Page 30 of Dreaming

* * *

Dennis kept the bar closed for two weeks. He paid his employees, his vendors, and the bands he’d booked.

For several days following the fucking armed invasion of his place of business, he was numb, confused.

Gradually, it turned to anger.

Nia was an accountant helping take down piece of shit criminals and they’d driven her out of her life.

Out of his life.

They had no fucking right to take her from him. Working out in his home gym, he seethed with rage.

Looking at the armed man dressed in black who stood just inside the door, he demanded, “How do I get her back?” The man shook his head. Dennis growled, “Bullshit. Fucking bullshit.” He punched the heavy bag.

Harder, harder, harder.

* * *

Hiring more security, Dennis went back to work. Being in his house all day was driving him to complete insanity.

He gave his staff a raise and hired a second bar manager.

The days passed but his rage didn’t cool. He took up running on his treadmill to try to exhaust himself. It felt like every second, a piece of his mind was on her, thinking about her.

After three months, there was still no contact and his rage began to shift.

Why couldn’t she text him?

Email him?

Fuck, send a goddamn carrier pigeon?

Every day, he yelled at the people she’d left to protect him, “Tell her to call me! You fucking tell her!”

Nia never did and a piece inside himself began to darken.

When six months came and went, Dennis went insane.

He destroyed his instruments, his studio, as his security detail tried to calm him down. He turned on them like a feral animal and they tried to subdue him without hurting him.

At his size, it wasn’t easy.

A tiny woman jumped on his back and carefully choked him out. “It’s alright, Mr. Hancock…”

* * *

In September, eight months after Nia exited his life following a night out of an action movie, Dennis started drinking and stopped going to the bar.

He didn’t talk to anyone for any reason.

A small part of him, buried deep, started to resent her.

At first, there were whispered internal doubts about her honesty. That she’d lied to him by omission from the start. Then it was resenting her stupid fucking job and her need to catch criminals at the risk of the people in her life.

He could have died.

All those people could have died.

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