“Step back? Her ex just beat the shit out of her! I need to make sure she’s OK!”
“She’s alive and in stable condition. We still need you to step back.”
Those words provided some relief, but I didn’t want to be in a position to have to feel this kind of relief. And in any case, that temporary relief quickly got replaced by unbridled rage.
I wanted to fucking kill Malcolm.
I wanted to get my hands around his throat, break his spine, twist his neck, and curb stomp his face until it was bones and blood.
I wanted him eradicated from the face of this Earth and for his soul to suffer in hell forever.
I wanted him fucking dead.
The ambulance took off. I hopped in my Tesla and followed her. The meeting with the Giants could fucking wait.
Revenge for what had just happened to Izzy could not.
Chapter 16: Izzy
The whole world felt like a blur, and every sense I had followed accordingly.
My eyes felt like I was looking at the world underwater. I didn’t see distinct shapes or people, just blurred masses that blended together.
My ears only heard distant sounds—I thought at one point I heard someone calling my name, but I couldn’t tell if they were saying “Izzy” or “Is it,” nor could I even tell if it was a man or a woman. I just had a constant ringing in my ears that didn’t go away.
Everything hurt. Even just having my weight lie on the…whatever I was on, the ground, the bed, the table, hurt. Everything, and I mean everything, hurt. Just breathing…
I couldn’t taste the inside of my own mouth. I could smell blood—that was it. That was the one thing that I had was that I could smell blood.
“Izzy…”
Someone definitely shouted my name. But who? It sounded like an echo, actually, not someone yelling my name.
“…still.”
And then I shrieked immediately when I felt myself being lifted up. It was as if the Earth beneath me had shoved me up in the air, and I tightened up, preparing to fall down. I closed my eyes as I prayed it would end soon.
The ground shook.
No, not the ground. A bed. A gurney.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but that hurt like hell too.
“Izzy!”
Someone definitely shouted my name. But who?
Nick.
Ferrari…
I couldn’t smile. I hurt too much. But I knew it was him.
I knew I could rest as easily as one could right now.
* * *
The first thing that I noticed when I woke up was that everything was sore. Every single damn part of my body felt awful. My ribs hurt the worst, and breathing was excruciating, but at least I didn’t have any tubes going down my throat or nose.
My head…Jesus, I had never had a headache this bad. I would have killed to have a hangover instead, because at least that would have felt better. I…I…
Malcolm.
Malcolm!
My eyes jolted wide. I sat up in the bed, ignoring the agonizing pain.
“Ryan!” I screamed for my child.
“Ryan’s OK.”
I looked to my right, and for the first time since I’d woken up, something in my world was good.
My mother and my father were sitting together, holding hands. My mother had tear stains on her cheeks while my father struggled to stay composed.
“Ryan’s with the Collins family,” she said, referring to a close family we had known for my entire life. “I can promise you, he’s as safe there as he is with me.”
I nodded. I believed her.
But now that my guard was down, now that I didn’t have to fight like hell to protect my only son, everything came rushing back.
The first blow to the head had temporarily blacked me out. I had turned just in time to have Malcolm kick me.
“You fucking run away from me again, bitch?” he yelled.
What followed was traumatic and awful. The only thing that got him to run away, if memory served me right, was that two other women had walked in, screamed, and chased him off. By that point, I was in so much pain and so shocked by what had happened I couldn’t even say who the two women were, and in some ways, it was just a fight not to slip into unconsciousness. There was a real fear that if I did, I wouldn’t wake up.
But I had…right after hearing Nick’s voice…
I started to cry. Like, really, really, really fucking bawl my eyes out. The worst had not only come to pass, but the unimaginable had happened. I had planned for the possibility that Malcolm would come and track me down, but I was not prepared for him having hurt me so bad. He’d hit me before, but he’d never beaten me up.
My mom rose from her chair, took my hand in hers, and squeezed. It was probably the only spot on my body that could be touched without me grimacing.
“I’m so sorry, Izzy,” she said. “I’m sorry we didn’t do enough to protect you.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
It’s…
It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.
“He won’t be coming after you again,” my mother said, but… “The cops already found him and arrested him. The evidence is pretty strong. And even if he hadn’t done this, he was under strict orders to remain in Los Angeles. So…”
I nodded, still sobbing. That was good news. But it wasn’t news that would change anything.
Malcolm had gone to jail once. What was to stop him from waiting it out, getting out again, and doing this all over again—especially if things with Nick continued to be more and more public…
Nick.
Nick’s voice was the one I’d heard. Nick had come to see what was going on. Nick…he’d put himself in
