Page 10 of Freed By Wrath

“Eight years.” Her voice is steady in the way that things are steady right before they’re not. “Eight years of adjusting. Eight years of making myself smaller so you’d stop looking at me like I was too much.”

Daniel opens his mouth.

“Don’t.” The word hits him square. “Don’t do the voice. Don’t do the face. I’ve had eight years of the voice and the face, and I am done.”

I don’t move. I’m not sure I’m breathing.

She takes a step forward, and Daniel takes one back, which tells me everything I need to know about who he actually is when the careful construction comes down.

“You told me—” Her laugh comes out sharp and completely humorless. “You told me the things I loved were things people loved before they figured out who they were. You smiled at my plans and dreams like I was a lost cause, and I thanked you for it. I actually thanked you.”

Oh, motherfucker.

“Only for me to find you wrapped up with this bitch?”

“Do not—“

“Shut the fuck up.” She says it like she’s reading it off a wall. Flat. Final. “I don’t want to hear you. I don’t want to—”

“Oh c’mon.” Serena talks now. Well, she purrs to Daniel. “The cat is out of the bag, darling. No reason to try and smooth things over with her.”

“No, that’s not—”

Serena’s expression doesn’t change. That’s the thing about her: she doesn’t flinch. She absorbs impact and files it away and waits for her opening, and I know exactly when she finds it because her chin drops a fraction and her eyes sharpen.

She says something low that I don’t catch, and Valerie goes very still.

Then her grip shifts on the wine bottle and she jumps towards them like a fucking warrior.

I’m already moving.

Four steps. Five.

I come in from the side before she completes the arc, hand closing around her wrist, and she spins toward me with all of it redirected instantly—the fury, the clarity, and for one suspended second it’s aimed directly at me.

I don’t flinch.

I take the bottle from her hand, set it down, and before she can process what’s happening, I have her over my shoulder.

“Put me down.”

Not happening.

I keep walking, and she beats at my back with both fists, which I respect enormously, and keeps going with a string of profanity that I also respect.

“Hey.” Daniel’s voice. “Leave her alone.”

I stop. Turn around slowly to find him adjusting his glasses and being followed by, of course, my ex and his future headache.

He’s standing six feet away with the expression of a man who has just remembered he’s supposed to be the protagonist of this situation. Jacket straight. Chin up. The practiced authority of someone who has never once been hit in the face.

I don’t put her down. I’m not letting her go.

So I close the distance to Daniel in three steps, and before he knows what’s happening, I’m punching him straight in the face.

Daniel goes down sideways into a catering table that takes two champagne flutes and a bowl of punch with it.

He doesn’t get up.