Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2) (9 page)

“I’m supposed to be in the studio on Tuesday,” Tristan told her, looking grumpy again.
 
No, more like downright agitated.
 

“Well, you don’t got to be there, stud muffin,” she explained cheerfully.

“Yes, I do.
 
I’ll talk to the producer; see what we can work out.”
 

Her mouth twisted ruefully.
 
“Another one bites the dust.
 
Could you be more obsessed with your girl, man?”
 

“Doubtful,” he replied mildly.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

DANIKA

The shit really hit the fan the next morning.
 

I was digging through my overnight bag, fishing out workout clothes.
 
The plan was to hit the gym together, and then the shower, but we never got to do either.
 

I pulled out the black tank top that had been ripped down the middle, unfolding it before I realized which shirt it was.
 
Rolled up, it had looked roughly the same as my workout top.
 
I tried to rebury it just as quickly, but I was too late.
 

It was wrenched out of my hand before I could put it back.
 

Tristan loomed above me.
 
He’d been dressing, too, and wore nothing but some dark blue athletic shorts and tennis shoes.
 

He was shirtless and his chest and abdominal muscles clenched, his biceps twitching, as he gripped the shirt.
 
In spite of my better judgement, even knowing the day was about to be ruined, I was turned on by the sight.

“What is this?” he asked, unfolding the material, examining every inch of it, as though to make some sense of the rip that ran down the front.
 

I sighed, my eyes closing in dread.
 
“It’s a shirt,” I explained, my tone resigned.
 

“Why is it ripped in half?” he bit out.
 
I could already tell by his blank eyes that his temper had taken him to a place I couldn’t reach.
   

“Long story.”
 

He gave me a very pained smile, his eyes scary.
 
“I’ve got all day, sweetheart.”
 

“Let’s not do this, Tristan.
 
It’s over with, and it was nothing that was worth you going to jail for.”
 

“Fine.
 
Have it your way.
 
You give me no explanations, so I can only assume the absolute worst.
 
Just answer me one question.
 
Were you raped?”
 

“No!
 
It didn’t get that far.”
 

Far from appeasing him, that statement seemed to set him off and I realized that I’d finally admitted there was an attack, a statement that I could not take back.
 

He pointed at me, his hand shaking.
 
“Stay here.”
 

I sat on his bed, stunned by the turn of events for a solid ten minutes after he’d left.
 

I was spurred into action as I realized that I knew where he was going, and if I got to Jerry first, I could stop this train wreck in its tracks.
 

I started calling Bev’s phone, and then Jerry’s, over and over again on the drive, but no one was picking up.
 
When I got to the house, a stressed out and confused Bev met me in the driveway.
 
Tristan and Jerry had already left.

We didn’t hear a thing from them for hours.
 
And when we finally did, it wasn’t anything I wanted to hear.
 

Tristan was in jail.
 

TRISTAN

My world had narrowed down to a red haze, my mind working like a broken record, focused on three things:
 
Danika had been attacked, her shirt torn in half, her body bruised.

Some man had put his hands on her.
 

I couldn’t quite believe it, but I had no trouble reacting to it.
 

And her only explanation: It didn’t get that far.
 

I couldn’t wrap my mind around that, because it clearly implied that it
had
gotten somewhere.
 
The steering wheel of my car was some faceless man’s neck.
 
I held it in a death grip and drove straight to Jerry.
 

He answered the door himself, his face lighting up in a friendly smile at the sight of me.
 

I didn’t waste any time, holding the torn shirt up for him to see.
 
“Where did Danika go on Friday?”
 

“Friday?”
 
he asked, just looking confused.
 

“It may have been Thursday, but I doubt it, because I didn’t see the bruises on Friday, which makes me think they happened right before she came to see me.”

“Bruises?”
 

I shook the shirt at him.
 
“And a fucking torn shirt.
 
She was attacked, Jerry.
 
Where the fuck was she on Friday morning?”
 

He swallowed hard, looking ill as dawning horror overtook his face.
 
“Attacked?
 
My God…is she all right?”
 

“Where, Jerry?
 
Where did this happen?”
 

His hand covered his eyes as he rubbed at his temple.
 
“Goddammit, I knew I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”

It took all of my self-control not to put hands on him.
 
“Go where?” I growled.
 

He darted into the house, re-emerging with his keys.
 
“I’ll drive.”
 

I was in the passenger’s seat and glaring at him before he spoke again.
 

“She went to visit her mother Friday.
 
It must have happened there.
 
It’s in a very seedy area of town.”
 

“And you let her go there alone?”
 

“I see that I should have gone with her, but I never imagined she’d be attacked.
 
She was just going to ask her mom if she had her sister’s phone number.
 
A very quick visit.”

“Well, now you fucking know.
 
When I asked her if she’d been raped, she said, and I quote, ‘It didn’t get that far.’”

“Jesus Christ,” Jerry said, running a hand through his hair, and pulling out his phone.
 
He was speaking before I realized that he was calling the police.
 

“That was a mistake,” I told him as he hung up the phone.
 
“You just got me arrested, man.”
 

He sent me a baffled look.
 
“Well, don’t do anything that can get you arrested, and you’ll be just fine.”

“Someone put hands on her, ripped a fucking shirt off her.
 
