Page 85 of Go Deep

Shit.

Shane yanks me toward him, the gun now at my temple. Vince sits up straight, his dark eyebrows knitted together, his eyes spitting murder. He leaps off the mattress.

“Who the hell are you?” Vince’s jaw tenses, his fists balled at his sides.

“I’m the ex,” Shane says calmly. He jams the barrel against my head. “So this is the guy, huh? You dumped me for this fucking guy? The ex-jock who was too much of a pussy to hack it in the NFL, so he turned into a goddamn accountant?”

Steam practically pours from Vince’s ears and I give my head a small shake, hoping to hell he gets my telepathic message to stand the fuck down. Shane is a loose cannon with a loaded weapon. Clearly dangerous and maniacal.

How the hell are we going to get out of this?

“You fucked him against our window,” Shane screams into my ear. He jerks me around so I’m facing him. “How could you do that? Did all those months mean nothing to you?”

“Shane, I know you’re upset, but we were over before I did anything with Vince.”

“Who the fuck cares if you waited? You’re fucking him now and it’s killing me.” His wild-eyed gaze swings to Vince, and then back at me. “If I can’t have him, nobody can. Do you understand me, bitches? Am I making myself clear?”

“There is no way out here,” Vince says. “Gabe has security cameras all over the place. If you shoot us and escape, the authorities will figure out what happened. They’ll come for you.”

“Oh, fuck off! This isn’t fucking CSI Cincinnati, schmuck! I don’t give a fuck who finds out. Without Gabe, I’m nothing. I can’t survive. So if they come for me, who gives a damn?” He looks at me. “Or maybe I’ll just kill myself, too.”

“D-don’t d-do that.” I raise my eyes to the gun, my words sticking to my lips as I struggle to get them out.

Shane puts his hand around my neck and backs me toward the bed. “But before I kill you, I need to fuck you one last time.”

A loud crash from behind us makes Shane twist and stumble. He drops the hand with the gun and steps backward, glass crunching under his feet.

I catch a flash of tanned skin in my periphery when Vince dives at his ankles. Shane falls backward onto the floor with a loud thud. The gun falls out of his hands and skitters across the floor. Vince climbs on top of him and suddenly, his fists fly left and right while Shane wiggles underneath him, trying unsuccessfully to duck out of the way.

But punch after punch lands against his face, his ribs, and his sides.

“Call the cops.” Vince manages to grunt those words as he continues to pelt Shane with jabs.

By the time Vince has finished with Shane, his face is bloody, his lip split, and the shiner on his right eye is a scary shade of purple. “Pussy, my fucking ass.” Vince gives him one last shot before climbing off of him and leaving him to writhe in a bloody puddle on my floor.

He throws his arms around me. “Are you okay?”

I nod, shock clouding my ability to form words. Vince grabsthe gun and furrows his brow. Then he glares at Shane. “It’s not even loaded.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Shane rolls onto his side and lets out a groan as he clutches his stomach. “I think you broke a rib, you asshole.”

“I should’ve broken them all,” Vince seethes.

“Why the hell would you come in here with a gun? Are you crazy?” I lower myself to my knees. “What were you going to do?”

“I just wanted one more chance with you,” Shane whimpers. “I couldn’t bear to see you with that idiot Castro. I figured you’d break up after that video came out and I’d?—”

“Wait, the video?” I kick him in the shoulder. “Did you take that video and send it in?”

“Yeah, I wanted to get you away from him.” Shane glowers at Vince. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Do you realize what that video could have done to my career? To my fucking life?”

Shane pulls himself to a seated position. “Your life needed me in it, and I had to find a way to make you see that.”

“So you forced your way in with a gun?” I rake a hand through my hair that’s still damp from the shower.

Sirens from outside get closer and closer.

---