Page 61 of Wicked Little Game
If I was on my own, I would stomp in there and demand an explanation from Mr. Giordano himself. The last time we were here, he personally greeted us, paid for all of our food, and even introduced me to his son in an attempt to play matchmaker.
But again, there’s too much I would have to explain to Samuel, and he isn’t supposed to know half of this shit either way.
“Fine,” I tell her, my smile unfaltering. If they don’t want my money, I’m fucking fine with it.
I turn around, gesturing to Samuel to go back to the car and this unfortunate exchange would have been over if Maddy had kept her mouth shut.
“Fine,” she repeats in a mocking tone and that alone wouldn’t have been a problem, but the hissed “stupid bitch and her weird guard dog” is very much one.
Slowly, I walk back towards her. My hand hurts a little as I ball it into a fist, but this time, the pain feels almost grounding.
I’m used to people talking shit about me and I’ve grown a pretty thick skin over the years. But that she dared to insult Samuel makes my blood boil.
I’m the only one who gets to call him names.
“What did you just say?” I ask calmly, looking at her with a waiting expression. Maybe I just misheard her.
“I saidstupid bitch and her weird guard dog.”
Something about the way she’s not even trying to play it down fucks me up. I wonder what Sarah told her about me, because I don’t remember having any kind of falling out with her.
There is no reason for her to act like this, but I have a lot of anger stashed away inside of me, and if she wants to be one on the receiving end of it, I’m fine with it.
“What are you gonna do now? Call your daddy?” She spits out the words and traces of her literal spit land on my face.
With a laugh, I shake my head. “No, don’t worry. I can deal with a piece of shit like you on my own.”
Something inside me snaps. It was only a matter of time until I had a proper freakout, especially after Sam moved in and I tried to adhere to my no-more-yelling resolution.
With my good, non-injured hand, I pull off one of my shoes. I decide to take it into the other hand, because what I’m about to do is a task for the strong hand. It hurts to hold it, but I don’t care. It will be worth it.
The heel of my shoe pierces through the glass pane behind Maddy, only a few inches away from her head.
“The next time I hear you saying shit like that, I’m gonna rip your fucking tongue out and make you eat it,” I whisper in her ear while I pull my shoe out of the glass pane.
I pull a few hundred-dollar bills out of my wallet and slam them on the hostess station.
“For the window,” I say, and she gulps.
She opens her mouth to say something and I act like I’m going to smash my shoe into the glass a second time, so she quickly shuts her mouth again.
I could have aimed for her eye, or her hand, at least, but physical assault would have resulted in the local chief of police calling my father, which would cause him to come back, and then me and Samuel would have a bit of explaining to do.
So I settled on almost-physical assault.
It seems to be enough to make Maddy shut up, because she just looks at me with eyes wide as saucers before she picks up the dollar-bills with shaky hands and runs back inside the restaurant.
24
SAMUEL
“What is wrong with you?” I hiss as I grab Ruby’s arm and pull her towards the car with me.
I know Ruby is trouble, but that right there was a first. I’m just glad she doesn’t make a fuss while I drag her to the car. It’s not like I can’t physically overpower her, but I’m still happy when I don’t have to do it.
I should get her a straitjacket after that performance.
She flops down in the passenger seat while I wait in front of her door for a few more seconds, just to make sure that she doesn’t bolt off to make ground beef out of that girl.
