Rushing the Goal (Assassins #8)(121)

“I mean, this is all pointless. Nothing is going to change. I’m not taking her to hockey, and I’m not letting you speak to her. That’s final,” Rick stated, and while Lucy was ready to fly off the handle, Benji spoke first.

“Why is that?”

“’Cause I don’t want to. She’s with me. Don’t cut into my time.”

“It’s two hours on a Saturday! Hell, you can keep her two hours later on a Sunday if that will make it better.”

“No,” he said simply and Lucy’s blood boiled.

Benji, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber as he said, “Okay, I understand that you want your time with her. But what about what she wants? She loves hockey, she wants to play, and Lucy paid a lot to get her started, I’m sure. So can we at least pick her up for hockey? Bring her right back?”

“We?” Rick asked and then he laughed. “Dude, I’m trying to make it so you never even see my daughter.”

Sucking his teeth, Benji glared and Lucy saw him cracking. “And why is that?”

“Because you’re a f*cking alcoholic who preys on women with kids to replace the family you f*cking lost,” Rick seethed, taking a step forward and leaving Lucy gasping for breath. How in the f*cking world…? “And that little girl is mine. You can have Lucy. I don’t want her, but Angie, you can’t have her.”

“What in the hell? How dare you?” Lucy yelled and she was going to kill him, rip him limb from limb. But before she could even get close enough, Benji had his arms around her, stopping her.

“Lucy, stop!”

“He can’t talk to you like that. You don’t even f*cking know him. He is twenty times the man, hell, the father figure to Angie, that you’ll ever be,” she yelled, her body shaking with anger.

“Lucy, Angie can see you. Stop,” Benji demanded as Rick laughed, and Lucy went still. She looked back, and thankfully, Angie was looking down. But he was right. She couldn’t be acting like this. Letting her go, Benji turned, looking at Rick. “While you are right, I am a recovering alcoholic and I did lose my family, I don’t want to steal your daughter from you. I just want her to be happy. And I’m asking you, please, work something out here.”

But Rick shook his head. “Want to work something out? Take me to court.”

“We would like to avoid that, for Angie’s sake,” he tried, but Rick shook his head.

“I don’t care. I want full custody.”

Lucy laughed out loud. “Over my dead f*cking body.”

“Fine, we’ll see in court.”

“Yeah, we will,” Lucy snapped, her eyes blazing, and Rick’s brows pulled together, surprised. “Let’s go.”

Benji paused, though, and turned to Rick. “Are you sure? Because she’ll be on the phone with her lawyer as soon as we get in that truck.”

Rick just glared, shaking his head. “Fuck you. You know nothing about me. I’m loaded now, and I’ll hire the best lawyers to get my daughter—”

“We’re done,” Benji said, turning his back and leading Lucy to the truck, but Rick was apparently not done.

“You won’t get what you want. Who is going to let you stay around a kid when you’re an alcoholic? A sleazeball, washed-up hockey player? They would be stupid to—”

But before Rick could finish, Benji slammed her door shut, and Lucy couldn’t hear Rick since Benji had the music up. She watched as Benji went around the car, Rick still yelling. But Benji seemed unfazed as he got in, slamming the door behind him. Putting the car in drive, he pulled away, his grip on the wheel so tight, his veins started to pop up.

“I’m so—”

“Don’t,” he said sternly as he stopped at the intersection. Turning in his seat, he looked back at Angie. “You all right, sunshine?”

“Yeah,” she answered, her voice full of despondence. “My dad wouldn’t take me to hockey yesterday. Coach Adler is gonna be so mad.”

“No, not at all. I’ll call him, don’t worry,” Lucy said quickly. She turned in the seat as Benji took off. “Or Benji will call since they’re friends.”

Angie didn’t look up as she shrugged. “He grounded me because I screamed at him for wanting to go. Then he wouldn’t let me call you and I cried, and he screamed at me that I was a baby. Then Nina and Heidi got to go shopping and to Chuck E. Cheese, but I had to stand in the corner.”

Lucy’s heart stopped. “The corner?”

“Yeah, ’cause I’m bad.”

“You’re not bad,” Lucy said, rubbing her daughter’s knee. “You’re perfect.”

“I don’t know, Mommy. He was so mean to me and wouldn’t let me do anything. I told him I wanted to go home, and that only made him madder.”

“I’m sorry.”

Still not looking up, Angie shrugged. “I don’t know why he has to be mean.”

“I don’t either.”

“But Grandpa did call me,” she said, looking up then, and her sweet face was flushed, visibly upset. “It was nice to hear from him.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, reaching out and rubbing Angie’s face. “Maybe he’ll come to the game Saturday.”