“Oh, you need professional help all right, Tiff,” he says, laughing.
I clench my hands into fists. Remind myself to be rational, remind myself that I need to follow the same promise I got from Blaze — no fighting, no violence, no crime — despite the anger that rises in my throat. There has to be a way to settle this like adults.
“Will you all just hold on for one second?” Eleanor says, raising her voice above the rising timbre of David’s verbal venom. “What is this you said about my son trying to rob a bank?”
“Oh, I’d be happy to tell you all about your son, Mrs. Dunne,” David says. “All about his criminal record and all about the liability he is for you and any case you hope to have against Southwest Regional.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says, Eleanor,” I say, speaking as loud as I can to drown out whatever David might say. “He’s just a jealous, vicious, petty little man. You know, when he wasn’t buried nose-first in legal books, his favorite authors were Ayn Rand and Dan Brown?”
Eleanor’s eyes widen. “You’re serious?”
“He thought The Da Vinci Code was a modern masterpiece. He has a signed first edition. Paid a ton for it on EBay, too.”
“My God. Are you serious, Tiffany? And you trusted him enough to bring us here? How can anyone think that such horrid pap is good for anything except lining a gerbil’s cage? I thought my son said you were brilliant. Now, I’m starting to question that.”
“She’s lying,” David says. “That wretched, hysterical bitch is lying.”
My eyes flare.
Be rational, my brain implores the angry words that are fighting to break free from mouth.
Fuck this petty little man, my heart screams in reply.
“What did you call me, David?” I snap.
He sneers. “What you are: a frigid, pathetic bitch. And, Eleanor, what I’m telling you is the truth. Your son is a wanted—”
I can’t let him finish his sentence. Don’t want to let him finish his sentence. I’m tired of his lies, his sneering malice. He won’t listen to reason.
Fuck rationality. I’ve exhausted all my options; it’s time to solve things the way Blaze would. Maybe violence has its purpose and, if it puts some humility in David Archibald, all the better.
“You shut your stupid fucking mouth, you heartless piece of shit,” I snap.
He freezes. His mouth drops open wide and, when I snatch the steel-bladed letter opener off his desk and brandish it in front of me, his eyes open wide enough that I can see the pathetic, hateful soul inside him.
He’s not a man. Not really. Not even close. If he was, he wouldn’t be threatening me out of spite and I wouldn’t be brandishing a sharp object in his squint-eyed face.
A real man would make me feel safe. Valued.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He says.
“I’m sick of your shit, David. Do you want to know why I left you? Because you are a soulless snake who never could have provided me the emotional support and companionship I needed. You’re just some status-obsessed, career-focused son of a bitch. And you were terrible in bed; your penis is really small and, for someone who uses his tongue all day as a lawyer, you never once made me come. You’re a pathetic piece of shit and I hate you.”
I’m shaking with rage. And glee. And, deep inside, there is a small part of me hoping for him to escalate things and give me even more of a reason to let loose on his sorry ass.
“You stupid cunt,” he starts.
I shake my head and take a quick lunge toward him, the sharp letter opener held right in front of me and flashing in the daylight that shines through his big office windows.
“Keep talking and I’ll cut your fucking balls off. Eleanor and I are leaving, and if you try any more of your shit, you will regret it.”
“I’ll have you sent to jail for this,” he says, his voice shaking in impotent rage. “You know that, right? I will fuck your life up so bad, you’ll be begging me to take you back.”
“Try it. I dare you. Because the second you do, I will have a dozen bikers here in a heartbeat and they will feed you your own dick in tiny little pieces.”
His mouth nearly hits his shoes. His eyes bug in shocked fury. He is cowed, completely.
And it feels good.
I smile.
Then I hold out my empty hand to Eleanor. She takes it. She spares one pitying glance for the impotent wreck that is David Archibald.
“I’m sorry I brought you here, Eleanor. Let’s go.”
Maybe Blaze’s method isn’t so bad after all.
Chapter Sixteen
Blaze
“You sure as shit shouldn’t be here.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“What, do you think you can just walk in here and take a fucking tour? This isn’t Disneyland, asshole. So you need to get the fuck out or I will punch your fucking ticket.”
“Goddamned jabroni, don’t you see the fucking fence? Or the ‘Keep out’ signs? Can’t you read?”
There’s a half dozen of them and they circle me like a pack of hyenas. Yammering, braying, posturing like they have a chance if I decide to throw down. They’re an inch and a wrong word away from death and they don’t even know it.
Then my hand wraps around the grip of my
