Page 54 of The Marriage Negotiation

"My first piece of advice is to file for a restraining order first thing in the morning. If Peter gets out on bail, I doubt it wouldstop him from trying something again, but it's always good to have a paper trail."

"Can you help me with that?"

"I'll send this recording to Miles and get him to file for one first thing," Joe replied. "He's more experienced with this type of thing than I am."

That was a great relief. "Thank you."

"How's Zaq holding up?"

I grimaced as I thought about how pale Zaq had been right after Peter had been taken down. "Not well."

"What about you?" Joe asked.

I blew out a heavy breath of air and tilted my head back to stare up at the ceiling. "He tried to kill Zaq, man. There's no coming back from that."

"I get it," Joe said. "Back when we were having issues with Jayce's parent's someone tried to shoot him. Got his bodyguard instead. Kato was wearing a bullet proof vest so he wasn't badly injured, but the mere thought of someone trying to kill Jayce still took about ten years off my life."

He did get it. I knew that.

"Peter has done a lot of rotten things in his life, but I never imagined he'd try to kill Zaq."

"I'll be honest with you here, Patty," Joe said. "I'm not sure Peter has all his oars in the water. Some of the things he's done are pretty far out there."

I stilled, frozen in my chair. "You think Peter is insane?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe."

My heart skipped a beat. "Is there any way to prove that?"

"We could request a psychological evaluation. It's up to the police and the prosecutor whether they choose to do it or not."

"Can you ask Miles to do that when he goes down to the courthouse to get the restraining order?" I asked. "I want to do everything we can to keep Peter behind bars as long as possible."

I dropped my head down, running my hand through my hair. "You didn't see him tonight, Joe. He was obsessed with getting Zaq to go back with him. He kept saying Zaq belonged to him even when Zaq denied it. He refused to believe Zaq didn't love him. He was almost fanatical about it."

"I'll forward that recording to Miles and have him take a listen. He might be able to pinpoint something in it that will convince the prosecutor to do the psychological evaluation."

"I'll take any help that I can get."

"I'll give Miles a call then."

"Thanks, Joe."

"I'm glad things weren't worse, Patty."

I sighed heavily. "Yeah, me, too."

I still couldn't get the image of Peter lunging at Zaq with a knife in his hand out of my head. It was by far the most terrifying thing I had ever witnessed. If I hadn't gotten Zaq out of the way in time he could have easily died.

I hung up with Joe and called Alejandro. "Hey, it's Patty. You got a minute?"

"Sure."

"I just wanted to thank you for sending Jackson to us. He and a couple of your other bodyguards saved our lives tonight."

"So I heard," Alejandro replied. "Jackson called and gave me the report."

I figured he would.

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