Page 26 of Diamond In The Rough

“An apology.”

Is that what I want? Is that what I came out here looking for?

I don’t know. But I’m brutally aware that I’m wading into the deep end of a world I would never willfully join.

“You have been rude to me. Unprovoked. You have manhandled me, threatened me, shouted at me… and you ruined my dinner.” I firm my jaw, lifting it in his direction as pride washes through my veins. “You have been a jerk, and it seems you feel entitled to treat people however you wish. Why? Because you’re rich? Because your family is powerful?”

His jaw clenches, the muscles flexing visibly.

“I could understand your irritation if I was, in fact, the annoying, evil woman you portray me to be. But I’m not. I’ve done nothing except exist, and as such, I do not accept this. Until it’s deserved, you have no right to treat me the way you did tonight.”

He slips his hand into his pocket, fast as a rattlesnake, and whips it out again holding a shimmering blade—the edge of which he presses to my throat, until the oxygen passing through me simply ceases to exist.

Immediately, tears burn the backs of my eyes, threatening to spill over.

Behind Micah, his trio of men bristle with nervous energy, as their boss tiptoes the line of committing murder right here on a busy New York City street.

“Do you know Joseph Wilkes?” he grits out, his left hand dropping to my hip to hold me close, while his right hand remains impossibly steady. “Have you ever had dealings with him, his family, or anyone else whose plan is to hurt me or mine?”

“No.” I jut my chin forward, tempting the man with a target other than my jugular. “And for you to assume otherwise is bullshit. I’ve done nothing to you, and yet you hold a knife to my throat. We’re not playing by the same rules.”

“Do you intend to hurt anyone I care about?” He skips over my words and demands more. More. More. “Are your motivations toward my family harmful?”

“No.” I bare my teeth, and sneer when his eyes flicker down. “Only to you.” I reach up and place my hand around his wrist, pushing it away until the cold steel of the blade leaves my skin. “If the opportunity should present itself, I intend to return the favor and place a knife at your throat. Equality, and all that.”

“You threaten me? You declare innocence with one breath, and war with the other?”

“I merely hope to level the playing field. You hurt me, unprovoked. Surely that earns me at least one shot at your throat.”

“Tiia!” Jazzy’s panicked voice echoes along the street, followed by her gasp of stunned surprise, then finally, her whimper of fear when she, no doubt, figures out the scene laid out in front of her. “Help! Someone!” she flails her arms, her voice rising an octave or twenty. “Someone help us!”

“Jazzy.” I tighten my grip on Micah’s wrist. Because if I release him, his knife might accidentally slice through my artery. “Quit it.” Then I hold his stare and snarl, “An apology, Mr. Malone. Your poor behavior warrants one. And my innocence,” my nose flares with rage, “deserves to hear you say the words.”

“Boss?” Stovic steps up on Micah’s right and murmurs, “Feds are on their way. We’ve been on the street too long.”

Quick as a flash, Micah tucks his knife away and releases my hip, forcing me to stumble back a step and catch my balance, or risk dropping to my ass. Then he turns on his shiny shoes and slides into his car, leaving me standing on the street, mentally spinning out but unable to look anywhere than at the glimmer of a streetlight reflecting off the back of his hundred-thousand-dollar car.

“Malone!” I step forward as the three men file in after him. “You coward! You owe me an apology.”

“Tiia!” Jazzy clip-clops behind me, the approaching sound of her shoes on the concrete the only warning I get before she crashes into my back. “Let him go.”

“Another day.” Micah glances out at me, his hand on the door as he slowly closes it. His eyes glitter and burn into mine. But a mere couple of blocks away, police sirens whoop in the night. “I’ll come find you, Ms. Hale. We can talk then.”

“Apologize now,” I growl. “Then we can be done with all this.”

But my request goes unheard by the man who shuts his door, and then his car disappears into traffic; just another rich man’s ride in a sea of yellow and black that fills the street.

“Oh my god!” Jazzy bursts out now that we’re alone.

Well, we’re not really alone. Dozens of onlookers become apparent, now that I take a breath and look around. Diners who followed me out of Biano’s. Passersby who stopped to watch the spectacle.

Even Luigi, the server who brought me my gnocchi.

“Did that really just happen?” Jaz slides the pads of her thumbs beneath my eyes, swiping up tears I had no clue had spilled over. Her hands tremor, just like I know mine do. “Did you seriously just go toe to toe with that guy? Tiia! Are you crazy?”

“He was rude.” My voice crackles, the words like razor blades inside my throat. And now that he’s gone—and with him, the very real blade he held against my skin—my chest caves in, and the oxygen in my lungs races out to explode against my best friend’s face. “He said I was on that other guy’s payroll! Like my job was to hurt him and his family.”

“He was mistaken,” she croons, soothing me the way a mother shushes a fussing baby. “He was wrong, and uncivilized at best. He made assumptions about you.”

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