That’s when the old fucker Charlie Brown kicks my ass and connects with my chin.
I’m on my ass next, then on my spine with another kick to the chest.
“Leave him alone,” I hear Emmy order, her voice not as confident as I need her to be right now.
I slowly coerce my head to move, so I can see her.
There is no fear for me residing inside my veins. It’s all for her.
It’s always for her.
She needs to live so she can take care of those kids.
Our kids.
“For a wedding present?” Alexander ponders pompously. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Then you better kill us both because—“
“Emmy.” My voice comes out cracked and in a whole lot of discomfort, but I glare at her to shut her the hell up.
Her brown eyes find mine and they’re teared up with hopelessness.
I want to play along with this game that she wanted us to join in on, but I can’t tell her to give him a chance while allowing him false hope.
He doesn’t deserve it.
He definitely doesn’t warrant my giving him her.
I’d never be able to do it.
She’s mine—point blank, end of story. Even my pride continues to get in the way, but it’s not going to be my last words if this is it for me.
I’d never give her up.
“I wish you would’ve been true to who you were,” Emmy speaks up, falling to the ground and away from Alexander. She pushes herself back by the heels of her feet like a little child wanting to get away from being yelled at. “You said you’d support me. That no matter what, you’d be there.”
“I meant—“
“Stop lying,” she screams, making me flinch to the pain in her tone. “You almost killed me! You almost killed my children! You fucking changed me!”
“Emmy—“
“Fuck you!”
Alexander steps forward as she continues to push herself away. “It’ll take time, but we can fix this.”
“I did,” she retorts viciously. “I fixed it with him.” The tip of her finger points in my direction with her hands cuffed in front of her, and she just fucked up her whole plan.
She’s baiting him but not as the adoring Emmy Lou we all know but as the scorn one.
She has every right to be pissed and hurt. To not want to entertain the thought of them being together again.
“He doesn’t love you,” Alexander roars. “You said that.”
“Yeah, well—“ Emmy tries to push herself from the ground, giving me her back. ”—I guess I loved more for the both of us then.”
Then she swings around the glint of the blade before Alexander howls out in pain.
Emmy Lou has a death wish, and it’s for us to go down together.
My head flies to the side as Alexander backhands me for my little knife trick.
It’s perfect because it gives me enough anger to spring upon him like a lioness about to tear into a gazelle.
Alexander crashes into the kitchen island, his height to my disadvantage but the force of hitting the heavy furniture disorients him for a moment.
So I backhand him my damn self to even us out.
My ex’s hand seizes my neck, clamping down as hard as he can as he straightens himself. I pull my chin into my chest and remain calm, remembering my training, that this is the go-to for most men.
Reaching outward and around his arms, I pull him by his wrists, breaking his grip and creating him to tumble forward a bit. Snatching the back of his head by his hair, I closer, my knee connects with his balls a moment later.
As if he emerges from pain altogether, Alexander immediately uses all his weight and collides with me.
I growl out in frustration, my shortness, the fact that I am a female, and no matter how much I’ve been trained, I have to work that much harder to sustain my own damn life.
To save Bishop’s.
I steal a glance, one I know better to take. He’s on the ground, bleeding from his back as he takes a kick to his ribs and has some weird fight with the younger man on the floor.
Then a burning sensation hits my side simultaneously as that famous indistinctive sound of a gunshot rips through the air, and I feel the prompt burn right after at my side.
It’s the old man with gray hair who could be my grandfather.
He fucking hit me.
I’m on the floor in the next second with an unbearable weight on me. It digs uncomfortable and painfully into my side.
“I didn’t fucking tell you to shoot her!” Alexander roars then straddles himself over me.
I wrap my fingers around his perfectly ironed shirt with my left hand and swing with my right. I connect and use my throwing him off balance a tad.
Leaning forward and trying my absolute best to ignore the pain, I hit him again then shove him off me. My heels dig into the hardwood floors, and I hurl myself back on my ass to gain distance.
Then that I do something I haven’t tried in years.
Palming my knife, I sorta flick-throw it with my wrist, praying to God that it’s enough. I see it fly through the air but not where it lands. No, because I’m thrust back, and my skull hits the floor thanks to my ex and his bullshit of I’d never hurt you again.
We both scramble to our feet. It’s harder for me with his hold on me while he does the same thing. The room spins a little from the adrenaline and possible gunshot. I hear a man grunt, but there are four of them in this room. I have no fucking clue what’s going on. Just that Bishop and I are trying to get to each other.
Weren’t we always.
On my knees, I see Alexander march forward. He’s going to punch, kick, or do some other pussy-ass move to knock me down.
Pulling my arms up to protect somewhat of my frame, he takes another step then, in a blink of an eye, he’s gone.
But not the
