Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(173)

The doorbell rang again, making my anger blister into fury. She just wasn’t going to quit.

I flung the front door open, completely incensed. “What do you want?”

Instead of seeing Melissa Werner, I was staring at the barrel of a gun.

I should have tried to close the door; I should have tried to do a lot of things. Scream. Run. A flash of clarity told me that any of those choices would get me shot. My first instinct after the flood of panic was to back up—put distance between it and me.

The girl pointing the gun at my face followed me inside, shoving the door closed behind her.

My mind raced trying to recall if I knew her. She looked familiar but my panicked mind could not place her. A past patient?

“Please don’t shoot.” My hands rose in front of me. I kept backing up. I knew if I tried to run, I wouldn’t be fast enough.

“Shut up,” the girl ordered.

She was rail thin and petite. Straight brown hair fell past her shoulders. I bumped into the leather chair in the living room. “What do you want?”

Vacant eyes that held no remorse stared back at me. She looked strung out, possibly on drugs.

She shook the gun at me. “You couldn’t just go away, could you? You just kept at him and at him and at him and at him. He’s mine! Understand? MINE!”

“Okay, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. You stole my boyfriend, you f*cking bitch, and now he doesn’t even come to see me. He wasn’t yours! He was mine!” She rubbed her head, pulling on her own hair. “Why would you do that?”

Her mouth continued to tremble as though she were having a conversation with herself.

“Easy. Let’s talk about this.” I’d dealt with enough mentally ill people over the years to recognize the signs. “You’re talking about Adam, right?”

She shook the gun again, scowling. “Do not say his name. Do not. You have no right. No right to say his f*cking name.”

“Okay, sorry.” I kept my hands up, scrambling for my own sense of clarity. One wrong step and I knew I’d be dead. “I didn’t know he was yours. You have to believe me.”

Her head tilted, regarding me anew.

“He’s not here.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know that. And I know you know who I am.”

I took another step back. “He, um, never said anything to me about you. I swear.”

“Liar!” She scoffed. “You knew. He paraded you right in front of me at the diner so do not stand there and lie to me.”

“Diner?” My mind reeled. “The Parkway Diner?”

The gun rattled in her hand. “He used to come in every morning to see me. Every. Morning. For months we saw each other. He was falling in love with me. And then you come along and suddenly what? I don’t exist? I don’t matter? I’m supposed to just take that?”

I found myself shaking my head, agreeing with the psychopath. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”

“You’re sorry?” She charged forward, forcing me deeper into the living room.

I shielded myself, fearing she’d strike or shoot. “Yes. Stop. Please.”

“You’re f*cking around with my man and you’re sorry. Did you know that I’m pregnant?” Her face twisted, landing somewhere between pride and righteous rage.

I glanced over her flat, shapeless body. “You’re pregnant?”

She nodded at me as if I were stupid. “That’s right. We’re having a baby, me and Adam, so you need to quit interfering and leave him alone. Get out of our lives.”

Impossible.

Adam had stated their “one time” had happened months before we’d started dating. I cautioned her to stay where she was. “Does Adam know?”

“Of course he knows. I text him every day.”

“You text him?”

“You think you’re special? He’s mine.” She growled at me. “We want to be together but you just won’t go away. He told me over and over again how he was going to leave you but he’s too afraid of how you’d react to do it himself.”

She was beyond delusional.

“So I’m doing this for him. He doesn’t love you, got it? He loves me. He. Loves. Me.”

I shrank back, fearing that her gun would discharge. “Okay. I got it. Let me get my keys and I’ll go. I’ll leave here and you’ll never see me again. I promise.”

She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand, panting hard while muttering to herself. I’d hoped she was considering letting me go.

My cell rang in my back pocket, startling her. She shook the gun at me. I didn’t know if she’d shoot if I tried to reach for it. I decided to slip it out of my pocket anyway. “It’s him.” I showed her the screen, taking another risk. “Let me just answer it, tell him I’m leaving and you two can be together. Okay?”

I thought she was going to pull the trigger. “You try anything, I swear I will f*cking shoot you.”

I hit the button, hesitantly lifting it to my ear.

She stepped closer, sending ripples of terror through my nerves.

“Hi.” My voice cracked.

“Hey, Doc. What are you wearing?” Adam joked. “Listen. Cherise and Marcus want us to come over for dinner on Saturday. We got anything going on?”