Page 85 of Sniper's Pride

“Take one step closer to her and I’ll throw you back out that door. Headfirst.”

David peered up at Griffin.

And had to crane back his neck to do it.

Mariah felt dizzy all over again. She was sitting there in a hospital bed in an obnoxious hospital gown, her hair a disaster she wasn’t prepared to confront, one side of her face swollen and bruised, and the full weight of everything that had happened rolling back over her in deeply unpleasant waves—

But all she could think about was the difference between the two men standing at the end of her hospital bed.

On the one side, there was David. Boyish-faced, preppy David, who kept trim on his treadmill and out on the golf course. He was in his usual uniform of khakis and a collared shirt. In peach today, which seemed to call undue attention to how smooth and soft and manicured he was.

And on the other side, there was Griffin. He looked like some kind of avenging angel, dressed like the weapon he was, all packed muscle. He towered over David. And he was so much more solid and lean, he made David look even softer than he already was.

The longer she stared at them, the calmer and more dangerous Griffin looked.

And the more agitated David became.

“You can call off your attack dog, Mariah,” David snapped. He didn’t wait for her to reply. He swiveled his head back around to Griffin, then nodded toward the door. “You can wait outside, brother.”

Griffin snorted. “You’re not a member of my family. And I’m not going to tell you again. One step closer and you’re out of here.”

It took David a moment to let that settle in. To accept what must have been the challenging reality that Griffin wasn’t playing around. Mariah saw the very moment he understood that.

Just as she saw the next moment, when he decided to ignore Griffin, as if Griffin were nothing but a lowly member of his staff.

“You can’t imagine what they’re saying,” David said, his tone haughty and furious. A tone Mariah knew well. “You’re going to have to clean this up, and fast.”

She shrugged, mostly because he’d once lectured her all the way home from a dinner party clear on the other side of Atlanta because she’d shrugged in public. He’d claimed it broadcast how low class she was. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This is obviously some kind of revenge fantasy playing out here.” David forced out an anemic chuckle. “I sympathize, I do. You’re angry at me, and you want to hurt me. But you really shouldn’t have dragged my father into this.”

It was funny—or maybe the word she was looking for wassad—that she’d ever been the kind of silly girl who’dlooked at David and seen him as handsome instead of weak. Charming instead of self-involved.

Her mother might have forgiven her for leaving Two Oaks with David. Mariah wasn’t sure she could forgive herself.

And she discovered that the longer she looked at him, really, truly looked at this man she’d been married to for a decade, she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Somewhere along the way—maybe in the trunk of a car headed down a dirt road toward her own death—he’d lost any power he’d had over her.

She expected that to feel like a victory. Instead, it was more complicated.

Something like sorrow.

But she still didn’t want anything to do with him.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, trying to keep her voice as kind as she could. After all, he’d found out some nasty things about his father today, and she knew how he idolized Walton. “But I don’t think you should be in here. The police are going to want to talk to me, and I don’t think they’ll like that you came by to...” She let her head drop to one side. “Why did you come by again?”

“I don’t know what happened to you. Maybe you paid your goon here to rough you up. For all I know, that’s what you like these days.” Griffin made a sound that Mariah could only describe as a growl, and David inched away from him. Closer to the door, luckily for him. “Mariah. You need to think this through. It’s your word against my father’s, and I don’t know who you think is going to believe you.” He made that chuckling sound again.“You.”

“They don’t have to believe me,” Mariah replied,trying her best to see what she’d found so appealing in him. Trying to remember when she’d believed marrying him was the happily ever after she’d hardly dared believe in before. But all she saw was an angry little man with thinning hair and a sulky mouth. Who clearly wanted nothing more than to bully her. “But I think they’ll probably believe all the men he hired, none of whom are likely to waste a single second risking themselves to keep Walton Lanier out of jail.”

“They’re already flipping,” Griffin confirmed, deadpan. Only his dark eyes glittered. “One after the next. Like ugly dominoes.”

“It will never stick,” David declared with great confidence. “My father is a pillar of Atlanta society. He has friends everywhere. He’s not a scorned woman looking for a payout. I don’t know that I believe anyone did this to you. Maybe you did it to yourself.”

“In a manner of speaking, I surely did.” Mariah surrendered to the full-throated glory of her real drawl. The one that David had always hated so much that she’d trained herself out of it. She sat up straighter, hoping her hair was as big and curly and messy as it felt. She smiled at him, ignoring the tugging pain on the swollen side of her face, because she knew that would irritate him, too. Ugly women shouldn’t smile,he’d told her once. It’s plain offensive.“I had the temerity to marry you. Your daddy told me himself how against our marriage he was. But I didn’t beat myself up, David.”

He started to speak, but she wasn’t done.

“All I had to do was be nice to him, and when he raped me, he’d go easy. That was what he promised me.” She kept her gaze trained on David, though she was aware of the way Griffin went from stone to something harder.More terrifying. “But I wasn’t that nice to him. That’s why he did this to my face. And he had every intention of making it a full-body experience, then inviting all those other men to join in. That’s who your father is.”

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