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“How fucking dare you touch her!” I boom, and before I know what I’m doing, my hand is wrapped around her throat.
Her eyes bulge and her lips turn purple as she claws at me with all her strength, but she’s nothing more than a rag doll in my clutches. “You don’t touch her again.” My eyes bore into her panicked ones. “Do you understand me?” She makes a strange noise from beneath my hand, and when I give her a shake, the sound becomes louder, the vibration harder against my palm.
When I step back and release her, she slumps to her knees, gasping for air.
Instead of taking pity on her, I work my way around the kitchen and make myself a coffee, ignoring her sobs and splutters from the floor.
“You’re to gather your things and get the fuck out of my house.”
Slowly, she uses the counter to pull herself up. “W-What?”
I take a seat on the barstool and sip my coffee while the force of her perusal drills through me, though I act indifferent toward her. “I said, gather your things and get the fuck out of my house.” Then I take another sip of my coffee.
She laughs, then stops when pain transforms her features. “Y-Your serious?”
“Deadly. I don’t want you near Immie again.”
“Then send her away. She’s eighteen now. She’s an adult. Buy her a house somewhere.” She points at the door.
I blink.
Is she for real?
I shake my head at her. “The only one being sent away will be you if you don’t comply. Now …” I glance down at my watch, knowing Miko is collecting me for a fight soon. Then I turn my tone low, deadly, and fix her with a savage glare. “You have ten minutes to get the hell out before you’re the one sent away permanently.” My words are brutal, and given the way she shudders, they’ve settled in her core. She knows exactly what I mean by permanently.
“Very well,” she states, a little too coolly for my liking.
When she turns and walks away, I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
How the hell did I get all this so wrong?
Guilt hits me square in the chest, and a pain slices through my heart, tearing it to my core.
When I thought Immie was safe here, she wasn’t.
My poor girl has suffered far more than I knew. Her home was meant to be her sanctuary, but she traded one hellhole for another.
Did I do right by allowing Amanda to walk away unharmed? Something inside me tells me this isn’t over and that the divorce proceedings will be the easy part.
IMMIE
I pace my bedroom, chewing on my finger like a woman possessed.
When I glance over my shoulder and into my mirror, I can see the red mark she left behind. While I know Jensen is livid, I really don’t care about how she treats me, because ultimately, it’ll bring us closer together.
I should probably be thanking her right now. A smile grows on my face, and when I hear the sound of an engine, I rush to my bedroom window.
She slinks into the back of our driver’s car, and happiness spreads through me.
I want to shout from the rooftops that the bitch is gone and now my daddy is all mine. The man of my dreams.
Today is not going to be a good day. It’s going to be fucking epic.
As the driver pulls away, I can feel the hatred rolling off her from here. Something tugs at my chest, making it difficult for me to breathe. A chill sweeps over me, and I gasp for air. I’ve only had the sensation once before, and that was when I was in the auction house. An evil feeling nobody should ever encounter, but a warning of the depths of depravity some monsters are prepared to go.
A car pulls into the driveway, replacing the one leaving, so I push away the anxiety and concentrate on who gets out of the car. Miko.
My mind wanders back to Jensen, and a thought hits me, one that infiltrates my veins like poison. I move quickly, throwing open my bedroom door, and rush down the stairs.
