth gaped open. She didn’t know how to process what had happened.

I had almost killed a man, right in front of everyone, for threatening her son.

Our son.

“Thanks for taking out the trash,” a bouncer mumbled. I nodded. I couldn’t kill Blister here. There were too many eyes here, and I had already made a scene. People knew me now.

But I knew where he lived.

Ramona trembled, but there was a clarity in her brown eyes, like sunlight shining through a bottle of whiskey.

“You stood up for me,” she said.

My jaw ticked. I hated that she was surprised, evennow,that I cared about her. Hated that she was shocked that someone was willing to stick up for her.

But it was time that someone did. The world owed it to her.