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I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest. Since it sure as hell wasn’t this, I wonder if part of me figured Sofi would assume the worst and accuse me of cheating on her brother.
Instead, she’s looking at me with sympathy and concern, stepping over Conrad like he’s not even there just so she can cradle my face in her hands and check me for injuries. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“Fucking! Bitch!” Conrad gathers enough of his wits to scream at her. “You’re crazy! You crazy bitch!”
Something passes through her eyes, like she’s decided to hold back from something and chooses to focus on me instead. “Talk to me, Daph. Did he hurt you?”
I don’t realize I’m literally trembling until I try to answer her question. “N-no. N-not… yet.”
That something pulls a reverse and settles itself in her expression. It’s the same something I’ve seen in Pasha right before he does something particularly heinous against a perceived enemy.
Behind her, Conrad slowly wobbles up to his feet. Blood and spittle flies from his mouth as he points an accusatory finger at her. “This is none of your business! I’ll have you arrested!”
Something about the way he threatens her snaps me out of my shock. And my fear. Now, I’m the one standing between him and his new target, even though she grabs my arm to keep me back.
“I told you to get the hell out!” I thrust my finger toward the door. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
“But, Daphne?—”
“You heard my sister-in-law.” Sofi loops her arm with mine as she joins me at my side. “Leave her the fuck alone. Now.”
Conrad freezes. Blinks at her. Then at me. “What?” The word sounds like she kneed him in the dick all over again. “You’re married? You… you can’t be married. You can’t! You can’t marry someone else! We’re supposed to be together!”
He is so delusional, I’m literally almost laughing at his blind audacity. Or trying not to cry. Probably both.
“You left, asshole! You cheated on me, and you threw me out of my own goddamn home! And then, just to make things extra special, you proposed to another woman right in front of me! So no! We are not, in any way, getting back together!”
Is there a difference between delusional and unhinged? We may be witnessing the transition between the two, because Sidney Conrad Ewing is extremely not well. He runs his hands through his hair over and over, glancing around the floor with a wild, unfocused look in his eyes.
“I don’t… It all went so wrong. I made a mistake.” He meets my gaze and tries to reach for me. “I made a mistake. I never should have left you. It was a mistake, proposing to her.”
Sofi swats his hand away. “You made your bed. Now, go die in it.”
Conrad glances between us. “I… I thought… I thought you were punishing me. All the silence, the avoidance, pushing me away… How could you go and marry someone else?”
This time, he lunges for me.
And this time, Sofi simply snaps her fingers.
Four men in tailored suits materialize out of nowhere. Two of them grab Conrad by the arms while the other two create a human wall between him and us.
“Daphne! Daphne!” Conrad screams my name like a madman, his face bright red. No amount of struggling is going to free him from these behemoths, no matter how hard he tries. Sofi’s two guards drag him out of the room as easily as if he’s limp. By the time they pass the threshold, he is.
Todd and Keith burst onto the scene just in time to see Conrad get physically dragged away. Their gazes simultaneously fall on the blood trail and follow it across the room to where I’m standing with Sofi—who braces her hands on her hips in full preparation for war.
“Are you the owners of this establishment?” she demands.
“You better believe we are!” Keith is fuming. “And we are going to sue the pants off of you and your little entourage for threatening our client!”
She laughs. “Oh, really? You’re going to sue me?”
“Listen, lady, you can’t just come in here and?—”
Again, she does that thing with her hand that tends to shut up every asshole we ever encounter. “Oh, believe me, I absolutely can and I absolutely will. Just like how I will absolutely help Daphne file a very hefty lawsuit against you and your establishment for not only allowing a sexual predator to corner her and assault her, but encouraging it.” She looks to one of her remaining men. “What’s that called again, Sergei?”
“Facilitation, ma’am.”
“Ah, yes.” She turns back to The Tweedles with a sharkish grin. “Facilitation of sexual assault.”
