“Cops and ambulance are on the way,” someone sounding far away says, just as a loud crash sounds next to me. Startled, I look to my side and see three men pinning Mr. Shelp to the ground and wrestling his arms behind his back while tables and chairs skid across the room.

“Focus on me, Hadley. Look at me, girl,” Brie says and my eyes move back to her. “Are you okay?” I try to tell her that I’m good, but I can’t seem to get my voice to work and end up nodding instead. “I can’t believe this.”

“Here take this. Put it on her neck.” Someone shoves a white towel between us and Brie takes it, then gently pulls my hands from my throat where I’m holding them. When the wet cold hits my skin I flinch then sigh in relief when the cool seeps in. I hear sirens getting closer and close my eyes. I grew up learning that nothing good ever came from that sound but now I feel nothing but relief at hearing it.

“Cobi is on his way.” Brie wraps her arm around my back and I rest my head on her shoulder as a different kind of relief fills me. “I seriously can’t believe this happened,” Brie repeats, while she takes a tight hold of my hand, keeping her other hand gently at my neck where the wet cloth is.

I don’t know how, but I know the instant Cobi walks into the restaurant. His volatile energy is so strong I swear I can taste it on my tongue and feel it zipping over my skin. I open my eyes and I watch him stalk toward where I’m still sitting on the floor with Brie. When he’s halfway to me his eyes move to where Mr. Shelp is still lying before they come right back to me and darken. His jaw clenches when he notices Brie’s hand holding the rag to my neck and his hands ball into fists, flexing once before releasing. “Let me see, baby,” he orders, dropping to his jean-covered knees at my side. Brie moves her hand away but I refuse to remove mine. I can tell he’s ready to lose it and that it won’t take much to send him over the edge. “Let me see, Hadley.”

“You’re mad,” I choke out. If I thought he looked pissed before, I know I was wrong when he hears my voice and his eyes fill with rage. His hand gently tugs mine from where I’m holding the towel and his gaze scans my neck, face, and eyes.

“Why?” he asks and I don’t get a chance to answer.

Brie answers for me. “He’s the father of two of her kids. She recently was forced to remove them from his home.”

“Christ,” Cobi growls, gathering me in his arms and picking me up off the ground. He stands, holding me protectively like a child and something in my chest cracks.

“Cobi…”

“Do not talk right now,” he bites out. “Gonna take you out to the ambulance. I want to make sure your windpipe is okay, and your eye.” My eye? What was wrong with my eye? I don’t get a chance to ask him, because he looks away from me and starts toward the door but stops suddenly and turns slightly. “Jacobs?”

“Yeah man?” a male voice returns and I look around Cobi’s shoulder to see him addressing one of the cops who is now standing over Mr. Shelp’s form with his boot in his back.

“You better put that motherfucker somewhere I can’t get my hands on him. I swear to God, if I get a hold of him I’m going to treat him to what he treated my woman to, only I won’t be pulled off or let the fuck up until I end his sorry fucking life.”

“I got you, Mayson,” Jacobs agrees, slapping a pair of cuffs on Shelp and then, not too gently, he and another officer jerk him up from the ground.

I look away and tuck my face into Cobi’s neck when Shelp’s eyes land on me and fill with hate, causing a shiver to slide down my spine. “He will not motherfucking touch you, baby. I swear to God, he will never fucking touch you.” Cobi’s voice rasps against my ear and tears start to slide down my cheeks. My chest aches as I fight back a sob and I twist my fingers into his shirt holding onto him as tightly as possible. When he sits down with me in his lap in the back of the ambulance, I listen to him and Brie as they talk. He tells her that she needs to let our boss know what happened, and that I won’t be in the office today. I don’t even try to argue with him and tell him that I have to work. I don’t think I could if I wanted to and I don’t. Everything I have been keeping locked away inside me is bubbling to the surface and tears I can’t control are running down my face in what feels like rivers. My body bucks on a quiet sob and Cobi holds me closer, telling me with his lips to my ear to let it all go. I bury my face against his chest and cry. I cry through the paramedics checking me over, cry while Cobi places me in his truck, and continue to cry when he tucks me into his bed before I eventually cry myself to sleep.

I awaken in the dark and lie there on my back, looking up at the ceiling and the light from the open blinds dancing across it. I can hear voices just outside the door talking quietly, and I know three of them are Kenyon, Brie, and Cobi. The others I can’t place. My eyes burn because I’ve cried so much and my throat’s sore and dry. With a pounding at the back of my skull that will only be cured with Tylenol, I toss back the blankets covering me and sit up. Carefully, I get out of bed and go to the bathroom. I search until I find something to take for my headache, splash water on my face, and then lean closer to the mirror, when my eye catches my attention. The white is blood red, probably from the pressure Mr. Shelp exerted when he was choking me. My eyes drop to my neck where a purple and ugly shade of green collar circles my throat. My head falls forward and I bring my hands toward my face, fingers curled into my palms. When I see the dried blood under my nails, my chest burns. I flip the hot water on, grab the hand soap, and start to scrub my hands together. My throat works as I try to swallow down a new wave of tears. When the blood doesn’t wash away, I whimper in distress, add more soap, and scrub harder. I hold my hands under the hot water and bend forward, resting my forehead to the cold counter, needing to calm down so I can breathe.

The water goes off and a strong arm wraps around me from behind. “I got you, baby,” Cobi says gently.

I shake my head frantically back and forth. “I can’t get his blood out from under my nails.”

“Let me see.” Grabbing my hips he moves me around to face him, then lifts me up to sit on the counter. I watch him take my hands between his and lift them to his lips. “There’s nothing there, baby. You got them all clean.”

“Why did he do that?” I drop my forehead to his chest with my hands still captured between us. “Why couldn’t he just do the right thing and clean himself up for his kids?” I draw in a shaky breath, trying to allow the feeling of him close relax me.

“You’ll never get those answers, babe. I think you know that better than most people do.” God, do I ever... At the same time I don’t at all, because I cannot imagine having a child, or children, taken from me because of my own stupidity then refusing to do everything within my power to get them back.

“Is he still in jail?” Panic fills me at the idea of him being out. I know the officers were taking him in when I was still crying on Cobi’s lap, but I don’t know if he was released on bail, because I’ve been asleep since Cobi brought me back to his place.

Releasing the hold he has on me, he slides his hands up between us then around each side of my neck tipping my face back toward him. His eyes move over me and his anger from earlier comes back as they land on my neck and the bruising there.

“He won’t see a judge until morning, and no way will I allow him to get off easy. He assaulted you in a public place with witnesses. Each and every person there agreed that if they hadn’t intervened he would have killed you.”

“Cobi,” I whisper, not sure what I can say to defuse the situation.

“I’m going to personally make sure he serves time, and a lot of it, for what he did and his reasoning for doing it.”

“Okay,” I agree, resting my palms against his chest where I can feel his heart pounding hard.

He drops his forehead to mine and keeps his gaze on mine as he speaks, “Life is not always roses. And I understand better than most that sometimes people slip up and make mistakes but I know—” His fingers on my neck slide ever so lightly across my skin. “—I know that if you want something better, you’ll get up, dust yourself off, find a way to right your wrongs, and make that happen.” His steady voice drops to a growl as he continues, “What you won’t do is blame someone else for up your fuck up and then take your pain out on them. He had no right to be pissed at you, no right to get in your space, and no fucking right to put his hands on you the way he did.”