Page 99 of Tore Up

He finally stopped and turned back to me. The fury blazing in his eyes was unsettling.

“Don’t do this. Put it away. She is leaving. I am fine. She did nothing to me that I’d not dealt with before. I was raised by—”

“That’s not helping, pretty girl,” he warned. “You start telling me you were mistreated right under my goddamn nose, and I will have to kill someone.”

Dang. Not what I’d been trying to do.

I held up both hands. “I’m not. I wasn’t. I love working here.”

His chest was heaving as he stared at me. The gun hanging by his side.

Adalee stepped out of the office with her leather satchel over her shoulder. At some point, Grissele had retrieved her gun from her purse, and she had it pointed at the woman again.

“Not just yet. We might not be done here,” she told Adalee.

“Please, Bane. Please,” I pleaded. “Let her go. I am begging you.”

If he shot that woman for me, I’d never forgive myself.

He glared at Adalee. “Come here,” he ordered.

She looked sick. Like she might throw up at any moment. I was right there with her.

“Bane, if you shoot her, I will blame myself. Forever.”

His eyes met mine, and his nostrils flared.

He shoved her hard, and she fell down, much the same way I had.

“Get on your fucking knees, bitch,” he snarled.

She scrambled to her knees as she began to sob.

“Bane,” I begged.

Why wasn’t Grissele helping me? Surely, she saw how wrong this was.

“Apologize to her,” he ordered.

Adalee looked at him, and he pointed the gun at her head.

“Not me! Look at Halo and fucking apologize.”

She turned to me, fear taking over any other emotion in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Not good enough!” he barked.

I looked at Grissele, silently pleading for her help.

She shrugged. “I agree. She can do better than that. It was weak.”

And to think I had decided that Crosby had taken after his mother and Bane had more of his father in him. Seemed I hadn’t known this about Grissele.

“I am sorry,” she wailed this time.

I looked down at her. “Okay, it’s fine.”

“NO, the fuck it is not. Stay your ass on the ground. Now, tell her that you are sorry for every fucking word you spoke to her. For everything you made her do. Tell her that she is the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen and you are jealous of her. You want what she has. You want to be like her. That you wish your smile lit up a goddamn room the way hers does.”

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