“Imogen, are you okay?” Gigi flew across the room to us. “God, you’re so pale. Did you pass out? Are you breathing? Please, say something.”
“I’m fine,” I croaked, sounding the opposite. My eyes locked on Donny’s. “Or, I will be when you let me go.”
His expression clouded over again, rage replacing his momentary confusion. His grip tightened on my arms. His mouth opened to say something — probably to insist, for the tenth time, that Gigi go wake the boys. Whatever he was going to say, however, never made it past his lips. Because at that exact moment, as I hung there like a dishrag in his ham-sized hands, the life-force effectively wrung out of me…
Detective Caden Hightower crashed through the door.
He moved so fast, I thought he really might be superhuman. One minute he was across the room, staring at the scene with a face like a thundercloud, the next he was right beside us. He ripped me from Donny’s grip — which had slackened in surprise at the detective’s sudden appearance — and shoved me into Gigi’s waiting arms with a sharp, “Get her out of here.”
Gigi held me up and, despite her willowy frame, hauled me back toward the reception desk without much effort. I didn’t resist. All my focus was on Cade as he ducked Donny’s powerful right hook with an agility the drunk man couldn’t match. Donny staggered off balance, the momentum of his miscalculation nearly making him topple.
Cade didn’t give him a chance to swing again. He dodged two steps to the left, cocked back his arm, and clocked Donny in the face. There was a sickening crack as his fist collided. Donny was a big man, but the power behind the blow was enough to send him to his knees, groaning in pain.
Cade wasn’t done. He moved swiftly to execute a tactical chokehold; one arm looped around Donny’s neck, the other put precise pressure on the back of his head. His movements were controlled, though his face was still a storm of dark emotion.
“Warned you before, O’Banion,” he hissed flatly. “You fuck with the law, it’ll fuck back. And harder.”
Donny was blinking rapidly, clawing at Cade’s arm to free himself, but it was no use.
“Let,” he wheezed. “Me.” Another wheeze. “Go.”
“In a minute,” was Cade’s rather worrisome reply. “First, I want to make sure you understand what’s happening here. Because it seems the last time we spoke, shit didn’t sink in.”
Donny grunted out a promise. “Un… der… stand.”
“Do you? Because, see, when I handed you that protection order and told you to stay five hundred feet away from your wife at all times, when I told you not to attempt to see your kids without first clearing it with the custody attorneys, you acted like you heard me. Turns out, you didn’t hear me.”
Donny’s teeth ground together.
“You violate your agreement again before those divorce papers are signed and the judge has his day, I will make it my personal mission to see you behind bars. Permanently. And I won’t even have to try very hard. The amount of shady business you and your idiot brothers are into at that dingy hole in the wall you call a bar…” Cade scoffed darkly. “I’ll have my pick of charges. And you’ll spend the next decade enjoying the many creative uses of community soap.”
Gigi sucked in a sharp breath.
Donny was no longer fighting Cade’s grip. He looked like he was listening — and not very much liking what he heard, given the newly pallid hue to his ruddy complexion.
“You get me?” Cade barked.
Donny’s nod was shallow.
“Good. Then we understand each other.” Cade’s eyes flashed over to the reception desk. His jaw tightened when he saw neither Georgia or I had left the room, as he’d asked. “What I don’t like, O’Banion, is a man who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him. A man puts who his hands on a woman to make himself feel like less of a waste of space. So, now, you’re going to apologize to your wife for coming here tonight. Then, you and me are going to take a little trip down to the station. Think a night in lockup is exactly what you need to remind you what’s at stake here, next time you get a wild hair and want to stir up trouble.”
Cade released him and stepped back. The minute Cade’s arm fell away, Donny bent double at the waist, gasping for breath, hands planted on the floor to hold himself up. Cade didn’t even spare the man a glance. He immediately stepped around the heaving mound of male flesh in the middle of the rug and positioned himself in front of me and Georgia. A human shield. His hand was on his gun holster, allowing him to draw quickly if necessary.
I swallowed thickly.
“Don’t have all night, O’Banion,” Cade barked. “Apologize.”
Donny pushed up to his feet. He looked like his head was about to explode with rage. But he merely bared his teeth in a grimace and hissed, “Nothin’ to be sorry for.”
Cade tensed.
Beside me, Gigi flinched so hard I felt it. I pressed my shoulder to hers, a nonverbal show of support.
“I said...” Cade leaned forward an inch. “Apologize.”
Donny doubled down. “Fuck you! And fuck her.”
“O’Banion—”