I send up a quick thanks for all the cardio Trey has made me do because I might need it in the next few seconds if I’m throwing down with Barnes.

“What did you say?” I sneer harshly as I wiggle my arms to loosen up a bit because I don’t want to pull a muscle with my first punch.

“Leave Zoey alone. You’ve done more than enough, asshole. I’m tempted to toss you in her refrigerator myself, ‘forget’ about you for a few days until your outsides are as frosty as your insides, and then let her cut your dick off as a trophy.”

“That is . . . graphic,” I admit begrudgingly, and though Sheriff Barnes’s lips lift, it’s not a smile. It’s feral and predatory. But why is he mad at me?

Higher logic takes over, my brain overriding my fight or flight instincts. “Before you try that—and to be clear, it would be nothing more than an attempt before I kick your ass—”

Sheriff Barnes takes a step closer, and I hold my palms up, hoping to freeze him in place before he can toss me in the refrigerator.

“Before that . . . exactly why are you trying to kill me? This is supposed to be my big moment of kicking your ass for whatever you did to hurt Zoey so badly that she ran out of the courtroom.”

“Kick my ass? That’s funny as hell, kid.” Sheriff Barnes laughs. And then, as though it never happened, he sobers. “What I did? To Zoey? I didn’t do a thing to that poor girl. You did . . . using her like that. Shameful is what it is.”

He pokes a finger in my chest, much like Frederick did not too long ago, but where Frederick’s had been a gentle prodding, the sheriff’s poke makes my arm flinch reflexively.

Shit, did he hit a pressure point or something? I rub at the spot and work my shoulder back and forth a couple of times.

“Use Zoey?”

What in the hell? I’m not some selfish asshole. And I didn’t even know she’d told anyone about us since that was the whole point of hiding our relationship. And what did she tell Sheriff Barnes?

“Look, I’m not a kiss and tell sort, but rest assured, I wasn’t ‘using’ Zoey. I made sure she came . . . multiple times, and she was . . . into it.”

That might be the weirdest thing I’ve ever told another man. Even Trey and I don’t talk like that, sharing that degree of personal stuff, which is why I damn near stumble over the words as I try to say them.

I don’t see the punch coming, not a single tell is telegraphed. My jaw just explodes in fire, and I stagger, looking for purchase on the slick floor.