Tate shook his head. “I’ll ask once. Get in your car and go. You don’t, Neeta, you can stand out here shoutin’ the house down for a month and I won’t hear you. You won’t exist. Fuck, woman, you already don’t.”

“I exist,” she spat.

“Nope,” Tate replied.

“Right,” she drawled, leaning back and crossing her arms on her chest. “Baby, I roll my tongue around the tip of your cock, you’ll remember I exist.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that,” Tate returned. “Though, since, I’ve had a woman who knows how to use her mouth and doesn’t forget to check her f**kin’ teeth.”

Quick as a flash, she leaned forward and planted her hands on her hips.

“You love my teeth!” she hurled at him.

“Told you once, told you a million times, Neet, no man likes a woman’s teeth scrapin’ his dick. Christ, agony, somethin’ you’re good at dishin’ out in a variety of ways.”

“You never complained,” she retorted.

“I did, woman, you just never listened,” Tate fired back. “Gotta say, never knew what it’d be like to tag a piece I didn’t have to give instruction. And, damn babe, trust me, it’s f**kin’… sweet.”

She stopped speaking and I bit my lip, wondering how I felt about being referred to as “a piece” that Tate had “tagged” considering I was guessing he meant me.

Neeta changed tactics and when she did, the deck rocked under my feet.

“You f**k with me, you never see Jonas again.”

She barely got out the word “again” when Tate took four swift, long, angry strides, all of them right at her.

Her face visibly paling, she retreated on an angle at the last minute but Tate kept bearing down on her until he had her pinned against the railing, his body in her space, the line of it outright hostile. She stared up at him, mouth wide, eyes huge, body braced, she was staggered.

I watched this frozen with morbid fascination.

She’d f**ked up his life but he’d never done that before.

Never.

He bent his neck so his face was in hers.

“Warning,” he growled. “You use my boy against me, Neeta, I swear to God, you’ll regret it.”

His boy?

I felt the blood drain from my own face and my head got light.

“And,” Tate went on, “I see you within hearing distance of Laurie, I’ll f**k with your life so much you’ll wish you lived on the goddamned moon.”

Neeta recovered and her back went straight.

“I got the papers, Tate, and you can tell your lawyers to go f**k themselves. After this shit, Jonas no longer exists for you.”

“He’s here next weekend or I swear to Christ –”

“You’re a joke!” she cut him off. “Do you think that any judge is gonna give custody of a ten year old kid to a bounty hunter who’s home two days a month?”

Oh my God.

Tate had a son. Tate and Neeta shared a child. And Tate was going for custody of his son.

“I got shit goin’ down in my life. I needed to be in my truck, on the trail of a murderer at the same time not seein’ to that shit and hemorrhaging more money seein’ as I was workin’ that on my own time and my own f**kin’ dime like I needed a f**kin’ hole in my head. You were a distraction.”

Here it was.

This was the shit going down in his life. This had something to do with why that night in the hotel, that night the day before he met me, was the night it finally ended between these two.

Jonas. Tate’s ten year old boy. A son he never, not once, mentioned.

A son, it was likely Neeta was right, no judge would give to a bounty hunter who was home two days a month.

Unless he had someone in his home to help out. Say, a high-class, good girl who was smart, worked hard and grew up on a farm. A woman he ran into the day after whatever happened, happened.

I took a step back and noticed Wood make a slight movement. My eyes slid to him and I saw he wasn’t watching Tate and Neeta. He was watching me and he was doing it closely.

“Right,” Tate bit out and my gaze went back to him. “And do you think any judge is gonna think that what I can give him here isn’t better than stayin’ with you, a woman with a record and a husband with no f**kin’ job who drinks himself sick every night? You promised you’d leave that f**kwad and get my boy outta that mess you call a home. You didn’t. I told you, you didn’t, I’d get him out. And, make no mistake, Neeta,” he got closer to her face, “I’ll stop at f**kin’ nothin’ to get Jonas out.”

“I’ll fight you ‘til I’m dead, Tate,” she retorted then her eyes slid to me as her arm lifted and she pointed at me. “No way I’m gonna let your whore raise my kid.”

Tate’s hand shot out and his fingers wrapped around her wrist, twisting it behind her back as she emitted a small cry. I did too just because I was surprised at the vicious way he handled her. But Tate didn’t hesitate. He stepped back, turned, moving her with him and pushed her off. She went back two feet and righted herself.

“Perfect, Tate, thanks,” she snapped acidly. “Got witnesses to that tender act from my kid’s Dad.”

“Get in your car and go,” Tate clipped, holding his body completely still.

“You carry on like this, with her, we’ll be free and clear for Blake to adopt the kid and you’ll never see him again,” she threatened.

“Get in your car and go,” Tate repeated.

She ignored him. “I’ll parade all your trash for the court.” Her eyes came to me. “You aren’t the first, darlin’, and, trust me, you won’t be the last.”

“Go,” Tate growled, “now.”

She looked at Tate and hissed, “Trash.”

“Yeah,” he replied, still growling. “I’ve f**ked trash. Gotta tell you, Neet, after all those years f**kin’ you, you cannot imagine how good it feels to thrust my c**k into somethin’ sweet and clean.”

I pulled in both my lips and bit them, my eyes going to Wood. His eyes were fastened to the show that was happening not three feet in front of him.

Neeta glared at Tate and Tate’s back was to me but I suspected he held her glare. Then her eyes went to Wood.