Her shoulders, and one of her tits is completely covered in bruises.
 
How fucking likely do you think it is that if I see this guy, I’m keeping my hands to myself?”
 

“Well, fuck, at least you have your lawyer with you.”
 

That surprised a humorless laugh out of me.
 
“At least we have that.
 
Plead insanity for me when I kill him, because I’m losing my fucking shit right now.”
 

“Here’s the game plan.
 
We go there and wait for the cops, then tell them what we know.
 
You don’t ever even need to look at this guy.”
 

I shook my head.
 
“You’re delusional,” I muttered.
 

If I found whoever had put his hands on Danika, I was going to kill him.
 

“Well, I may be delusional, but at least I’m wearing a shirt,” he shot back.
 

I glanced down at my chest.
 
I didn’t even remember leaving the apartment, but apparently, I’d forgotten something.
 

“That’s fine.
 
I didn’t need to ruin one of my shirts with some stranger’s blood.”

“You sound like a nutcase, Tristan.
 
You’ve been attending anger management, right?
 
Can you try to use your exercises and tone it down a bit with the rage hard-on?”
 

“Some guy ripped her shirt off her, Jerry.
 
Popping a dude in the mouth for calling her hot is an anger management issue.
 
This right here is a necessary evil.
 
No one hurts Danika and gets away with it.
 
And I promise you this, when I get done with this guy, he won’t ever think about doing it again.”
 

Jerry sighed heavily, shooting me a glance that made him look like a disappointed father…Not that I’d have a clue what
that
really looked like.

We drove for forty-five minutes before we found the place, and I’d calmed a bit in that time, but my blood started pumping faster as we turned into a rundown trailer park.
 
This was no place for Danika, and Jerry should have known better then to let her come to a place like this alone.
 

I glared at him.
 

“It wasn’t this bad the last time I came here.”

“It’s a trailer park on the wrong end of Boulder Highway, man.
 
You should have used your fucking head and done the math.”

“You’re right.
 
You’re absolutely right.”
 

That satisfied me a bit, but not enough to dampen the rage inside of me for the man we were looking for.
 

I couldn’t have said whether I would have shown more restraint if we’d shown up and found the culprit, say, sleeping, but that isn’t how we found him.
 

We found him beating on Danika’s mother, being loud enough about it to shake the walls of their trailer.
 

I heard a female cry of pain as I opened my car door, and that was it.
 

I didn’t remember charging to the door, or even through it.
 

I did remember grabbing the fist the man had cocked back, bringing my other hand to his back, and wrenching it hard enough to dislocate a shoulder, then sending the abuser flying across the room.
 

I advanced on him, keeping my arms at my sides as he came back to his feet, clutching his limp shoulder, his face twisted in agony.
     

He took a swing at me with his good arm, and I let his fist make solid contact with my jaw.
 

He had a hell of a left hook, and my neck snapped to the side with the impact.
 

I grinned like a maniac as I jerked my neck back to look at him.
 

It was crazy, but I was so angry that I
wanted
to feel some pain.
 
I wanted this son of a bitch to put up a good fight before I took him down.
 

“Who the fuck are you, and what is your problem?” the man growled.
 

“You’re my fucking problem.”
 

I took two steps forward, kneeing him in the stomach hard enough to have him doubled over and coughing.
 

I gripped a handful of his greasy hair in my hand, pushing down hard while I raised a knee.
 
I heard his nose break with a wet crunch.
 

I pulled his head straight, and his fist caught me in the stomach.
 
Good
.
 
I wanted a fight more than a beating, and it had been starting to feel pathetic.
 

I never let go of his hair as my fist met his jaw, then his mouth.
 

I felt a few of his teeth give at the contact, and smiled right into the motherfucker’s face.
   

“You remember the girl you roughed up on Friday?” I asked him, bashing his face into the trailer’s tiny stovetop, once, twice.
 

“You remember her?” I asked again when he didn’t answer.
 
He was too busy swallowing mouthfuls of his own blood to talk.
 

“Yeah,” he wheezed, blood flowing freely through his nostrils, and out his mouth.
 

“If you make it through today, if I decide to let you fucking
breathe
after this, I want you to remember one thing:
 
You touch that girl again, you’re dead.
 
Do you understand?”
 

“I-I d-do, man.
 
I understand.”
 
He seemed to mean it.

Unfortunately, the memory of Danika’s breast, covered in bruises from this man’s big hand, came into my head again, and I started beating.
 

I couldn’t have catalogued all of the blows after that, but he stopped fighting long before I stopped wailing on him, and the only reason I stopped was because not one, but two Tasers had me flopping like a fish on the ground.
 

Things got fuzzy, and I was cuffed and in the back of a police cruiser before I had my wits back.
 

“Not cool guys,” I told the two cops in front.
 
“Tasers fucking suck.”
 

One of them, an overweight sandy-haired guy, looked back at me, his eyes widening.
 

I smiled at him.
 

I could tell that he thought I was a crazy fucker.
 
I was shirtless, covered in blood, coming off a stun-gun ass kicking, and grinning like a fool.
 

I’d think I was crazy, too.
 

“That stun-gun did a hell of a lot less damage than you did to that other guy.”