Page 69 of Point of No Return

“He won’t even sleep in the same room as you,” Aleks continues, and I wince.

“Give me the glass, Aleks,” she says, and his hoarse laugh is his reply.

“This one?” he asks, and I’m between them just as glass shatters. The glass is in shards at her feet, and Aleks grins when he sees me. He stumbles back as he shakes his head. “Finally decided to show up, huh?”

I take one look at him, dress shirt haphazardly buttoned, hair a mess, lipstick staining the side of his neck, and I know he’s shitfaced.

“If you have a problem, we’ll talk. Leave her out of it.”

“You mean like we have been? Are we gonna have another one of our talks, Skar?” he laughs, stumbling forward and bracing a hand against my chest.

I don’t budge, but I use his momentum to my advantage, yanking the bottle out of his grip and gently shoving him back.

“You’re drunk,” I tell him. “Sleep it off.”

“Fuck you,” he pushes a finger toward me again before looking at Charlotte.

“I bet he hasn’t even fucked you yet, has he? Skar Benenati. Keeps you around awhile and then- drops ya. Out of nowhere. You know who else did that?” He reaches for the bottle again, but I keep it out of his reach, knowing that he’s moments away from an outburst. “Completely devoid of attachment. Of feeling anything. Guess who, Skar.”

When I don’t say anything, he looks at her again, only fueling my rage. “Charlotte? Guess.”

Her voice is gentle. “Aleks, let’s just go to bed. Please-”

“Emotionless. Just like Dad. For how much you hated him, you’re just like him-”

My patience thins to a thread. “Enough.” He drunkenly moves to shove me, and before he can even properly react, I have his chest against the wall, arms trapped behind his back in an iron-like vice. “You really don’t want to pick this fight, Aleks.”

“Get the hell off of me!” he struggles, but his squirming is pointless. I have him pinned, face pressed into the wall.

“We’ll talk in the morning. After you sleep it off,” I release him, shoving him through the door in one fluid movement, and though he looks entirely ready to turn back and swing, he slumps forward his first step toward me.

He sobers, looking at the rage evident in my body before deciding better of it. “Whatever,” he stumbles out of the kitchen, and I wait until he’s disappeared before letting my composure relax.

“Shit,” Charlotte hisses behind me, and when I turn, I find her clasping her foot in her hand.

The glass.

She catches me staring, dropping her foot and balancing all her weight on her opposite leg. “I didn’t realize things were so tense between you guys. I’m sorry.”

She winces, and I’m all too aware of the fact that red is dripping from her foot now. Blood pools over the shards of glass, the cuts obviously deep.

And she’s worried about us?

“You’re okay?” My eyes drop to her thin sleep shirt and then to her silk bottoms that reveal the long, lean line of her legs.

She laughs, an inside joke I’m clearly not in on. “I’m okay.”

I approach cautiously, and when she doesn’t flinch away from me, I take it as a good sign to touch her. Setting the pistol on the counter behind us, I offer her my arm.

“Hold onto me.”

Her eyes widen for all of a moment before she begrudgingly laces her arms around my neck. I scoop her up like she weighs nothing, lifting her over the glass as the feeling of her body crashes into me. I feel her warmth, her scent like hot honey and vanilla.

“He’s taking it pretty rough,” she clings to me as I walk her to the opposite side of the island and place her beside the sink.

I flip the lights on, swiping a towel from the counter before gently clasping her ankle and lifting her heel to look at it under the light. I try not to think about how close we are. If I press closer, I’d be between her thighs- close enough to slide those shorts up her legs andfeelher.

I shake the thought away, narrowing my eyes at the wound. There’s at least two shards I have to dig around for. Even then, it will probably only bleed more.

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