But Garrett kept going, rolling in filth like he enjoyed the taste of it. “Although they probably won’t want you either,” he added, voice slithering into something vile. “You fat, ugly—”
“Garrett!” Candace screamed, grabbing his arm.
She barely touched him before her head snapped sideways, violently, horribly fast—the sharp crack of a hand meeting skin splitting the air like a gunshot.
Candace reeled back, clutching her cheek, face white with shock.
“CANDACE!” I lunged from my seat.
She blinked, tears welling instantly, her lip trembling.
Garrett scowled down at her like she’d done something wrong. “I told you not to grab me—”
And that was it. That was the final line.
Damien moved so fast the air seemed to fold around him.
One heartbeat, he was behind me. The next, the world snapped, Damien exploding forward in a blur of motion and violence. Garrett barely had time to turn his head before Damien’s fist cracked into his jaw—a clean, brutal hit that sent him stumbling into the wall with a sickening sound.
Candace and I froze, watching the scene in front of us unfold like a horror movie.
Garrett’s hand clawed for balance, expression stunned with disbelief—but Damien didn’t give him a chance to recover. He grabbed a fistful of Garrett’s shirt, yanked him upright, and dragged him down the hallway, Garrett’s heels scraping uselessly against the floor as he tried, and failed, to brace himself.
Then they disappeared. A door slammed.
For a split second, everything went horribly, impossibly quiet.
Then came the first hit.
A heavy, meaty thud. A choked gasp. Something clattered—maybe a chair, maybe Garrett’s body.
Candace flinched so violently her shoulder hit mine.
“No—” she whispered, voice cracking, hands shaking so hard her bracelets clinked.
Through the wall, Damien’s voice cut through the muffled chaos—low, feral, not the man either of us knew.
“You come to my house—”
Another impact.
Garrett’s strangled cry answered it.
“Insult my woman—”
A slammed body.
A curse swallowed by drywall.
My lungs locked.
Candace pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, tears spilling over.
“How fucking dare you.” Damien’s voice shook with rage, each word vibrating through the floorboards.
A scraping sound—Garrett trying to crawl, or maybe just breathe.
“How dare you put your hands on a woman—”
