My fingers curl around the bars. “Touch my wife again—”
“And you’ll what? Hit the bars?” He gets close enough so that his breath billows across my face. “Face it, fuckwad. She belongs to me. There’s no coincidence that she left me right around the time she got pregnant.”
I laugh at the logic spinning this brain. This guy is as crazy as he is dangerous. “She chose me.”
“Maybe, but I’m taking her back.”
He turns away from me, giving me a final grin over his shoulder as he walks to the door and pounds it. The bars vibrate, rattling like gongs as I tear into them, screaming until my voice is hoarse, until I can’t even make out what the fuck I’m screaming.
* * *
My fist smashes against the door and it flies open, banging against the opposite wall. Wise guys look over their shoulders at the intrusion, scowling at me for letting the cold air inside. I power through the bar, only having eyes for the man behind the counter, who looks up at me with a smile.
“Hey, Tony. You got out fast.”
I push the waitress who offers me a drink aside and grab his collar as his face barely registers surprise, slamming him against the wall.
“Where the fuck is she?”
The bottles rattle behind him as he gives me a venomous look. “How the fuck should I know?”
“WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?”
I shove his chest hard, and his arm knocks over a bottle of Windsor Canadian whiskey. It falls like a rock and shatters, spraying cheap whiskey all over the floor. I seize the broken neck of the bottle and lunge at Tommy. His eyes widen as I grab the hair on his head and dig the broken, jagged edges of glass against his neck. Pinpricks of blood well up around the sharp pieces and he winces.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I asked you to watch over my wife.”
“I think you can cut the act now. Johnny knows everything.”
“THIS IS NOT A FUCKING ACT!”
Every rough syllable digs the glass deeper into Tommy’s skin, and I hear a female scream behind me—one of the waitresses. Male voices urge me to calm down, or they otherwise laugh at the spectacle I’m giving them.
“Calm down, Tony—”
My voice dials down to a gritty whisper, and Tommy’s anxious hazel eyes find mine. I don’t give a fuck about slitting his throat, right here, right now, and he knows it.
“I will kill you right fucking here if you don’t tell me where my wife is.”
Tommy’s throat bulges and he swallows hard. “She left with him, all right?”
With him.
They let her leave with that scumbag.
“Can I ask you something? Why the fuck do you care about her?”
The edge of the broken half of the bottle smashes over Tommy as I lunge at his face. I let him drop to the ground as he cradles his head.
He looks up at me through a haze of broken bits of glass and blood. “I’m going to kill you.”
He lunges at my middle and I fall backward, my back hitting the hard ground. Pierre and Francois suddenly materialize out of thin air, grabbing Tommy’s arms before he can swing a fist. An animalistic look snarls Tommy’s face, and it takes four guys to hold him back.
The energy and the fight flows out of me when I realize Elena probably left with him because he promised to drop charges against me. He coerced her, but no one would have known or cared to stop her.
“She’s pregnant, and you let her leave with that psycho.”
Tommy’s chest pulses as he struggles against the guys holding him. “It’s a fucking scam!”
“No, it’s not—that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, you stupid fuck!”
They finally let him go as I slump against the bar. It’s as though he slid a knife between my ribs. Then I think of the girl I loved when I was seventeen, and how she turned up dead in the streets. I felt as if the pain would kill me, but it’s nothing compared to losing Elena.
I bury my face in my hands. The bar goes quiet—really quiet. No one’s ever seen me like this and I’m aware that I must look like a pussy, but I don’t care. She’s everything to me, and I can’t find her.
My shoulders shake and my eyes burn as if they’re on the verge of tears. I feel out of control—completely fucking lost. Mad rage twists my guts, and I’m half tempted to walk to Le Zinc right now and put a bullet in Johnny’s fucking head for allowing her to leave.
A gruff voice whispers in my ear as someone pats my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t.”
I lift my head miserably and see Tommy’s battered face filled with remorse.
It doesn’t do fuck all for me.