Page 58 of Locke

I try for logic, knowing it’s probably futile.“The fact you’ve been drinking makes this conversation pointless.Go home and sleep it off.”

“I’m not leaving,” he replies stubbornly, chin lifted in defiance.His eyes are very bright and fixed on my face with an intensity that creeps me out.“Not until you talk to me.Really talk to me.Not this.”He gestures at me, waving his hands.“Not this version of you.I want to talk to the real one.”

No fucking clue what he’s talking about.“This is the only version you’re getting tonight.”

“So we can talk?”he asks hopefully.

“No, we can’t talk,” I snap, my anger driving away the uneasiness.“I said go home.”

His expression morphs.The pleading quality drops out of it and what’s underneath is slightly sinister.

He leans in close enough that I can smell bourbon and when he speaks, it’s low, meant only for me.“You think moving away fixed things?You think nine hundred miles and a new job and a new city and suddenly you’re someone different?”His tone is laced with warning.“You’re still mine.You know that, right?You’ve always known that.And whatever you think you’re building up there”—his eyes move briefly over my shoulder toward the hotel, toward the team—“it doesn’t change whatweare.”

My blood goes cold at his proclamation.This isn’t the Grant I knew.He sounds so completely unhinged that I have to wonder what happened to him.

“We are nothing,” I say tightly.“We are over, you’re being way too weird for me to deal with, and I want you to leave me alone.”

I turn away from him, intent on walking into the hotel, and that’s when his hand closes around my upper arm.

The grip is brutal, fingers digging in hard as he wrenches me around to face him and for one full second, I am back in that apartment with his hand on my arm, his face close to mine, the promise of retribution in his eyes.

A bolt of fear courses through me, so strong it makes my knees weak and my body reacts on instinct.I cower, waiting for him to strike with my arm raising up halfway in a defensive mode to protect my face.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” he snarls, spittle flying from his mouth.“Don’t you dare—”

Locke hits him like a wall.

I don’t see him coming.One second Grant’s hand is clamped around my arm and the next it’s in Locke’s grip, bent backward at the wrist.It doesn’t stay there long because Locke brings his forearm to Grant’s chest and drives him backward with a controlled ferocity that clears the distance to the hotel wall in three steps.Grant’s back slams into the concrete hard enough, I hear the air whoosh out of him.

Locke pins him with a forearm across the sternum and leans in close.

Grant recovers faster than he should, the bourbon and perhaps adrenaline giving him strength, and instead of going still the way a sensible person would with a man Locke’s size holding him against a wall, he shoves back.He puts both hands into Locke’s chest and pushes with everything he has.

Locke doesn’t move an inch.

“Get your hands off me,” Grant yells, fully unraveled now.He shoves again, uselessly.“Get the fuck off me, you fucking Neanderthal.You have no idea who I am!”

“I know exactly who you are,” Locke replies softly.There’s no heat, no volume, just a low rumble that seems deadly in its warning.“And I know what you did to Livia.”

“Oh, that’s rich.”Grant barks out a laugh.“That’s completely fucking rich.Whatever she said, she’s a liar, she’s always been a—”

Locke’s forearm presses in and Grant’s next words don’t make it out.

Around me the team has closed in.I don’t register it happening, but it has—Rome is on my left, Arch materializes on my right, and a half dozen players have formed a loose perimeter that puts me at the center and Grant definitively on the outside.Nobody pulls Locke off.Nobody says a word.They saw what happened and they closed ranks, the way a team does.

Grant’s eyes are wild now, moving between Locke’s face and the wall of players behind him.I can see him doing the math and he knows he’s got no leverage.

“Someone should call the cops,” Rome says.

Locke’s eyes cut to me over his shoulder and the question is clear as he waits for my answer.

I open my mouth, but I’m not sure what will come out.

Grant makes his decision for me.He gets a hand free, shoves hard against Locke’s arm at an angle that breaks the hold for one second, and that’s all it takes.He twists out of Locke’s grip and sprints off down the block, his jacket flapping.

Locke moves before I can think.

“Locke.”My hand finds his arm.I feel every muscle in it pulled toward forward motion, ready to hunt Grant down.“Let him go.”