Dennis looked shattered. He cradled her face in both hands, blowing gently on the mark she'd made herself.
Then he glanced at the bodyguard behind me. One look. That was all it took.
Hands clamped down on my arms. A palm the size of a dinner plate cracked across my cheek. Then again. And again. My ears rang, a high-pitched whine drowning out everything else.
I don't know how long it lasted before they finally stopped and let go.
I crumpled to the floor. Dennis looked down at me, his expression flat, utterly unmoved.
"Vee, why do you insist on making things difficult for yourself? If you're not feeling well, go home and rest. Why chase me all the way here just to start trouble?"
A bitter laugh scraped out of my throat.
"Go home? Do I still have a home? Is that place even mine anymore?"
I looked up at him, eyes burning. Tears and blood from my nose dripped onto the floor between us.
"Dennis, why did you have to bring her here?"
"You can go wherever you want to fool around. I don't care anymore. But why did you have to defile this place?"
"The Dennis Sanchez at thirty is rotten to the core. So why did you have to destroy the only memory the twenty-year-old version of you ever left me?"