Tangled In Strings

Chapter Three

"Is that so?"

"Leave."

"That's how you want to do this?" Dixon hums, oddly cheerful. I keep a hand against the wall of Giovanni's back but move to the side enough so I'm in the doorway too.

"How the hell are you back on the force?"

"Rehab. A breaking point. Corey got me help after your gallant knight beat on a man who couldn't defend himself. A real catch you've got."

I caress Giovanni's back nervously. "I don't understand. Corey was here that night. I told Corey what you'd been doing."

"You should have told him what he'd already done," Giovanni whispers menacingly. "What this fucker did to you."

Dixon's eyes remain firmly on Giovanni. "I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing–"

Giovanni's head snaps back. "It's almost funny. You seem to think that's a sufficient explanation."

I feel sick.

"Just leave, Dixon. Now. Don't come here again," I say through my awakened fear. Pissing him off further will set him off, and now that he's a cop and Giovanni has such a quick temper, Dixon is more dangerous than he's ever been.

"I want to speak with Scarlett."

"Are you deaf?" Giovanni snarls, and I immediately shoot out a hand between them, snatching onto the side of the door, slamming it shut in Dixon's stone-cold face. The wood quakes from the force of my reaction.

"We're not done here," Dixon says eventually behind the door, and I hear his heavy boots begin to move against the ground, echoing. When I press the button to summon the front desk, Giovanni snaps the lock with finality and bounds with anger in his step to the kitchen.

"This is Russ. How can I help you, Miss Bardot?"

My eyes close. It wasn't Rog. "An officer just came up. Dixon Routh."

"Yes, he's just gone outside."

"Russ, next time he comes, tell him he cannot come in."

"He's a police officer. I have to let him on the premises. Unless he's reported, you have to be the one to turn him away from the door. Has he done something wrong?"

"He's my ex-husband. And yes, he has. Rog knows all about it."

I hear Giovanni pulling the food from the oven, nearly slamming it down onto the stovetop.

"I will tell him you're not home if he shows up again. How about that?"

It's the best I'm going to get right now. "Yes, that will be fine. Thank you."

I let go of the button. I expect Giovanni to be up in arms, shouting, but he's eerily silent, his arms working over the lamb with extensive force. My hand rubs my head, a deep lodged pit in my belly.

I had hoped that Dixon's reinvigorated fame and purpose would lead him away from the toxicity of his old marriage. It seems it hasn't. He's angry. And he's not just intent on tormenting me. Giovanni is now also in his destructive path.

I just wish I knew what it was. What he thinks he'll accomplish by showing up here. Piss us off? Catch us off guard? Disrupt our harmony? Or is it something far more sinister?

A memory snapshotted into my brain appears, knocking the breath from my lungs. My hands against the carpet of our old apartment. They were reactively bouncing off of the ground from the sheer strength of my trembles. Dixon had just had his hands around my throat, suffocating me like a deathly boa constrictor. I remember the way I vomited the minute he let me go, scrambling on those trembling hands.