Page 94 of Royal Icing

Smash. Another hit, and a grunt of exertion from the other side. The wood had definitely bowed. Cracks were starting to appear on the surface near the knob.

Their door wasn’t going to hold. She retreated farther into the apartment, putting herself between her mom and the door. Adrenaline was firing in her veins, but she had nowhere to go. They couldn’t go out the back—her mom couldn’t get over the fence. And Emma couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave her behind.

“Are the cops coming?” she asked.

“Yes.” Lisa wheeled herself backward into the kitchen and came back with a knife from the kitchen block. Arizona was her shadow.

They just had to make it until they showed up. But the last time this happened, it had taken them over twenty minutes toarrive. He’d never been so angry that he kicked the door down before. Last time, he had just hung around until Emma was forced to leave the apartment to go to work. What was different this time? Hard drugs?

A strange sense of doom had set in. Even with a baseball bat in hand, her father was six foot two. It wouldn’t be hard to overpower her. But she was the only thing standing between her mom and him.

“I love you, Mom,” Emma said.

“I love you, sweet girl.” There were tears in Lisa’s eyes as she gripped the kitchen knife.

Another hit landed on the door. The door groaned. The chain snapped. Splinters ricocheted off the wall, and blinding sunlight streamed in.

There he was. Older and grayer than the last time she had seen him, but there was no mistaking the manic glint in his black eyes.

“You little shit.” He charged at her, hands outstretched.

Lisa shrieked, and Emma braced herself, ready to swing.

Crash.

Before she could move, her father crumpled to the ground, shaking the entire apartment. Oh, thank fuck. The police must have arrived.

“Emma?”

Hang on, that voice was familiar.

“Leo?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

LEO

“Doyou have something to bind his hands?” Leo drove his knee into the back of the bear-sized man beneath him.

Sirens sounded in the distance. His luggage now had a human-head-sized dent in it, and adrenaline and rage were charging through his veins. He had showed up on Emma’s doorstep, ready to apologize, and instead found an intruder kicking the door down. Howdarethis man break into Emma’s home? Who the hell was he?

The linoleum beneath his feet was scratched and thin, subfloor showing through in spots. The doorframe had splintered and given way, leaving Emma’s apartment vulnerable.

There was a lot of work to do.

Emma returned with the sash from a bathrobe, and Leo quickly knotted the man’s hands together.

He looked up at her. “Is this…?”

She nodded, and the knot in his stomach hardened. She hadn’t mentioned her father was out of prison.

The sirens were getting closer.

Emma wheeled her mom into what must have been a bedroom and slid the couch in front of the door. She usheredthe dogs into crates somewhere he couldn’t see, then returned to stand over her father’s body with the baseball bat extended. Silence rang in the air. She didn’t exactly seem surprised to see him, but she didn’t take her eyes off her father.

His heart broke for her. How many times had she endured this man barreling back into her life? Trapped in an apartment he knew the address of? The urge to protect her was almost overwhelming. If he wasn’t a man of discipline, he would beat the shit out of her father.

“I’m taking him outside,” he announced. He grabbed the man’s feet and dragged him out the door and down the shabby ramp to the sidewalk. A couple people side-eyed him on the street and gave him a wide berth, but no one stopped to ask what was going on.