“Let her go,” Tony demanded.
“Take off, Wilson. Me and Cady are havin’ a chat.”
“Won’t say it again,” Tony warned.
“Don’t give a fuck what you wo—” Lonnie started.
He didn’t finish because Tony moved and suddenly I wasn’t in Lonnie’s hold.
Lonnie’s arm was ripped from around my neck, Tony was shoving me clear at the same time twisting Lonnie’s arm behind him and he didn’t stop there.
Lonnie grunted with pain in a way I felt that pain before his knees buckled and he went down, flat on his belly, cheek in the carpet, arm thrust up his back. Tony was standing with a foot planted either side but bent over him and using his leverage to continue to put the hurt on Lonnie.
And putting the hurt on Lonnie he was doing to the point I worried he’d dislocate Lonnie’s shoulder or actually break something.
I didn’t get the chance to shake myself out of the shock all of this caused and tell Tony to back off because Tony was speaking.
“I walk into the house holdin’ a woman’s hand, you don’t put your hands on her. You’re stupid enough to do that, I tell you to stop, you fuckin’ stop. But backin’ that shit up, she tells you to stop, you . . . fuckin’ . . . stop.”
“Got it, man, fuck, got it. Now get off me!” Lonnie grunted, the pain he was feeling not hidden in his words.
He’d gotten his other hand under him and was pushing up but with the contortions of his face, I didn’t think that was helping matters at all.
“No,” Tony returned. “Since I got your attention I’ll share you got yourself some and it isn’t red. Mine’s red. Yours is dark. Advice, man, take care of what you got or you’re gonna lose it.”
“Fuck off!” Lonnie bit out.
“You gonna leave Cady alone?” Tony pushed.
“Yeah, fuck! Now fuckin’ get off!”
“Good,” Tony clipped, and it looked like he twisted Lonnie’s wrist for no other reason than to underline a point that was already boldface and italicized before he shoved him deeper into the floor and straightened from him.
He walked over him, grabbed my hand but didn’t look at me.
He was looking beyond me, and when I hazily followed his eyes, I saw Lars was watching him closely.
“If this is your crew, bud, straight up, maybe it’s me who doesn’t want to move forward,” Tony declared, and with that he tugged my hand so I was closer to him.
I tipped my head back to look up at him and saw his attention now focused on me.
“Where’s your purse?” he asked.
“I—”
“Get it,” he ordered.
It didn’t occur to me to do anything other than hightail it to the couch where I’d tucked my purse and jacket behind an end table.
I nabbed them, shrugged on the jacket, returned to Tony, his fingers closed around mine again and he hauled me out the door, down the walk and to his truck. He unlocked and opened the passenger side door and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he lifted me up and dropped me in the seat.
He fortunately didn’t do that but I could feel the impatience wafting off of him as I climbed in, even if I did it hurriedly.
The door creaked loudly as he slammed it shut behind me and stalked around the hood.
He got in, started up and we chugged out into the road.
I sat silent and not because he was not hiding he was still pissed, and he was kinda scary when he was pissed.
I sat silent because he’d dropped Lonnie, who was my friend. Perhaps not a smart choice on my part but that didn’t negate the fact he still was, and Tony hurt and humiliated him in front of a house full of people, who might not be good people but they were people Lonnie wanted to get tight with.
Not to mention, with great skill and not a second thought, Tony had taken care of the two guys who were on me in The Trench.
This said to me that Tony was not a stranger to violence. He not only didn’t shy away from it, with very little ado, he instigated it to make his point and get what he wanted.
My mind was so taken up with all this, Tony was parking outside the courtyard to the condo before I realized he had also not spoken the whole ride home.
He got out, and I quickly did the same, but when I was out, he was right there, slamming my door shut with another loud shriek of the hinges.
As we walked to the front door, he didn’t hold my hand.
No.
He lifted the hem of my jacket at the back and with a firm hand at its small, guided me to the door.
That was not a brotherly thing to do. That wasn’t even a friendly thing to do.
That was what a girl’s guy would do.
I was fighting shaking for a variety of reasons while trying to get my keys out of my purse, but when I managed it, I didn’t even get the house key separated from the rest before Tony took them from my hand, found the right key and unlocked the door.
He pushed it open, turned to me, pressed me in and came in after me before I could open my mouth to speak in order to say something like, maybe I might need a few days (or a year or forever) to think about where my life was heading and who I was spending it with so I might need a little bit of space.
He slammed the door behind him and I jumped at the violence of the sound.
Freaked out now because I was alone in the house with an angry Tony who was kinda scary, I stood immobile right inside the door and watched his shadow move to a lamp on a table by his friend’s couch.
He switched it on, tossed my keys irately on the end table and turned on me.
“A guy’s up in your shit, Cady, you don’t want him there, you never, not fuckin’ ever say please,” he ground out.
I blinked up at his face, realizing he might be pissed at Lonnie.
But he was also pissed at me.
“To—” I didn’t quite start.
“Twice, I’ve seen that guy’s hands on you. Twice, I’ve seen it clear you don’t like it. And twice, you didn’t do dick about it.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“I said—”
“You don’t say shit. A man’s got his hands on you, hands you don’t want on you, you punch him in the fuckin’ throat or knee him in the goddamned balls.”
“He’s my friend,” I said quietly.
“He’s not your friend,” he shot back. “He’s your girlfriend’s boyfriend who wants to tag your ass. That’s not a friend.”
One could say he had a point with that.
“He’s also a moron, and not just because of that,” Tony carried on. “You need to distance yourself from him. You don’t, when he fucks up . . . and he’s gonna fuck up, Cady, that’s the kind of guy he is, it’s just waiting to see how huge that fuckup is gonna be . . . he’s gonna drag everyone in his wake right down with him.”
And here we were.
The crux of the matter.
So when I spoke again, I was whispering. “You hang with his people.”
One could say I’d been more than a little bit clueless, maybe my whole life.
But right then I didn’t miss the shutters slamming down over Tony’s eyes.
“You do,” I pushed carefully.
“I got my reasons,” he returned.
“Okay, well . . . okay,” I said, still not quite able to explore that mostly because I didn’t want to, maybe not ever. “But that . . . that . . .” I looked to the door even as I threw my whole arm in that direction in a vague way before I looked again to him. “We haven’t known each other very long but I’ve been with you maybe five times, Tony, and twice in those times you’ve gone straight to violence in front of me.”
His chin jerked back in his neck as his brows shot up and he bit out, “Are you being serious here?”
I stood my ground. “You did.”
“You wanted me to tap one of those guys who was grindin’ up on you in The Trench on the shoulder and say, ‘’Scuse me, you mind not bein’ a motherfuckin’ dick?’”
Another valid point.
“Okay, well, maybe the guys in The Trench don’t count,” I muttered.