I desperately hoped this douchebag wasn’t the woman’s husband or something. Even as beads of sweat ran rivulets down my back, still, I inched closer. “My friends are inside, and they’ll take care of you too if you want.” I prayed Alexi would fulfill that promise, I just knew I had to get this woman away from this man.

“N-no, it’s okay. I’m okay. It was my fault really, I—”

Echoes of my own life flashed in my head.

I took another step until I stood next to the woman, close enough to shove her out of the way of a fist, if one came. The man backed up, but his face was beet red, and the vein in his forehead had started to throb.

I licked my lips. “Look, why don’t you take a minute to think this through. In the meantime, we’ll go in the house.” Call the cops. “We’ll have a drink.” Escape out the front door. “Then you two can talk this out.” Yeah, with your sorry ass behind bars.

His words came out clipped and extra crisp with his accent. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you have any idea who I am? I will ruin you. You have no business butting into an argument between me and my wife.”

Oh hell. She was married to this douche? In that moment, I knew the woman wasn’t going to run away or call the police or do anything that she should. She was going to go on pretending everything was okay. Like I had.

“Consider me a Good Samaritan, making sure she was okay. You’re nothing more than a bully.”

Tendrils of fear snaked out and wrapped themselves around my spine as the man snapped a meaty hand around my upper arm. I winced inwardly as he applied pressure. Outwardly, I schooled my features to read disdain.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Even though I couldn’t see Alexi, hearing his voice was enough to put me at ease. “I saw this woman here needed some help getting away from her idiot of a husband. Now he thinks it’s a good idea to manhandle me.”

The man advanced a step, and Alexi was at my side like a flash. “Sir Richard, my friend was just leaving.”

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Alexi knew this asshole? Anger made my voice waver, and I hated it. “He was going to hurt her. If I hadn’t stepped in—”

Ice dripped off of each of Alexi’s words. “Maybe you didn’t hear me, Abbie, but it’s time to go.”

I tore my arm loose from the oaf’s grip and glared at Alexi. Why the hell was he so furious with me? Had I broken some rich elite code? “I didn’t do anything wro—”