Page 75 of Dual Surrender

“What do you want?” I asked, staring out at Foster’s back fence.

“He wants to apologize,” Sage said.

I exhaled and turned my head to the side, looking up at him. “He should then.”

“Shit got out of hand, Ronan,” Foster muttered, taking a slurp out of his mug.

“My fiancé is in another state right now. I’ll say it got out of hand.”

“Fiancé?” Foster’s eyes widened.

“We aren’t here to talk about that.”

“When is he coming back?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I returned my attention to the back fence. “He doesn’t have a ticket yet.”

“It’s probably safe,” Sage offered.

“I don’t do probably. He deserves more than probably.”

“The threat was never against him,” Sage tried.

“Even better,” I snapped. “I don’t want him here if something is going to happen to me. I don’t want him to…to…”

I couldn’t push the words out.

I didn’t want Kevin to see me get hurt if it happened. I didn’t want him to find me injured or, worse, find me dead.

“Next week then,” Sage said.

“Are you in charge now?” I arched a brow.

“Here I am.” He folded his arms over his chest and leveled a warning look at me. It was a challenge, but I wasn’t up for the game. If he wanted to deal with Foster, that was his early grave, not mine.

Well, hopefully.

“Foster still hasn’t apologized,” I said.

“If the two of you would quit posturing,” Foster grumbled.

Something about his tone rubbed me the wrong way and I stood up, the chair making a loud and angry creak as it shoved back against the wood boards of the decking.

“You know what?” I came around to face Foster, pointing a shaking and angry finger in his face. “You don’t get to take that attitude with me. You were supposed to be my friend, my best friend, and you call me at two in the morning to come stitch up this asshole, bleeding out in your kitchen, and then a handful of days later you insinuate someone is trying to kill me? Then you make me pack my fiancé up and send him to another state?”

Anger coursed through my veins, burning me alive from the inside. I’d been holding so much in because I didn’t want to misdirect anything onto Kevin, even though I already had more than I should have, and Foster was about to get all of it. Between the two of them, he at least was the one who deserved it.

“Ronan.” Foster raised his hands.

“No!” I snapped, slicing my hand through the air. “No. Not right now.”

He dropped his hands into his lap, and I noticed the bruises and scabs that dusted over his knuckles. I paused, taking stock of him and recognizing lingering bruises on his face, tangled in with the bags under his eyes from lack of sleep.

Good.

He shouldn’t be sleeping.

“You were supposed to be a friend,” I said, the fight going out of me even though every fiber in my body wanted to slam Foster into a wall and shake some sense into him. “You put all of us into danger. All of the people who care about you most.”