Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(17)

“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 f**king torn shirt. She was attacked, Jerry. Where the f**k 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 f**king 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 f**king shirt off her. Her shoulders, and one of her tits is completely covered in bruises. How f**king likely do you think it is that if I see this guy, I’m keeping my hands to myself?”

“Well, f**k, 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 f**king 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.