Chapter 181

“Are you that fucking stupid to mess with what is mine?”

He backs away and walks down the aisle next to me. “She isn’t yours. You don’t own her,” he challenges.

I reach across the boxes of plants to wrap my hand around his neck—and slam his face into the metal barrier between us. I hear a crisp snap, so I already know what happened. But when he lifts his head up and shouts “You broke my fucking nose!” while struggling to get out of my grip, I have to admit that the amount of blood pouring from his face is a little alarming.

“I already warned you over and over for fucking months now to stay away from Tessa, but then what do you do? You fucking kiss her, have her sleep in your goddamn bed?” I stride down the aisle to get to him again.

His hand is covering his broken nose as blood pours down his face. “And I already fucking told you that I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got to say,” he snarls, taking a step toward me. “You just broke my fucking nose!” he yells again.

Tessa is going to fucking kill me.

I should just leave now. He deserves to get his ass beat, again, but she’s going to be furious.

“You’ve done worse shit to me, you keep messing with my girlfriend!” I shout back.

“She isn’t your girlfriend, and I haven’t even begun to mess with her yet.”

“Are you actually fucking threatening me right now?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

I take another step toward him, and he surprises me by swinging on me. His fist connects with my jaw and I stagger backward, knocking into a wooden box of plants. They crash to the ground, and as I recover, he swings again in a fury, but this time I’m able to block him and stumble to the side.

“You thought I was just a bitch, didn’t you?” He grins a deranged and bloody grin and continues to walk toward me. “You really thought you were a badass, didn’t you?” He laughs, pausing to spit blood onto the white tile floor.

My fingers wrap around the material of his lab coat, and I push him into another row of plants; the plants and our bodies hit the ground. I climb on top of him, making sure not to let him be in control. Out of the corner of my eye I see him raise his arm, but by the time I realize what’s happening, he’s slammed one of the small pots against the side of my head.

My head jerks and I blink rapidly to restore my vision. I’m stronger than him, but it seems he’s a better fighter than he had led me to believe.

But there’s no way in hell I’m letting him get the best of me.

“I already fucked her, anyway,” he chokes as I grab hold of his hair and slam his head into the floor. At this point I don’t give a fuck if I kill him or not.

“No, you didn’t!” I scream.

“Yes, I did, she was . . . nice and t-tight, too.” His voice is strangled and choppy, spitting out its venom with my hands still on his face.

My fist snaps his head to the side and he half screams from the pain, and for a brief moment I consider gripping his broken nose between my fingers to cause him even more. His feet kick frantically under me to try to lift my body from his. Images of Zed touching Tessa are fueling me, pushing me further than I’ve ever been pushed before.

His hands grip my arms, trying to lift my body from his. “You will never fucking touch her again,” I say and bring a hand to his throat. “If you think you’re going to take her from me, you’re fucking wrong.”

I tighten my grip around his neck. His bloody face is turning red and he tries to speak, but I only hear broken gasps for air.

“What the hell is going on in here?” a male voice shouts behind me.

When I turn my head around to see who the voice belongs to, Zed attempts to wrap his hands around my neck. Not fucking happening. Another punch to his cheek is all it takes for his arms to drop to the floor next to his sides.

A hand wraps around my arm, and I shove it off. “Call campus security!” the voice says, and I hurry to climb off of Zed.

Fuck. “No, don’t,” I say and stumble to my feet.

“What’s going on? Get out of here! Go wait in the other room!” the middle-aged man yells, but I don’t move. I assume he’s a professor. Fuck.

“He came in here and attacked me,” Zed says, then starts to cry. He literally starts to cry.

His hand is covering his swollen and crooked nose as he stands to his feet. His face is bloody, his lab coat is splattered with red, and his smug smile has evaporated.

With an air of authority, the man points at me and commands, “Stand against the wall until the police arrive! I mean it, don’t move an inch!”

Fuck, the campus police are coming. I’m so fucking screwed. Why the fuck did I come here in the first place? I promised to stay away from him if she would.

Now that I’ve broken another one of my promises, will she break hers?

Chapter one hundred and nineteen

TESSA

When my pen presses to the paper, I have every intention of writing about my grandmother and how she dedicated her life to Christianity, but somehow Hardin’s name appears in black ink.

“Ms. Young?” Professor Soto’s voice says gently, though loudly enough for everyone in the first row to hear.

“Yes?” I look up, and my attention is immediately brought to Ken. Why is Ken here?

“Tessa, I need you to come with me,” he says, and the annoying blonde behind me makes an “oohhh” sound like we’re back in the sixth grade. She most likely doesn’t even know who he is, that Ken is the chancellor of the college.