“Shut your fucking mouth,” Derek said, his voice deadly quiet.
“Make me, you psychotic fuck.” Zero took another step forward. “Go ahead. Show her who you really are. A man who beat his wife so fucking badly he almost killed her. Almost killed the child she carried.”
“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Derek roared.
The hallway seemed to shake with the force of his rage. But Zero didn’t back down.
“That’s right,” Zero said, his voice dripping with venom. “Get angry. Lose control. Just like you did with Sam. Just like you do with everyone who gets too close to you.”
My blood turned to ice. “What?” The word came out as barely a whisper.
Derek’s head whipped toward me, his eyes wide with panic. “Kat, it’s not—”
“You beat up Sam?” I asked, voice shaking. “Jack’s wife? You—”
“She wasn’t Jack’s wife then. She was mine,” Derek said quickly, desperately. “It was an accident—”
“An accident?” Zero laughed bitterly. “You put her in the fucking hospital, you sick fuck. You broke her ribs. That’s not a fucking accident.”
The room was spinning. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
“Kat, please,” Derek begged, reaching for me. “Let me explain. It wasn’t like that. I was—”
“Don’t touch me,” I said, jerking away from him.
The look on his face, the raw devastation, should have made me feel something. But all I felt was numb. Cold.
“Is it true?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “Did you hurt her?”
Derek’s jaw clenched. His eyes were pleading with me to understand, to listen, to give him a chance.
But he didn’t deny it.
“Derek,” I whispered. “Is it true?”
“Yes,” he said finally, the word torn from him. “But, Kat, you have to let me explain. It was years ago. I was different then. I didn’t know how to—”
“You hurt her,” I said, backing away from him. “You hurt Jack’s wife.”
“She was my wife!” Derek shouted desperately, following me.
“And that makes it better?”
“I didn’t know how to manage my anger. I was—”
“And what about now?” I demanded, my voice rising. “What about Richard? What about the next person who pisses you off? What about me? What about Frankie?”
“I would never hurt you,” Derek said, his voice breaking. “Never. Kat, please, you have to believe me—”
“I don’t have to believe anything,” I said.
I pushed past him, past Zero, into the hallway. My legs felt like they might give out, but I forced myself to keep moving.
“Kat, wait!” Derek called after me.
But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
I burst into the main room, my eyes scanning frantically for Frankie. The music was too loud. There were too many people. Everything was too bright, too overwhelming.
