Page 20 of Other Woman Drama (Content Advisory #4)

I knocked on my ex-wife’s door, thankful that Eedie was at her job this evening, and waited.

When Barry answered the door with his sickly sweet smile on his face, I saw red.

“You know, my daughter had some interesting things to say today.” Barry leaned against the posts of the porch that I’d once built and painted. “You want to hear what they were?”

I glanced to make sure that the neighbor next door had gotten into the house without staying back to linger and listen in. Once I was sure she was inside, I glanced back to Barry. “What’s that, Barry?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just that she had feelings for you, but you somehow messed it up.” He grinned. “Or was that something I heard on the camera that I had at her place? I don’t know…”

Before I could tell myself to control my temper and get more information out of him, my fist flew, landing right in his face.

He went down so hard that his head bounced off the concrete steps behind him.

The sickening thud of his body hitting the ground caused Elizabeth to shriek as she rounded the corner.

She gasped, making as if to come at us, but I pointed at her and said, “You will stay out of this, or I’ll take you out along with him.”

“That’s my…”

I spoke over her. “Your ex-husband who’s going to have nothing to do with you and Eedie ever again.

When I get those divorce papers to you tomorrow, you will sign them, and you will look into selling this house.

I want every last bit of the proceeds to go into a college fund for Eedie, and she’ll be moving in with me.

You find an apartment somewhere so far away from me that I never see you again.

I don’t want to see you at Eedie’s wedding.

You just find somewhere else to be. When she asks why, you tell her that you married a man that beat the shit out of Silver.

Those exact words. You tell her that you condoned his abuse all these years, and that you’re a horrible person.

If you don’t, I’ll be taking you to The Boneyard right along with him. ”

Elizabeth knew damn well and good what The Boneyard was.

I hadn’t hidden who I was from her.

She also knew exactly what would happen if she defied me in this.

“That’s not fair…” She straightened.

I ignored her and turned back to Barry who was trying to slink away on his backside into the house.

Elizabeth looked damn close to closing and locking the door on him.

“Who did you see leaving her apartment?” I growled, fist pulled back and ready to hit him again.

Barry’s eyes were unfocused as he said, “That officer bitch.”

I gritted my teeth. “And you thought, hey, I’ll just leave my daughter here to fend for herself after I just punched her in the face?”

Barry’s eyes focused again and he said, “Figured you’d clean up the mess you made on your own. After all, my daughter is a piece of trash now, like you.”

It only made me angrier that my fucking issues had come back to fall back on my girl.

“She pissed me off.” Barry smiled, blood coating what was left of his teeth. “She deserved what she got.”

“Did she?” I asked. “And why is that?”

I had to control myself as I waited for him to answer.

I wanted his explanation as to why he would do that to his own daughter, then leave her to get beat up even more by the officer that he knew was bein’ a bitch.

“Because y’all took the love of my life away from me!” he bellowed. “It only seemed fair that I make her suffer for it.”

I was confused and said as much. “The love of your life?”

“Trini!” Barry roared, blood and spit spewing from his mouth and covering my arm that I held him at arm’s length with.

“That bitch is the love of your life?” I asked, stunned that he was naming his ex, the woman that’d gotten a gold medal in torturing her twin girls for their entire life, as the love of his life.

“She was mine,” he snarled. “We had such a good thing going. Then you and your bitch of a club came in and ruined it. Took her away and now I’m out here all alone, trying to pick up the pieces that y’all left behind.”

I ground my teeth together while collecting myself so I didn’t beat the shit out of him in broad daylight.

“Best con I ever did, marrying your ex-wife. She was so easy, too. She thinks I’m the love of her life, when in reality, I’m only here to take your money that you’re forced to give them every month.

I sleep in your house. In your bed. Drive your car.

Eat dinner with your daughter every night she’s here.

It’s been the best goddamn feeling, making sure that you realize what you’ve left behind that I picked up. ” He leered at me.

And that’s when I lost it.

All of this.

He did all of this because of that piece of shit he called the love of his life?

May Trini Cowan continue to live her life as she deserves.

I reared back, ready to let another punch loose, but a whispering voice that I knew all too well broke through my haze of anger.

“Piers.”

The sound of her voice had me freezing in my tracks.

I looked up from beating the shit out of her father to see Silver, broken and bruised, standing in front of me.

She had her hand extended toward me—a hand that subsequently still had an IV access attached to it.

She was wearing a hospital gown and blue non-slip socks that the hospital had provided for her.

She was staring at me, waiting for me to make the right decision.

“What the fuck are you doing out of the hospital right now?” I let her father drop to the concrete steps again.

There was a sharp inhale from two directions—both Elizabeth from the house and Barry from the ground—when they saw her.

I managed to hold in my groan of disbelief, but just barely.

“I knew you would come here,” she said. “I don’t have any broken bones.”

Like that made it all okay.

I walked to her and realized that she still didn’t have her eyes open.

Meaning someone had to bring her here…

“I brought her.”

I looked over, just now realizing that I’d never looked away from Silver, to see Jasper standing in the yard.

He pointed at his truck, and I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

Jasper nodded.

I turned back to Silver and said, “Can I pick you up?”

“No.” She winced. “I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

Fuck.

“Okay,” I said carefully. “Let’s get you back to the truck. Jasper, can you drive my bike to my place and get your truck from the hospital?”

