Page 23 of Double Dirty

I kissed her cheek and went to take my shower and sleep for a few more hours. I met her at the grocery store when she got off of work. We were buying ingredients to make my grandma’s empanadas. I teased her about the way she pronounced it wrong. She teased me because I’d had the recipe for ten years and never tried to make them.

On our way out, loaded down with the reusable grocery bags she insisted on, she stopped so suddenly in the parking lot that I nearly bumped into her.

“What is it?” I said.

“Him,” she said, her voice barely above a breath.

Some guy was coming toward the entrance of the building. He had dark hair in a ponytail. He was skinny but wiry, mean looking and he was on his phone.

“Watts?” I said, my eyes going right to his hands. The hands he’d had been around Lexi’s throat the day he’d hurt her. I dropped my bags just like that, crossed the distance between us in four long strides and got him by the arm. His phone clattered to the concrete because of where I’d grabbed him, the nerve I’d pressed on. I marched him to the side of the store, pushed him up against the wall. I had his other arm by the wrist and pressed it against the wall by his head so he couldn’t knife me while I was talking.

“Listen, you fucking punk,” I hissed at him, “Do you see that girl over there?” I pointed to Lexi where she was gathering up the bags I’d dropped. She was in a crouch, but her eyes were on us, wary.

“What about the bitch? She yours?”

“You will never lay another hand on her, do you hear me?” I hissed. He was mean, but I was bigger and mad as hell. “If she calls about your case and tells you to do something, you do it all polite like I’ve got a knife to your balls.Don’t touch her, don’t threaten her, don’t look her in the eyes. I will know and I will come for you.”

“Pretty boy like you?” he scoffed. “Gimme my fuckin’ phone back.”

“Be a shame if I stepped on it after I was done with you. You hurt her once. I let you live. That’s a gift, because she told me not to kill you. I won’t be generous a second time no matter what she says. She may want you to have another chance to turn your life around. You better take it while you have the chance because as far as I’m concerned, my hands are already filthy and one more piece of trash like you isn’t going to do much more harm to my immortal soul.”

I picked him up and just threw him down, wiped my hands. I crushed his phone as I went by, picked up my bags and took Lexi home. I drove her in her car because she was too shaken to drive separately. I’d pick up my car later, once she was okay. I got her home. I wanted to hold her and talk to her, but she shook her head, went to lie down.

I wondered if she was mad at me, but I didn’t really care if she was. Somebody had to warn him off, and I knew he’d keep clear of her now. He would’ve been an idiot to do otherwise, and from what I’d seen in his face, he wasn’t an idiot, just a bully, a mean son of a bitch who wouldn’t want to go up against me.

I had to go back into the station right after Rafe got home and drove me to pick up my truck. When I checked on Lexi, she was asleep. I told Rafe to keep an eye on her because she might be upset after we ran into Watts and I got my alpha on.

“She’s not big on macho displays of dominance you realize,” he had said.

“Yeah, but this asshole didn’t seem to understand the situation. I made it clear for him.”

“Better you than me. I would’ve beat the hell out of him and possibly lost my license as a self-defense trainer.”

“Right. Still would’ve been worth it.”

I went to work and had an uneventful shift. I filled out some reports, worked on a grant for some training. I was getting my stuff together to leave the next morning when my phone rang. It was Rafe who had probably only called me five times in the last decade. He was a hardcore texter so I answered it immediately.

“Hey,” I said.

“Get to St. Vincent’s now, Leo, come in at emergency,” he said.

“Shit, what’s wrong?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re waiting on the toxicology report. It looks like—somebody drugged Lexi or poisoned her or something. You need to be here.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

I don’t remember how I got there, only that it was incredibly fast but seemed to take forever. I didn’t even bother to try and charm the admissions receptionist at ER. I just barked Lexi’s name at her in a voice that sounded choked. I couldn’t even focus on the woman’s face or what she said to me. All I could see was the bruises on Lexi’s neck when he’d choked her, the arrogant expression on Watts’s face when I’d left him at the grocery store, when I’d stupidly believed he wouldn’t bother her again.

What he had done this time was worse. When I got to see her, she’d be hooked up to monitors and have wires and tubing coming out of her. It made me sick to think about it. She’d said to me once that I’d made it worse—she’d said it in the sexiest most romantic way, like she needed me. But it was true in the literal sense now. I had made everything worse, and she had paid the price. I sat in a plastic chair,rubbing my hands over my face. My phone buzzed and I stared at it, Rafe’s name not even registering in my mind when I looked at the caller ID.

“Where the fuck are you, man?” he demanded.

“What? I’m here. I’m in the ER,” I stammered.

“You’re not back here. I’m in cubicle six. I thought you stopped for a goddamn pancake breakfast it took you so long.”

“The woman, the lady at the desk, she told me to wait,” I said lamely.