Page 85 of Enticing

“Back the fuck off,” Leo yells.

“No. He was protecting me,” I sob and jump to my feet as the room tilts on its side. The floor rushing up to my face is the last thing I see before the world goes black.

Leo

“Addie—” I scream as she goes down and shove the rent-a-cop off me in time to catch her. “Help me?—”

Hendrix runs over as our team doc moves in next to us.

“What the hell happened?” Doc asks, and I shake my head.

“I don’t know. He had his hands around her throat. This guy tried to kill her years ago and threatened her a few weeks ago,” I tell them as I’m yanked backward.

“Stop fighting me, Sinclair. You’re coming to the station with us,” a uniformed officer tells me as he slaps the other cuff on.

“I’m not leaving her,” I argue, adrenaline spiking in my veins. “I’d like to see you make me.”

“I’ve got you for assault and battery, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer. Don’t make it worse,” he warns.

“Fuck you.”

“Go, Leo. I’ll stay with Addie,” Hendrix tries to assure me, but all I can focus on is my wife. I don’t give a shit about me. “I’ll call your lawyer. We’ll get you out as soon as we can.”

“Stay with her, Hen. I mean it.” I’m shoved from behind, and time slows. My wife is in a crumpled ball on the floor. The girls... I look around, frantic, as the police try to shove me out. “Where are the girls?”

“We’ve got them,” Ares yells back from somewhere. I can’t even see him through the madness surrounding us. “Go. We’ll take care of them.”

“Do not let my kids out of your fucking sight, Wilder.”

Guess that storm I’d been waiting for just blew in.

LEO

“What the hell were you thinking?” Hunter asks from the other side of the table in the interrogation room. He’s pacing behind my lawyer, Devon, who’s got his phone up to his ear.

“I was thinking he told her two weeks ago that he’d kill her, and tonight he had his hands around her throat. What the fuck would you be thinking if it was Skylar?” I bite back, losing my fucking mind as I see it all in slow motion. “You gotta find out how she is. Come on, man. I’m dying here.”

“Why didn’t she call the cops when he threatened her?” Devon asks as he hangs the phone up.

I growl, and Devon puts his hand up. “I’m on your side. But you’re in a lot of fucking trouble here, Sinclair. So I’m going to need to know it all. Now, if he threatened her, why didn’t she call the cops?”

“Because we calledyou, asshole. We went over all of it with both ofyouthe very next fucking day. We got a security system and considered a fucking bodyguard, that I now wish I’d forced her to get, but I let her say no. And now where are we? Oh, right. I’m here, and my fucking wife is in the hospital, and my fucking kids have got to be scared to death. So now. We didn’t call thecops, and you know it.” I push back from the table and pace the fucking room.

“Leo, sit down,” Hunter snaps. “You beat this guy to within an inch of his fucking life, and you assaulted two cops. I don’t know if we can make this go away.”

I want to scream at the top of my fucking lungs.

I want my wife.

I want my kids.

I want to go back and actually kill the motherfucker.

Devon looks through his notes, then closes his notepad. “You hit him once, and you both went down. A witness said you stopped, and the victim said something to you, and then you, and I quote, lost your mind. What did he say?”

“He’s not the fucking victim,” I growl, and Hunter’s knuckles go white around the chair he’s holding onto.

“I’ve got to leave this room and tell your father, who I’ve been friends with for over thirty years, that you’re spending the goddamned night in jail, Leo. Can you help us out here, for fuck’s sake?”

---