“What?” Aaron’s dad snapped.

“Judge Neiland, were charges filed?” she repeated slowly.

“No, but—”

“No,” she cut him off sharply. “And this man you speak of that Mr. Steele allegedly assaulted, is he not currently incarcerated without bail for ordering the murder of a young pregnant woman?” Angie asked.

My back went straight.

“That’s beside the point,” Mr. Neiland hissed.

“So he is,” Angie stated.

“It’s beside the point,” Mr. Neiland bit out.

“You’re right. It is,” she conceded but didn’t let it go. “Now, this witness you say you have, they were at an illegal underground fight?”

Aaron’s father pressed his lips together.

Angie didn’t let up.

“Did this witness, say, happen by this illegal underground fight while they were taking an evening stroll, then, perchance, they immediately phoned it in to the police, considering it was an illegal underground fight where an assault allegedly occurred?”

I watched Aaron’s father glare at Angie.

I heard Angie address Aaron’s attorney. “Steven, again, would you like a moment to confer with your client?”

I looked to Aaron.

He was staring at the table.

Sitting there, listening to this nastiness, not participating, and staring at the stupid table!

“I love him,” I announced.

Aaron’s head came up.

“Carissa,” Angie said quietly, her hand back to my arm on the table.

Aaron’s father made a disgusted noise.

But I was looking into Aaron’s eyes.

“I loved you once, and you destroyed me.”

“Carissa, please let me do the speaking,” Angie urged beside me.

I didn’t look away from Aaron.

“This is it,” I told him. “I’m done. I won’t allow you to hurt me anymore. Hurt me directly. Hurt me through Carson. Hurt me using my friends. Hurt me at all. Hurt them at all. I know what this means,” I threw up a hand slightly, indicating our vile meeting. “You’re set on destroying me. Again. Taking away the happiness I worked hard for. So congratulations, Aaron. You’ve finally done it. You’ve turned love to hate. I didn’t want that. Not for me or you and especially not for Travis. I know it’s not nice to hate someone, but I can say it’s now official. Your willingness to be a party to this has made that so. What will be will be what you force it to be. I’ll deal with it. If you force me to go down, I’ll go down fighting. If you take everything from me, I’m okay with that as long as I keep hold of my baby. But there will be nothing that will make me stop hating you. I’ll see you again only when I have to see you. Other than that, I hope I never see you.”

I stood and Aaron’s eyes followed me.

They were wounded and suffering.

Mine held his steady as they did because I didn’t care even a little bit what he was feeling.

“I can’t imagine it, what would make a man who has the love of a woman, a woman who wants nothing but to live a life loving him and the babies they make, strive to turn that to hate. If I could stand the sight of you, I’d be interested in you explaining that to me. But I can’t stand the sight of you. So that will remain a mystery.” I looked immediately to Angie and told her, “I’m sorry, Angie, but I have to go.”

She nodded. “Go, Carissa.”

I turned away, felt them and I hated them too.

But they came, the tears, as I walked blindly to the door, too overwhelmed by what I was feeling, the fear crawling inside me, to even worry that I might trip and make a fool of myself.

I didn’t.

I got to the door, put my hand on the handle, and pulled it open.

I looked over my shoulder one last time at the man I once loved.

Then I walked away.

Aaron

“They hardly have a leg to stand on.”

“Judge Neiland, we had a plan. You did not stick to the plan. That did not go well. Now, I urge you to listen to me…”

Aaron Neiland wasn’t listening as he strode ahead of his father and his attorney.

It was his father’s idea to come that day.

He hadn’t seen Carissa recently. He didn’t know how she’d changed.

And the pompous fuck wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Aaron didn’t give a shit if he came or not. The whole play was a grandstand so he could see Carissa’s face when they told her they were taking her ass to court.

He did this because he wanted to watch her start to cave.

She was all about Travis. All about family. So he knew she would cave.

So he was shocked as shit that she didn’t.

He walked right to the elevators but as he did, he saw it.

And when he saw it, he didn’t stare. He looked away immediately.

But it was burned on his brain anyway.

He knew where Angie’s office was in that suite.

Fuck, he should have taken the long way.

But he didn’t.

So he saw it.

Carissa pressing her face into Carson Steele’s chest, the man’s head bent, lips to her hair, her shoulders shaking with her tears. He was holding Carissa close with one arm, hand buried in her ringlets, Aaron’s fucking son held tight in his other arm.

That vision was obliterated by another one he also did not like—seeing that last look of hurt and hate thrown his way through her tears—as Aaron got in the elevator.

The doors closed on him, his father, and his friend and colleague, Steven.

“Son, we’ll go back to the office and—” his dad began.

He turned his head and caught his father’s eyes. “Please, shut up.”

His chin jerked into his neck. “I beg your pardon?”

He heard her words.

I can’t stand the sight of you.

His father had fucked up. Their investigator warned them strongly not to bring in Chaos. If they did, the investigator told them that Kane Allen would activate Nightingale or Delgado, “And unless you can open your closet doors wide and only celestial light shines out with no bones dangling, they’ll eviscerate the both of you.”

His words.

Precisely.

Neither his father nor Aaron could open those doors.

So Chaos was off-limits.

But his father was so fucking arrogant, his head so far up his fucking ass, he thought he could get away with anything.

The strategy was to shake Carissa up with their news about Peter Waite and to share that her boyfriend was capable of beating a man bloody. Shake her up and make her rethink. Shake her up and drive her back to Aaron.