“Done,” he said, then turned back to a prospect.

“Get the cameras,” I heard him say to the prospect, then placed a phone to his ear.

“Make sure that you wipe everything, Apollo. Then you need to work on everyone else’s video cameras on this street.

They’re rich, so there’s no way that they don’t have them.

He needs absolutely zero trace of being here. We’re fucking lucky no one saw him.”

Damn right I was.

But I wasn’t done yet.

“We’re going back to the hospital,” I said as I caught her hand. “Come on.”

Her whimper even when I did that made my stomach sour and my heart physically flip inside my chest.

I hated hurting her.

No, hated wasn’t a strong enough word for what it felt like that I’d caused her pain.

Total and utter obliteration.

My heart was in fucking shambles right now.

“No.” She cleared her throat but didn’t pull her hand away from mine. “I don’t…it makes me nervous being there. I shouldn’t have sent you away.”

That made my heart feel a little bit better, but only barely.

“I won’t leave your side, but you’re going back, baby,” I growled.

“They said I didn’t have anything broken. I wouldn’t have left if anything was broken.” She tried to persuade me to not take her back to the place she didn’t want to be at

“I’m sorry, honey, you’re going to need to be brave,” I said. “They’re probably going to give you something for the pain. And I think you might need it later.”

“Chevy will prescribe it for me,” she pointed out. “Please, Piers? Please? I can’t see there. What if they come back?”

Again with the stomach clenching.

I studied her face, even with the edema and her eyes swollen shut, she looked desperate. “Fine,” I growled. “But at the first sign of trouble, you’re going back.”

Her shoulders deflated, and something inside me settled.

I turned back to Jasper and called, “Hey, Hush. I’m going to take her back to my place.”

“Sure thing,” Jasper called back. “Be careful.”

I nodded and said, “Come on, sweet girl. We’re going to my place. Do you want me to have your sister and brother-in-law stop for some of your stuff when they get a chance?”

I felt her shiver. “I don’t ever want to go back there.”

“You won’t,” I promised.

I was never letting her out of my sight again.

“You can’t kill my dad,” she said as she walked with me.

I slowed her when we got up to Jasper’s truck and helped her inside before buckling her in and saying, “You let me worry about your dad.”

I wouldn’t kill him, but I’d make him wish he was dead.

I was about to set Apollo out on a task that would utterly delight him.

I’d let him do a general security check on Barry when Barry and Elizabeth first met, and now I was kicking myself for not having him do a deeper dive.

Goddamn, I was stupid.

Stupid as well for thinking that Silver was involved with that man’s machinations in any way.

Of course she was innocent.

I knew she was, deep down.

I knew.

But I’d been fighting the pull of Silver Donahue—soon to be Silver Webb—since I’d met her over a year ago.

I would not be stupid enough to let her go a second time.

I placed my hand on her leg—the one that I could see through the hospital gown wasn’t black and blue—and said, “You okay now?”

“Yes,” she answered.

I studied her for a few long seconds.

Her head was dropped, and her hair—which was still up in my haphazard ponytail—was wilting listlessly to one side. Her face was a mask of mottled bruising, and it took everything I had not to punch the side of Jasper’s truck in frustration.

“Baby,” I said, touching her chin gingerly. “Can you look at me?”

“I can’t open my eyes. I tried on the way here,” she muttered as she turned her face toward me.

I gritted my teeth and ground them together for a few seconds before I said, “You’re not going back home. You’re going to stay with me. You’re going to sleep in my bed beside me. You’re going to forgive me for being an utter dumbass. And you’re going to give me a chance to explain.”

Her shoulders seemed to slump. “You hurt me, Webber.”

Back to Webber.

I sort of hated it.

I also hated that she’d pretty much gutted me with four words.

I’d hurt her.

I deserved to have this happen to me. Maybe if I’d been there, she wouldn’t have been alone. If I hadn’t gotten my head up my own ass where it came to her father, I would have settled that issue a long time ago.

“Just let me explain. I promise it’ll make sense.”

She sighed. “Fine. But when we’re back at your place. The truck is overwhelming. The engine is so loud it makes my head feel like it’s going to wobble off.”

I touched her chin, one of the only places on her face that wasn’t bruised, and said, “Okay, sweet girl.”

My elbow caught the glove box as I turned to shut the door, and the whole thing came off the hinges and fell at Silver’s feet.

She jolted, but I patted her thigh and said, “Just the glove box falling off. It’s okay.”

“Oh.” She laughed softly. Weakly. “That is such an old car problem. Mine hasn’t given up the ghost on me yet, though.”

I grinned despite the situation and picked up the box to put it back in place when something caught my eye.

I frowned and studied the papers for a few long seconds before I picked them up and flipped them over.

What I saw made my stomach burn.

Shoving the papers back inside, I made a mental note to check into them more when I wasn’t dealing with a crisis and put the glove box back into place.

As we drove, I periodically looked over at Silver, making sure that she was okay.

When we finally pulled into my driveway, I shut the truck off and watched and listened to her groan. “I think I might like how loud that truck is usually, but today it was torture.”

I slid out of Jasper’s truck—which I’d helped him put a full exhaust system in to make it that loud—and rounded the hood.

When I got to her, she had the door open, but she’d made no move to get out.

“Daddy, what’s going…oh my god!”

Eedie.