“Alé!” I screamed.
Pike reached down to grab Alé’s shirt but Alé slapped it away and Pike’s momentum got the best of him. He stumbled forward and Alé leapt back to his feet.
He slammed a fist down against Pike’s cheek, grabbed him by his hair, and smashed his elbow into his eye.
“You came to the wrong place to try to steal someone’s girl!” Alé said as he held onto Pike’s hair and ran towards the door.
Pike fought back, kicking Ale’s kneecap. Alé hit the floor. Pike grabbed the back of Alé’s head and drove his knee into his nose.
I heard the crack. I saw the blood.
Alé crashed backwards onto the floor.
Pike turned away from my husband and walked towards me.
“Come with me, Lauren. You saw what happened. He attacked me and that’s against your rules. Rule number five I think. If a man raises a hand to another…he will be banished.”
“Rule number three,” I said.
He was right. Alé had committed an inexcusable act. I would have stopped him if I’d seen it coming. No violence, at all, would be accepted. He would be banished.
“Get rid of him and you’ll have an open spot for me. No one would blame you or think badly about you for taking a third husband. A fourth maybe. A third, no.”
“I love him,” I said. “Are you crazy? He’s my husband. I’m not going to just ditch him and move on to the next thing.”
“You wouldn’t be ditching him,” Pike said. “He will be banished. Once I tell them…”
“Tell them what?” Alé’s voice thundered from behind. “That you were taking advantage of my wife?”
Pike turned to meet him face to face.
“Taking advantage?”
Pike laughed.
“You should have gotten here earlier. You can’t force the willing.”
Alé’s face twisted in rage. I’d never seen him like that. He looked...monstrous.
“I’
ll fucking kill you,” he roared.
It happened so quickly that I could barely understand myself let alone tell you about it. Alé attacked. He hit Pike with some sort of one-two combo. From behind, I could only see Pike stumble backwards and clutch his throat.
Then Alé picked him up and threw him through the window. Pike’s body flew into the heavy curtains and smashed through the glass and out into the night.
The noise was the worst part. It was like a car wreck, the sickening thud of a body going through a windshield. It seemed to go on forever as pieces of glass fell in the aftermath.
I went to Alé and wrapped my arms around him, my bare breasts against his chest. I sobbed into him, realizing for the first time that I’d been terrified for a moment. Pike had never really seemed threatening. It was more like intense desire. Passion. Not a threat.
But seeing the two men square off in front of me was frightening. And Alé had won.
Alé left me for a second to look outside. He stepped through the door carefully and surveyed the damage.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“No,” he said with his head bowed. “Worse.”