Page 61 of Fire for Effect

Her hands went up to her hair, tugging at her scalp. I could hear the shakiness in her voice, and the deep wound I had inflicted.

“Baby…” I reached out again, and she slapped my hand away.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” She shook her head, taking two steps away from me. Two steps closer to VD. “I could take those comments from Kristin. I could take it from strangers, if I had to. But I never in my wildest dreams thought you would be the one to treat me like that.”

She walked over, and I finally saw that she had a bottle of iced tea still in her hand. It was made of glass. She could have struck me with it at any time but didn’t. Even at her angriest, she still spared me.

God love her for it… because I loved her too.

Even putting those words to thought sent my heart into my throat.

I hadn’t said it to her, or even to myself until this moment. But her passion and fire was the thing I had always adored about Trinity Guerro.

“I always knew you’d be the one to hurt me the most,” she said, quietly, to herself more than me.

But I heard it loud and clear. I heard it down to my fucking gut.

“Firefly—”

She shook her head, cutting me off again.

She put the bottle down on the top of the fridge, then turned to Veder and said, “Thanks, Veder. I’ll cash app you.”

She walked towards the open doors, the light silhouetting her perfect body.

I looked at Veder, and then at the bottle. How much would it cost? I fished for a few bills in my pocket and threw it at a chuckling Veder.

“Fuck off, and leave her alone,” I said, before following after a storming out Taz.

“No, you fuck off.” She whirled around and pushed me away again. “You come here and tell me not to talk to Riley, Veder, to some guy at the bar. Who’s next? Huh? Where does it go from there? Then I can’t talk to anyone unless you’re present? I won’t be allowed to keep the small number of people I have in my life, until I’m all alone, with only you to make me feel like complete shit all the time!”

“Where is this coming from?” I tried to put my hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged me off.

She was barely even looking at me now. She was just screaming, her eyes wild as she shook with an anger I had never seen before.

“I’m. Not. Yours!” She flailed her arms wildly, trying to keep me away from her, but I wasn’t above taking a few hits to the face if it meant her not creating distance between us. “I’m not going through that again. I won’t!”

“Go through what again?” Things began to click into place. Terrible things. Awful things.

Surely, she wouldn’t keep something like that from me. She’d tell me. She and I were more than lovers. We were friends. Close friends. In my mind, the best of friends. I had taken a bullet for her! And I knew, down to my bones, that she’d do the same for me.

Surely, I knew everything about her, right?

Right?

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that there was something about Taz Guerro I didn’t know. Something deep, that she kept hidden beneath her layers of former bravado.

But she didn’t have any of that bravado anymore, did she? Was she like this… because of me? Did I do this to her?

“Taz, talk to me,” I begged, going after her again. “Tell me who hurt you.”

The way her eyes melted gave me the devastating confirmation I needed.

“Give me a name,” I growled, as the primal urge to defend my woman turned me into a person I didn’t recognize. And if it was too late to defend her, then I would do the next best thing - punish the culprit with extreme, deadly, prejudice. “Who. Hurt. You?”

“No,” she said, giving me the five-finger point. The Drill Sergeant’s point, gesturing with a flattened hand in a disapproving, accusatory gesture. It was practically a middle finger. “I told you this wouldn’t work. And it’s not working now.”

“Baby…”

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