For a fraction of a second, the room went dead silent. The video game menu music looped cheerfully in the background. I thought, foolishly, that I saw a flash of regret in Leo’s eyes. I thought the reality of the tragedy might penetrate his narcissism.
Instead, his upper lip curled into a vicious sneer.
“Bullshit,” Leo spat, crossing his arms. “You’re lying. You’re just making excuses because you forgot to buy groceries and you knew I’d be pissed. You probably just had a heavy period. You’re pathetic. You can’t even carry a child right.”
The sheer audacity of the cruelty took my breath away.
Smack.
The sound was shockingly loud in the quiet house.
The back of Leo’s hand cracked across my left jaw with explosive force. The impact snapped my head to the side. The sudden violence, combined with my physical weakness, sent me tumbling backward. My shoulder hit the wall hard, and I slid down to the floor, tasting the sudden, sharp copper of blood in my mouth where my teeth had cut my inner cheek.
“Leo!” Helen gasped from the armchair, but she didn’t get up to stop him. She just watched.
“Don’t lie to me!” Leo roared, the violence acting like an intoxicating drug, fueling his rage. He stepped closer, looming over me as I cowered on the floor. He raised his hand, palm open, and struck me a second time, harder, across the opposite cheek.
My vision swam with stars. My ear rang violently.
“Get in the kitchen!” Leo bellowed, his face twisted in ugly fury. “You are going to clean up this mess, and then you are going to make us a real dinner, or so help me God, I will—”
I slid further down the wall, holding my bruised cheek, tears of absolute despair mixing with the blood on my lip. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the third strike.
Leo raised his fist, curling his fingers into a tight ball, preparing to deliver a devastating punch to my face.
“I said get up!” Leo screamed, driving his arm forward.
But his fist never connected.
A hand the size of a catcher’s mitt—wrapped in dark leather driving gloves—shot out from the open doorway behind him. The hand gripped Leo’s wrist mid-swing with the crushing, mechanical force of a hydraulic press.
The momentum of Leo’s punch was halted instantly, his arm jolting with a sickening thud against the immovable object that had just caught him.