But I can’t find my voice. It’s like his insult has coiled an invisible, but very real rope around my neck.
“Apologize,” Forrest snarls, stepping forward, still with his arms spread as though he’s welcoming an attack.
“For what?” Zack laughs maniacally, slipping the letters back into his jacket.
When he pulls his hand out again, he’s gripping a knuckle-duster, nasty-looking, the iron glinting in the light.
“Forrest,” I whimper. “Let’s just go.”
“That’s my woman you’re talking to,” Forrest growls. “You don’t get to speak to her that way, never again, you piece of shit. So apologize or this is going to go very badly for you.”
“Has he really called off his security, my little whore?”
“Forrest,” I say, ignoring Zack, clenching my fists so hard my nails dig into my palms.
“You really think you’re tough because your daddy sells a few drugs on the streets?” Forrest chuckles. “You think you’re tough because you kidnap innocent girls and force them into sexual slavery? You’re pathetic, boy, fucking pathetic.”
“Don’t you talk about my dad,” Zack whines.
“I’ve done some digging,” Forrest says, smirking, seemingly with no idea that it’s him against seven of them. “And it turns out your fucked-up crime Family is under investigation by the FBI. How do you think it’ll look when the world sees what a pathetic worm you really are? How do you think the other crime families will react, eh?”
“What are you talking about?” Zack snaps.
“The cameras, you idiot,” I cry.
I gesture at the pedestrians, dozens of phones aimed at us.
“Everybody can see what you’re doing.”
“You weak, pathetic fuck,” Forrest laughs, stepping forward, getting closer to Zack and his men and the possibility of his death.
I move forward with him, but he senses where I am, and inches sideways to stop me from being able to get involved. His broad silver-suited back blocks me, the tendons in his neck twitching.
“I guess you’ve got no choice but to prove you’re not scared now,” Forrest growls. “So do it, kid. Show the world how tough you are.”
“No,” I cry, but it’s too late.
Zack leaps forward and smashes Forrest across the mouth with the knuckle-duster.
Forrest takes the blow, turning his head to the side.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Zack cries, hitting Forrest again and again.
Each time, Forrest takes the strikes.
I dart forward, screaming, my hands outstretched. But then somebody has their hand on my arm and they’re pulling me back.
It’s the security man from before, the one Forrest called off before he stormed out here.
“Help him,” I cry.
The man frowns. “It’s not him we need to help.”
I turn to see what he’s talking about.
Forrest has taken all the blows without flinching, and now he rubs the blood from his mouth and holds it up in the glittering Parisian sun.
“You know what this means?” he says, grinning wolfishly at Zack and his goons. “This is going to be self-defense.”
“Get him,” Zack roars, waving his hand, gazing at Forrest like he’s not human.
I struggle against Larry, but he holds me firmly, making it so I can’t get to my man.
The men swarm on Forrest, all of them big and mean-looking, waving their fists like weapons made of bone.
Everything happens so fast. It’s so hard to make sense of it all.
Forrest ducks under a blow and comes up with a savage strike to somebody’s belly, and then he grabs a man’s wrist and spins him around, using him as a battering ram to send two more men hurtling to the ground.
He spins and grunts, his eyes focused, moving fluidly like a professional fighter.
His elbow crushes another man’s jaw and then he’s dancing away, hands raised, ducking and feinting as another man leaps at him. The man reacts to the feint, jumping out of the way, and Forrest charges him and slams him against the wall.
“Behind you,” I cry, when two men leap at him, their arms outstretched.
Forrest ducks at just the right moment, throwing his elbows out to catch the men in the stomach.
They keel over and make croaking noises, and then Forrest spins and catches Zack by the throat as he leaps forward.
He tightens his fist and lifts him off the ground.
Zack’s face turns red and he starts to gasp, clawing at Forrest’s iron grip.
The men don’t know what to do. Some of them are groaning on the floor, and the others back aware cautiously, like Forrest is a fire they can’t get too close to unless they want to get burned again.
Forrest slams Zack against the wall.
“Apologize or I’ll choke you the fuck out,” he snarls. “You have no right to talk to any woman like that. But you especially don’t have a right to talk to my woman like that.”
“I’m—sorry,” Zack gasps, clutching onto Forrest’s forearm to relieve some of the pressure.
“Not to me,” Forrest roars.
“Fiona, please,” Zack gasps. “I’m sorry.”
Forrest turns to me. Some of the ferocity of his expression softens when his eyes come to rest on me.