“Sounds like we have a dilemma,” I say, uninterested.

“Not to me. Make some fucking spaghetti, Sloan. Please. I’m having kind of a bad day, here.”

I close my eyes and fall onto the couch. This is going to be a long night. I might as well make it as easy on myself as possible. “Okay. I’ll make you spaghetti. Would you like meatballs with that, dear?”

“I would love meatballs. We want meatballs, right, guys?”

I hear a couple of the guys in the car mutter, “Sure.”

I kick my legs up on the arm of the couch and put the phone on speaker, resting it on my chest. “Why are you having a bad day?”

It’s quiet for a minute, and then Asa says, “Have I ever told you about my father, Sloan?”

“No.”

He sighs. “Exactly. There’s nothing to fucking tell.”

Jesus. What in the hell did that man do to him? I rub my fingers against my temples. “When will you be back?”

Asa doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he says, “Is Carter there?”

I immediately sit up on the couch. Blame the paranoia, but my voice grows a little weaker. I try to hide it when I say, “No, Asa. He’s with you.”

There’s a short pause. “No, Sloan. He isn’t.”

The phone grows even quieter, and when I look down at it, I realize he hung up. I press the phone to my forehead. What does he know?

***

An hour later, they all walk through the front door. I’m not finished with the spaghetti yet because I had to go to the store to get the damn noodles. Asa walks into the kitchen, and I gasp when I look up at him. His shirt is covered in blood and his fist is almost unrecognizable. I immediately rush to the first aid kit in the pantry. “Come here,” I tell him, directing him to the sink.

I run water over his hand, trying to find where the blood is coming from, but it seems like it’s coming from everywhere. His whole fist looks like raw flesh. My stomach turns, but I force myself to finish cleaning it so I can bandage it up and not have to look at it.

“What in the hell did you do, Asa?”

He winces and looks down at his hand. Then he shrugs. “Not enough.”

I put ointment all over his hand and then wrap it, but that’s hardly going to help. He probably needs stitches. Several stitches.

I feel his hand clamp tightly around mine, and my eyes dart up to his.

“Where’s your fucking ring?”

Shit.

“On the dresser. I didn’t want to get it dirty while I cooked.”

He stands up and yanks my arm, pulling me toward the stairs. I can feel the pull all the way up to my neck. “Asa, stop!”

He doesn’t let go of me, and when he drags me behind him, through the living room, Dalton stands up. “Asa,” he says.

Asa still doesn’t stop. I have to run just to keep up with him as he takes the stairs two at a time, so I don’t fall down. He swings the bedroom door open and grabs my ring off the dresser, pulling my left hand up between us. “You keep your fucking ring on your hand. That’s why I bought it for you, so people would know they can’t mess with you.”

He slaps my hand on the dresser and then opens the top drawer, holding my hand down flat with his.

“What are you doing?” I ask, fearing the answer. He opens the second drawer and rifles through it.

“Helping you remember never to take it off,” he says, grabbing a tube and slamming the dresser drawer shut. My eyes land on the bottle of super glue in his hand.

The hell he is.

I try to yank my hand back, but he uses even more force to hold down my wrist. He pulls the cap off the super glue and starts squirting it on my finger, spreading it under my ring.

The tears begin stinging at my eyes. I’ve never seen him like this and I don’t want to push things even more. I stop fighting and stand as still as I can, aside from my heart racing in my chest. Carter isn’t here and I’m honestly too scared to fight back right now because I’m not sure that any of those guys downstairs would come to my defense.

Asa tosses the super glue on the dresser and lifts my hand, then blows on it to dry the glue. He stares at me the whole time he’s blowing on my finger. His eyes are black. Huge and black and terrifying.

“You finished?” I whisper. “I don’t want to overcook your spaghetti.”

He blows on my hand for a few more seconds and then leans in and kisses my palm. “All done. Now you won’t forget.”

He’s crazy. He’s fucking crazy. I think I’ve always known he wasn’t a great person, but I had no idea how crazy he was until looking at his eyes just now.