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“I’m not standing here while he—”
Bliss reaches her before she can get around Rider. She catches Charm by both arms and forces her to look away from me.
“You can’t be in this, Cee.”
Charm stares at her. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Yes.” Bliss doesn’t retreat from the fury gathering in Charm’s face. “This is his. There is no place for you in this fight.”
“He’s Lance.”
“Then fight him tomorrow. Fight him every day for the rest of your life if you want, but this is what he did to Ryan. You don’t get to take it from him because you can’t stand not being in control of what happens next.”
Charm jerks against Bliss’s grip. “I’m trying to protect him.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” I say. “I needed you to stand beside me when I asked. Tonight, I need you to stay the fuck out of my way.”
The pain on her face lands, but I refuse to carry it for her. Not while my blood is still in my mouth and the man who made moving forward impossible stands in front of me believing Charm’s fear will save him again.
Lance straightens his cuff as though he didn’t just throw a punch in the middle of a wedding celebration. “Look at what you’ve done to her. She is terrified.”
“She’s terrified of you.”
“No. She’s finally seeing you clearly.” His confidence returns with each second I don’t retaliate. “You surround yourself with men willing to excuse you and women foolish enough to romanticize you. You call yourself Chicano as though heritage absolves your behavior. You tattoo your mother’s name across your body and pretend that makes her failure noble.”
Briggs takes a step forward. “You need to shut the fuck up.”
Lance looks at him. “Another damaged boy confusing dependency with loyalty. I understand why Ryan keeps you close. Standing beside you allows him to feel functional by comparison.”
Briggs goes completely still.
That does it.
Not the punch. Not my mother. Not the foster homes or every calculated word Lance chose because he believed he could drag my childhood out in front of these people and make me ashamed of surviving it.
The satisfaction on his face after hurting Briggs does it.
“You should look at me now,” I tell him.
Lance turns his attention back to me.
“You keep mistaking restraint for fear. Cade warned me because he knows exactly what I can do. Briggs told me you weren’t worth it because he knows what it will cost me afterward. They aren’t protecting me from you.” I step close enough that he has to lift his chin to maintain eye contact. “They are protecting you from me.”
His second swing is sloppier than the first.
I see it form in his shoulder before his fist leaves his side. I move outside the strike, catch his wrist, and use his momentum against him. My other hand closes over the back of his neck. One turn of my hips takes his balance. The next puts him facedown against the stone with his arm locked behind his back and my knee planted between his shoulder blades.
It happens so quickly that the gasp around the terrace comes after Lance is already on the ground.
He struggles once. I increase the pressure until his breath leaves him in a strangled grunt.
“Stop moving,” I say.
“You fucking animal.”
“That was two.” I lean closer without applying another ounce of force. I don’t need to. He can feel how easily I own his body from this position. “I told you the first one was free.”
Cade and Briggs remain a few feet away. Neither tries to pull me off him because they can see what everyone else can see now. I haven’t lost control. Lance did. I’m not beating him bloody or feeding the rage demanding that I drive his face into the stone. I’m holding him exactly where his own decision put him.
