Page 110 of Caught Up

“So that’s it?” he said, cocking his head sideways. “This is how you tell me you’re done?”

“Yes,” I said.

He threw his glass at my head.

I barely ducked in time to keep from getting hit, but there was no stopping the ruby red liquid from soaking me and Lauren.

She gasped, pushing back from the table, and then everything was happening at once. Aly, on her feet, yelling; Josh holding her back; Mom shoving Dad so hard he went tipping over sideways in his chair; Stefan slipping out of the room; Greg and Alec exchanging looks like they didn’t know whether or not they should follow after him.

Dad popped back to his feet surprisingly fast for a man of his age. “After everything I’ve fucking done for you?” he roared.

I positioned myself in front of Lauren. “Everything you’ve done for me?” I yelled back. “Like steal my entire goddamn childhood, groom me to become a thug, constantly put me in danger? You want me to keep going? Because I can.”

He stepped sideways, trying to look past me at Lauren. “This is your fucking fault, isn’t it?”

Josh materialized at my side. “Take another step toward her, Nico. I dare you.” He held something dark in his hand, and my stomach dropped, thinking he was about to shoot my father, before I realized it was just a cell phone.

Josh tapped its screen, and all the lights in the house flickered. “One. More. Step.”

Dad stopped moving, jaw clenched in fury. A foot away, Mom was staring at him with her hands balled into fists. We needed to end this before afull-onbrawl broke out.

“You know,” Dad said, “Italy is just a phone call away. It wouldn’t be that hard to make Tommy disappear for real.”

“Woah,” Aly said. “Did you just threaten to have Lauren’s father killed?”

Dad jerked, unused to an audience to his outbursts, forgetting we were all pretending that Tommy was just missing. “No,” he ground out, but his mutinous expression said otherwise.

“I’m done,” I told him. “And nothing you say or do will ever change my mind.”

He laughed, the sound ugly. “You won’t last a fucking week without me.”

“Yes, I will,” I told him. “And I know that’s got to hurt, but you brought this on yourself.”

He lunged. It happened so fast and was so unexpected that I didn’t get my arms up in time to block him. For all the awful shit he’d said and done over the course of my lifetime, he’d never hit me, and it took me a moment to realize that his hands were around my neck, and he wassqueezing, his expression a rictus of rage, black eyes burning with fury.

Time seemed to slow. I tried to drag in a breath and couldn’t, staring at him in disbelief, feeling like I was having anout-of-bodyexperience. My own fucking father was strangling me in front of my girlfriend and entire family. I thought I’d known the worst of what he was capable of, but I’d never expectedthis.

With the last of my breath, I wheezed, “Dad.”

The word seemed to ricochet through him like a bullet. His fingers slackened on my neck. The fury bled from his eyes. I watched his lips part and horror creep into his expression like he finally realized what he was doing.

It was then that time righted itself. I saw several people rushing toward us, but Lauren got there first, electric blue flaring in my periphery. Dad jerked and let me go, and I dragged in a breath full of the smell of his searing flesh as Lauren ground the taser into his neck, following him to the floor when he went down.

Nearby, Josh retched and spun away, Aly racing after him.

“Lauren,” I said, wrapping my hands around her shoulders and gently pulling her back. From the look on her face, she wouldn’t have stopped otherwise. My very own white knight in a sundress.

“Nic,” Mom said, and I turned to see her openly weeping for the first time in memory. Her eyes met mine, voice hoarse like she’d been the one who was choked. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “None of this is your fault.”

Alec stepped into view and spat at Dad’s still twitching form. “Fucking bastard.” He turned to Mom. “You’re coming to stay with me. Enough is enough.”

Mom shook her head. “I’m staying here. Someone has to make sure he’s all right.”

“So call an ambulance after you leave,” Greg said, joining us. “He did this to himself. You don’t have to keep trying to fix everything for him.”

Determination crept into Mom’s expression. “You don’t understand. He wasn’t always like this.”

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