Page 10 of Make Me Smile

“Yeah, a big one. Bullies back down when you confront them. Narcissists are fueled by confrontation,” she says as I feel her fingers clench on to my shirt a bit tighter. “I’m scared of what else he’s going to do.”

“Don’t be,” I reassure her. “He’s just pissed off that he lost such a good work partner and that a beautiful woman didn’t want to go to bed with him. Don’t give him any more power in your mind. We’re done with him. The worst he can do is smear some reputations and cost me a fine and a few days in jail. There’s nothing else that he can do, Ava. Not with me around anyway.”

We lay awake for a few more minutes. The stress and emotions of what happened are draining, but at least I’m home now. We eventually drift off to sleep in each other’s arms.

In the middle of the night, the smell of smoke wakes me up. I grab Ava and pull her out of the bedroom with me and straight out through the front door just before the beams in the ceiling start to crumble and fall. As we stand barefoot outside watching the flames stretch up through the house, she cries with a look of absolute terror on her face, and I call 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator says on the other end of the phone.

I look at Ava and the burning house, and then I wonder for a moment about exactly who this guy is that we are dealing with and how far he will really go to punish the woman that defied him and the man that took her away from the city.

“Hello?” the operator says when I don’t answer.

“Yes, I’m here,” I say.

“What’s you’re emergency?”

“Arson.”

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