Page 12 of Protective Pucking Orc

And Anthony was always angry.

My breath hitched. The café’s door was right there—five steps, maybe six—but my legs wouldn’t obey. The snow piled along the edges of the lot was dirty, slushy from yesterday’s weak sun, not the pristine white that might’ve tripped him up. No luck there. No escape.

He took another step. Then another.

I stumbled back, my heel catching on a loose stone. My bag slipped from my shoulder, but I caught it and clutched it to my chest. All I could see was him—the way his fingers flexed at his sides, the way his coat strained over shoulders that had once seemed broad and strong but now just looked like a cage.

“Sofia.”

His voice was a blade, low and precise. Not a shout. Not yet. He didn’t need to shout. He knew I heard him.

I swallowed, my mouth dry. The scent of pine and woodsmoke was gone, replaced by the acrid tang of his cigarette, the leather of his gloves, the cologne he always wore—something expensive and cloying, like rotting flowers.

My back hit the café’s brick wall. The cold seeped through my coat, but I barely felt it. All I felt was the weight of his gaze, the way it pinned me like an insect under glass.

“Hello, wife.”

It was the word wife that jolted me from my trance of fear. I shook my head once, then again faster. “I’m not—the divorce…”

“That bitch of a judge might say you don’t belong to me, but we both know different.” His leather-gloved hand reached for my chin. “Don’t we, chica?”

I pulled away from his touch so quickly my head slammed into the brick wall behind me, and would have dazed me if I hadn’t been wearing the wool hat with the Teal Terrors’ logo. The blow actually seemed to help focus me, and I slid to the side, the shoes I wore made for long hours on my feet, not for the gravel and snow here along the building’s edge.

I fought to keep my voice steady. “What do you want, Anthony?” As if I couldn’t guess.

His smile was cruel as he pulled the cigarette from his lips and dropped it to the ground. His focus was on that, as if his words didn’t matter. “You know what I want.”

Rosa.

I shuffled a little farther away, turning to keep him in my sights, edging toward the door. I needed to get around other people; Anthony hadn’t minded hurting me in front of his men, but he cared about his image in public.

I needed to stall him. “How did you find us?”

The toe of his expensive shoe ground the butt into the gravel, still smirking. “I know a lot of very smart people who will do many things for a lot of money.”

Blood money.

When I’d married him, I hadn’t realized Anthony was so dangerous. I’d just been enthralled by the thought of someone so handsome and debonair wanting to be with me. I’d been so young—too young to marry—so I hadn’t realized what his cruelty and manipulations were doing to my self-esteem until it was too late.

My back was to the parking lot now, but that was good. I’d be able to turn and run; I would bet my shoes would handle the slush and gravel better than his, even if they weren’t boots. There were people on Second Avenue; that’s where the front door to the café was, and he wouldn’t hurt me there.

I gripped that hope as desperately as I gripped my bag.

“Sofia…” Anthony dropped his voice into a coax as he took a casual step closer, then another. “Where is my daughter?”

The years away from him had made me forget how to be cautious, and I blurted, “Safe from you, Gracias a Dios!”

The blow took me by surprise.

Anthony’s long arm swung around, and he struck me in the side of the face with his open palm, snapping my head back. I stumbled and fell to the gravel as the taste of blood bloomed in my mouth.

To my surprise, a sense of irritation chased the fear through my chest. You should have anticipated that. You used to know how to act around him.

Right. But I’d taken Rosa and run the minute the divorce and custody was final, and it had been three years since we’d lived with him.

Three years was apparently enough to make me feel safe.

With my palms digging into the gravel, I shook my head, trying to clear the ringing, Anthony swimming in my vision as his lips curled. He was always smiling—I’d forgotten that about him. Always smiling at some private joke.