Page 78 of Enforcer

Walking into the kitchen, I see thePlan Bbox sitting on the counter next to the coffee pot, and I nearly stop breathing.

Anna and I discussed having kids early in our relationship, but our marriage was cut too short to see that dream come to fruition.

I’m fucking torn to bits seeing Alyssa so conflicted and hurt by what happened earlier, but I’m also torn on how to feel aboutthe knowledge that she’s about to take the pill to avoid being pregnant by me.

I’d open the box for her if she were any other woman. It’s shitty to think about, but it’s the truth. Part of me wants to fucking rage and toss it in the trash. The other part of me knows that it’s her body, her choice.

I swallow.

“Don’t you dare try to talk me out of it,” she says, her voice could cut through glass if she weaponized it.

“Even if I want to, I won’t. I’m so sorry about what happened, Lyss. I should’ve made myself pull out even if you said not to. I’m sorry.”

“It won’t happen again,” she says, and I feel her words like a knife to the throat. I swear my jugular is open and bleeding all over the kitchen, and she can’t see the blood spurting from it.

“Also, your choice.”

“Is it, Dante? Is that true? Because I’ve been true to myself this entire time, and you’ve been forcing me to change. Forcing little bits of you and your bullshit into my life. I told you who I was from the beginning, and you decided somewhere along the way thatyouwantedme,and that’s all that mattered from there on out. It’s like a fucking game to you. I’m a fucking game!”

“No, you’re not!” I shout back without thinking. “You’re the best fucking thing that’s happened to me since I lost my entire life to the sound of one fucking gunshot, Lyss.”

“Yeah?! Well, you’re the worst fucking thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? This is how you’re going to act? It was an accident, Alyssa. And if you wanted to be safer, you could’ve asked me to wear a fucking condom!” I step into her, and she turns her back to the counter. “I think you like the way my cock feels in your pussy, raw and unfettered. You’re just scared. Can’t you see that? You’re so afraid of becoming yourmother that you won’t let yourself be the slightest bit happy or free of the shadow of her divorce!”

Her slap comes hard across my cheek, pain stinging long after her small hand has connected with my skin. “Fuck you, Dante. Fuck you to fucking hell!”

She turns, opens the box, and downs the pill with coffee. Turning, she throws the box at my head and storms off, grabbing the keys to my Range Rover and marching out of the apartment.

For the longest time, I stood there, perplexed at how everything went so wrong today.

While Slate married the love of his life, mine went to fucking shit in a handbasket.

Now I have to pack said basket up and act like it’s full of fucking roses and go back to the reception.

I grab the keys to another car and lock the apartment up before getting on the elevator.

I don’t care that she’s taken my car; she can have my entire life if she wants, but she can’t see that.

She can’t see what’s right in front of her through her fear and trauma.

“Fuck,” I groan, looking at myself in the mirrors surrounding me in the elevator. “You really fucked this up, man.”

The reception hallis mid-party already when I arrive back.

I congratulate Slate and Brynne, both beaming at me now that they think Alyssa and I are becoming something. I know Brynne wants to see her best friend happy, but I don’t know if she realizes how closed-off Alyssa is.

I knew I had to trudge carefully with her. I knew that if I made one wrong move, she’d build her walls even taller around her heart and likely never let me near them again, and I still managed to fuck everything up anyhow.

“Hey! Mr. Casanova himself has graced us with his presence, Antonio. Look!” Lorenzo says as I approach the bar and order a full glass of whiskey.

“Damn, maybe Casanova is having relationship issues already, Renzo,” Antonio says.

The two laugh as if they’re best fucking friends, and my fists clench at my side.

“Fuck off, the both of you,” Alyssa says.

She’d been standing behind Lorenzo the entire time, and I hadn’t spotted her.

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