“Well, I’ve changed.” Eva huffed out a sound of aggravation and tugged at the grip he had on her arm. “People can change, you know. Now...let me go.”
“Not until you agree to get rid of it.”
“Never!”
“Then you leave me no other choice.”
Everything happened at once. Alec shoved her against a wall with enough force that I lurched forward right along with Pick to help her out. Eva’s pained gasp haunted my ears as her douchebag baby daddy braced one forearm across her throat to choke her into place while he reared back his other fist and punched her in the stomach. Repeatedly.
She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. It echoed through my ears, telling me I’d remember that scream in my dreams for years to come.
Christ, the crazy bastard was serious when he said he wasn’t going to let her keep her baby.
Pick roared out an animalistic sound of denial and lunged past me, beating me to the bastard. Surprising Eva’s attacker with his shout, he ripped Alec away from her and spun him around.
“What the—” Alec stumbled, off balance.
Pick didn’t bother to introduce himself. He snatched up a wrench that had been sitting on a nearby table and wound his arm back before swinging and catching Alec square in the face with the business end of his steel.
Now it was the douchebag’s turn to scream. He grabbed his nose, and blood flew. Pick kicked him in the knee, making him stumble back into the wall of the garage not too far down from where Eva had crumpled to the floor, cradling her stomach. Then he pressed the flat side of the wrench hard against Alec’s throat with both hands. Face immediately turning twenty shades of purple, Alec clawed at Pick’s fingers, seeking oxygen.
“You just messed with the wrong girl, pal.” Pick kneed him in the stomach, right where Alec had hit Eva in hers.
I grabbed his shoulder to pull him off. But he wasn’t coming off.
“Doesn’t feel so good when it’s done to you, does it, fuck face?” Pick kneed him again, this time in the balls.
“Enough!” I had to use everything I had to yank him back, and I still barely managed to pull him away, wrapping both of my arms around his torso and giving a good, hard heave. But, Jesus, Pick was a hell of a lot stronger than I took him for. He might not have my mass, but there was a fuck-load of pissed-off muscle packed into his lean frame. I could only drag him a yard or two away before he absolutely resisted and tried to go back for more.
Alec choked out a sound and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He doubled over and folded to the ground.
“Touch her again, and I’ll kill you,” Pick roared, struggling against me. “Got it? I will fuck you up beyond all recognition.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, yanking on him harder to shake some sense into him. “Stop.”
That’s when Lowe finally decided to show his lazy ass up, opening the garage door from his house and shouting, “What the hell?”
“A little help,” I shouted back, still struggling to hold on to Pick.
When Pick spit at Alec, a wad of phlegm landed on the guy’s arms he was using to shield his face.
“Damn,” a struggling Lowe panted from beside me when he took one of Pick’s free arms to help propel him backward. “What the hell just happened?”
Pick pointed at the bleeding pile of wasted space cowering on the garage flood. “He hit her. In the stomach. He fucking hit her baby.”
Stunned silent for a good two seconds, Lowe finally said, “Eva?”
Remembering her, we all three turned to where I’d last seen Eva clutching her belly with her legs folded like broken table legs.
Crouching in front of her, Lowe’s woman grasped Eva’s shoulders. “E?” Reese’s voice trembled. “What happened? Are you okay? Oh, my God. Mason. She’s hurt bad.”
“I…I think I’m bleeding.” Breathing erratically, Eva removed her hand from her stomach to look down.
I looked down too and almost passed out when I saw the red drops splatted onto the concrete under her.
“Shit.” If the bastard had succeeded in killing her kid, Pick really would destroy him.
“No! No, no, no.” Shoving away from us, Pick nudged Reese aside and squatted in front of Eva. “Tinker Bell?” he said as gently as I’d ever heard him speak to anyone.
Eva lifted her face and stared at him from large, water-stained blue eyes. She looked so frightened and full of pain, I gulped down my own rising panic.