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I registered the fear in her eyes and took the emotional first step to cure what I’d fucked up between us. “Look, let me help you get rid of him. Then you can do what you want, go where you want.”
She choked on a laugh. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is. If you let me fix this for you, then we can talk about what you want for the future.” It was time to go big or go home and lay myself bare. “Because,” I said, holding her gaze, “I love you enough to let you go, if that’s what you want.”
She looked down again. “You can’t.”
For a second I was afraid I’d lost her.
I raised a hand. “Before you go accusing me of anything, know that I understand this doesn’t excuse anything I’ve done or said. I don’t mean it as anything other than exactly what I said. Let me help, and then you decide which way you want to go.”
She didn’t immediately argue, and hope bloomed in me that I’d get a chance.
Then a second later she shook her head and looked down as her shoe scraped across the tile. “I can’t stay. I just can’t.”
I lifted her chin with a finger. “You have the power to make your own choice here. If you don’t want to go with him, I’ll see that he goes away and never comes back.”
“No.” She sighed. “If I don’t go with him, he’ll have me arrested for stealing the car.”
She wasn’t making any sense. “He can’t do that.”
“He said the car was a gift when he gave it to me.” She laughed. “But he wanted to have it registered in his name to lower the insurance. Like always, he manipulated the situation.” She blew out a sigh. “I was so stupid.”
“He threatened you?”
She nodded. “He’d call it a choice—jail or go back with him. I did take the car, and it’s game over now that he found me.”
That couldn’t stand, wouldn’t stand. “It is not. Nobody is allow to threaten you like that.”
Her head cocked to the side. “It’s a little late.”
“He’s leaving.” I’d never forgive myself if I let her give up and go back with the asshole.
She shook her head. “Maybe you missed the part where I get arrested if I don’t do what he wants.”
“Let me take care of him, and then—”
“You don’t know what he’s like. So you get him out of the bar, or out of town for today. Then what?”
Dad’s words echoed in my head. “You have to let her go.” “Go to Florida, California, wherever you want and do whatever you want.” She’d be free to live her life—without me of course, but safer than with the dickhead asshole from Boston.
“Hurry up in there,” Pris called through the door.
I grabbed Angela’s shoulders. “You have to decide. If you want him to leave, I can get it done.” I released her and stepped back. “Or you can go with him. Your choice, but we’re out of time.”
* * *
Angela
A sparkof hope ignited inside me that my nightmare might finally end. “But how—”
He moved closer and cut me off with a finger to my lips. “Questions can wait. I know it’s a leap, given our history, but you need to trust me and follow my lead. Do as I say, and it will work out. I promise. I’ll get rid of him.”
“But you don’t know what he’s like. He practices MMA.”
Boone laughed.
“This isn’t funny.”
