Red was in Vegas right now. Warming up, probably, getting ready to do impossible things on the ice while I stood in a motel apartment that smelled like stale smoke and cheap whiskey, facing another man who thought a knife made him powerful.
"I'm gonna give you one chance," Kevin said. His voice had gone hard, the way weak men's voices did when they were trying to sound strong. "Walk out that door and forget you were here."
I didn't move.
"You don't want to do this, pretty boy." He adjusted his grip on the knife. "I've been inside. I know how to use this."
"No, you don't."
I'd already mapped the room. Entry points, obstacles, distance. Kevin was eight feet away, the kitchen island between us, his weight on his back foot. He'd telegraph the lunge before he made it.
"Kevin." I kept my voice pleasant. "Put the knife down, get your things, and leave. Don't come back. Don't call her. Don't think about her."
"Or what?"
I smiled.
He lunged.
Predictable. The knife came in high and wide, a slashing motion that looked impressive and left his entire right side open. I stepped inside his reach, caught his wrist, and twisted. The knife clattered to the linoleum. Before it landed, I'd already driven my elbow into his solar plexus, folding him in half.
He went down gasping.
I let Kevin catch his breath and gave him a moment to understand what was happening. Then I got to work. Two hits to the ribs, measured, the kind that would bruise deep but not break anything. One to the kidney that would have him pissing blood for a week. He tried to swing at me, and I caught his arm, hyperextended the elbow just enough to make him scream, then let him drop.
My mother was still crying on the couch. She hadn't moved.
"Joel." Kevin's voice was wet now, broken. "Joel, please, I didn't mean—"
"You hit her."
"It was an accident, I swear, I just—"
I crouched so I could look him in the eye. He flinched back, and something in me liked that.
"Here's what's going to happen," I said. "You're going to get up. You're going to pack whatever's yours in this apartment. You're going to leave, and you're never going to contact Diane again. If I find out you've called her, texted her, or driven past her building, I'll come back. And next time I won't stop at bruises."
Kevin nodded frantically. Blood dripped from his nose onto the carpet, and I noted it the way I noted everything: another stain my mother would have to explain to her landlord, another mess I couldn't clean up for her.
I stood and stepped back. Kevin crawled toward the bedroom, one arm wrapped around his ribs, and I watched him go with the same detachment I'd watch a bad landing on replay.
Behind me, my mother sniffled.
"Joey, honey, I'm so sorry. I didn't know he was like this. I thought—"
"You thought he was different." I didn't turn around. "They're never different, Mom."
"This time I really am going to get help. I've been looking at programs; there's this place in Arizona—"
"Okay."
"I mean it. I'm going to change."
"Okay."
She kept talking. She always kept talking, filling the silence with promises she'd break within a month, and I let the words wash over me without listening. Kevin emerged from the bedroom with a duffel bag, his face already swelling, and I stepped aside to let him pass.
He didn't look at me. Smart.
