Now it was my turn to throw the glass down. It shattered all over the floor, and like last time, no one reacted. “Fuck off, Bartholomew. This motherfucker needs to die, and you know it. You made your threats, and you need to honor them.”
“I know what I said, Benton. And clearly, he does too.” He took another drink.
“I’m just supposed to deal with freak stalking my family until he gets bored—”
“You could just give up the girl. Solves all your problems.”
“Fuck you.” The words spewed out of my mouth like vomit. All the muscles of my face suddenly felt strained because of the way my jaw tightened and pulled everything back. “I told you she’s family—”
“No woman can fuck her way into being family. You’re blindsided—again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Claire came along and fucked up your entire life. Now you’re letting this woman—”
“I will break this bottle and shove the neck into your throat if you say that shit again.”
Bartholomew kept up his stare, his shoulders relaxed like he wasn’t afraid of the glass spikes that would penetrate his tissue and bone. “We say how it is. It’s always been that way—and I’m just being real with you.”
“And I’m being real with you—don’t talk about my daughter like that.”
“Fine.” He raised his arms. “But this woman is not off-limits. If you were smart, you would just throw her back to the wolves.”
“She. Saved. My. Daughter.”
“Whatever.”
“You’re all about loyalty—and you expect me not to be loyal to her?”
“You weren’t loyal to me.”
I clenched my jaw tighter because I would always be on the hook for this. “I had to do the right thing for my daughter. Don’t expect me to apologize for that. I won’t.”
“You’re here right now, aren’t you?”
“Because I have to be—not because I want to.”
He gave a cold chuckle. “Ouch…”
“And because I have someone at home with her while I’m away. Beatrice was a piece-of-shit mother.”
“She’s a piece of shit to you, but to me, she was someone pressured into something she didn’t want. Very different things.”
There were a million things I could say, but they were things I’d already said. Our relationship had improved, but the resentments he carried still drove us apart. He’d never forgiven me for what I did, not really. “Let me kill him.”
“No.”
“So, you didn’t mean a damn thing you said?”
He took another drink of his wine. “I mean every word that I say. So, if he crosses the line, we make our move. But he hasn’t done that. Like I’ve said a million times, he may be a freak, but he’s a smart freak.”
“So, that’s it?” I asked with a hard jaw. “I just deal with this shit?”
He gave a shrug. “He’ll get bored eventually.”
“And I’m just supposed to wait?”
“I mean…you know what your other option is.”
My eyes shifted away because that wasn’t an option at all. “I want to talk to him—set up a meeting.”
Bartholomew stared at me, the muscles of his hard body tightening. “Don’t be stupid, Benton.”
“I’m not going to kill him.”
“What will that accomplish—”
“Just set up the fucking meeting!” I slammed the bottle onto the floor, the glass shattering and spilling the contents of red wine.
Bartholomew didn’t even flinch.
I walked off, finished with all this bullshit.
His voice trailed behind me. “Ladies, I think my friend here needs a pick-me-up. Any volunteers?”
I didn’t turn back. “Fuck off.”
When I walked in the door early in the morning, Claire was still asleep.
Constance lay on the couch, her head propped on a pillow she’d taken from her bed, a blanket pulled to her shoulder. The lights were still off, and the Christmas tree glowed in the corner.
She didn’t hear me walk in, probably because she was exhausted from being awake all night, so I stirred her with the sound of my voice. “Constance.”
Her eyes opened, and she instinctively reached for the knife on the coffee table, the souvenir she’d brought back from the cult. With a heavy breath, she jolted upright, locked her gaze on me, and then closed her eyes in relief.
I fucking hated this.
She loosened her grip on the knife and returned it to the table. “Sorry…”
I shifted her blanket over and took the seat beside her.
She took a couple minutes to wake up, to let the terror circulate out of her blood.
“He won’t come into the house while you’re here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because those were the terms—not to go anywhere near either of you.”
Her eyes were red and tired, like she didn’t sleep at all last night.
“Don’t be scared.”
“I wish he would come into the house…so I could kill him.”
Even with a weapon, she didn’t have much of a chance. He was a big guy—and he was smart. “You won’t need to after I talk to him.”
She slowly turned to me, her eyes wide. “When?”
“I don’t know yet.”