The doorbell interrupts him, its sound joining the insistent ringing of the phone.
Matthew’s head snaps towards the front door, his jaw tightening as sheer frustration flashes across his face.
He grits his teeth, pivoting toward the kitchen.“Please get that, will you?”He jabs a finger in my direction without turning around.“And tell whoever it is to get lost,” he yells back before answering his phone.
His sharp command breaks my paralysis.I push off the wall, legs unsteady, body moving of its own accord.I cross the foyer and pull the door open, my actions feeling distant, disconnected.
An older man stands at the doorstep.His eyes make me instantly wary.They are pale, washed-out blue, and they narrow the moment they land on me, a hard, unpleasant glint surfacing in their depths.He looks to be in his sixties, with thinning white-grey hair receding from a deeply lined forehead.A trimmed goatee and mustache do nothing to soften his mouth, set in a hard, thin line.His clothes are scruffy, rumpled, as if he’s slept in them.
He looks as surprised to see me as I am to see him, but his surprise quickly morphs.His gaze sweeps down, taking in my presence in this foyer, and the open curiosity sharpens into something assessing.Something that feels like ownership.
“And who might you be?”he asks.The question itself is a gruff, audacious demand.
Without waiting for an answer, he takes a confident step across the threshold.My own feet carry me backward in an automatic, stumbling retreat.
His gaze sweeps right past me, dismissing me completely as he surveys the foyer.The set of his shoulders, the slight lift of his chin… it’s the posture of a man who believes he has every right to be here.
A cold revulsion snakes up my spine.
It’s the entitled way he just claims the space.
It’s the challenging glint in his eyes.
It’s the feeling of being sized up and dismissed all at once.
I frown, taken aback by his audacity.“Can I help you?”
The old man brings his attention back to me, ignoring my question, an unpleasant smile spreading across his face.He approaches me, intentionally invading my personal space, forcing me to press my back harder against the newel post at the base of the staircase.
“Well, now.”He looks me up and down again.“He’s clearly done good for himself if he snagged a sexy little thing like you.”
Revulsion coils tight as his fingers reach out, aiming for my cheek.I flinch back, turning my head instinctively, but his hand keeps coming—
Suddenly, a blur of motion erupts.
Matthew’s hand clamps around the old man’s wrist, stopping it inches from my face.With a guttural sound of rage low in his throat, he yanks him backward, away from me, wrenching him around.There’s a sickening thud as he slams the man’s back hard against the wall opposite me.
Before the old man can even grunt in pain, Matthew has him pinned there.
And then I see it.The glint of metal.
A knife is pressed firmly against the wrinkled skin of his throat.The blade catches the soft foyer light, sharp and lethal.Matthew’s body is coiled, radiating a fury I’ve never seen before.His face, inches from the old man’s, is unrecognizable, filled only with chilling menace.The cords of muscle in his forearm are rigid, trembling with contained force.His breath comes in harsh, controlled pants.
“Don’t.You.Dare.Touch.Her.”Matthew grits out, each word precise.A low snarl, vibrating with violence.
He presses the blade harder against the man’s throat.“If you even look her way again,” he breathes, the sound deadly and chillingly calm, “I’ll make sure her face is the last thing you ever see.”
My breath freezes in my lungs.I stare wide-eyed, unable to process the scene unfolding a few feet away.
The old man lets out a choked sound against the pressure of the blade.“Relax, boy—”
Matthew interrupts him, yanking his body away from the wall only to slam it back even harder.“I am not the little boy you used to kick around,” Matthew seethes.He presses his forearm against the man’s chest while the knife remains lethally positioned.“What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
A flicker of surprise crosses the old man’s face, but it’s quickly replaced by a dismissive, ugly smirk.It’s as though he is relishing this confrontation.
“Got a flair for the dramatics,” the man spits out, his eyes flicking momentarily towards me before returning to Matthew with malicious satisfaction.“Just like your mother.”
Mother?
