Of course he did.

“I saw her on the way out.  Tiffany.  I said something to her, because she was the only one I saw.  She was supposed to tell you that I was leaving with him.  Did she?”

I was only telling the truth and asking a simple question.  Had I known it would do some damage?

Well, yes of course.  That had been the point.

Had I known he would lose his mind?

No, I actually hadn’t.

But he did.  He lost his ever-loving mind.

First he started to shake.  Top to bottom, shake.

His trembling hands lifted me off him, he stood, and buck naked, strode from the room.

I didn’t follow him, but when I heard things starting to break, I didn’t have to wonder who was breaking them.

With a sigh I got dressed and went to investigate.

Ah, that made sense.  He was in the guestroom Tiffany had been occupying but, lucky for her, she wasn’t occupying it now because as I stood there she approached.

She was holding an ice pack to her nose.

That made me smile.

Bastian was behind her, Leo behind him.

“What the hell is going on?” Leo’s voice boomed through the hallway.

I almost rolled my eyes.  “What, did you get interrupted in the middle of screwing one of the maids?” I asked him in a taunting, baby soft voice, “Does that make you grumpy?”

I’d always had a problem with Leo, dating back to childhood when I’d first realized how he treated Dante.  Any chance I got, I antagonized him.

Bastian stifled a laugh.  I smiled at him.

“You,” Leo hissed.  “You’ve been nothing but poison in this family since my mother dug you out of the trash.”

My brows went up.  Usually it took more to get a rise out of the old lech.  “Yeah, cause otherwise you’re all just a bunch of teddy bears.”

Bastian was outright laughing now.

“Can you two stop bickering and tell me what is going on in my room?” Tiffany butted in.

“That is not your room,” I said, not even looking at her.  I was in a hell of a mood, every boom and crash I heard behind the door I guarded was only egging me on.  “That is a guestroom that you insisted on staying in, even though no one wants you here.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Leo muttered, striding to the door.  “I want to know what’s going on.”

I blocked him, moving to stand in front of the knob.  “Dante is having a moment, and everyone needs to leave him the fuck alone.”  I looked at Tiffany.  “Especially you.  Trust me when I say that you don’t want to get near him right now.”

“Me?” she pointed at herself, doing her usual innocent routine.  “What did I do?”

I rolled my eyes.  “What, you want me to make a list?  Please.  Save it.  No one here believes your act.  Take it somewhere else.  Somewhere far away from Dante unless you feel like getting strangled today.”

As though to punctuate that, something very large broke with a screeching crash in the room behind me.

“Oh forget it,” Leo muttered, turning around.  “That boy is as melodramatic as his mother, I swear.”

“That’s right, princess, don’t worry your pretty little head about it.  You just go back to screwing the housekeeper!” I called to his retreating back.

He flipped me the bird and kept walking.

I enjoyed getting a low class rise out of his privileged ass, and so that made me smile.

“What happened?” Bastian asked me.  “What can I do?”

“Nothing, he just needs some time.”  I pointed at Tiffany.  “And it would be best if he doesn’t set eyes on her.”

I could hear him breathing in there, hear his ragged panting breaths as he struggled with what I’d told him, and I actually started to feel guilty.

Such a little piece of information, but I knew I should have kept it to myself.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tiffany huffed.

As though he’d heard her, Dante opened the door, or as I liked to call him when he got like this, Hulk Dante.

Except even the hulk wore shorts.

His entire naked, agitated body was vibrating with rage as he caught sight of Tiffany.  “You,” he snarled, tossing a suitcase clean over my head and into the hallway.

It hit the floor and clothes went flying everywhere as it busted open on contact.

“What on earth?” she exclaimed.

“Get out!” he shouted at her.

Even I was a little wary to approach him when he was like this, but I did it, setting a firm hand in the middle of his chest.

“Dante, you need to calm down,” I said, trying my best to be a soothing presence, though soothing had never been a strength of mine.

I was much, much better at agitating.

The current Hulk Dante was a case in point.

He just kept staring at her, thick black hatred pouring out of his eyes in menacing, palpable waves.  “Get the fuck out of here!” he shouted at her.  “I don’t ever want to see your face again!”

She looked like she’d just been slapped.  She swayed on her feet.  “What?  But, why Dante?  What did I do now?”

In answer he disappeared into the room, reappearing a beat later with another suitcase, this one smaller.

It received the same treatment as the first.  And then came her purse, shoes, a blazer, a dress.

I looked at Bastian.

“I guess I’ll go ahead and load up her car,” he said helpfully, and proceeded to gather a huge armful of clothes into the large suitcase, and holding it closed, he lifted it and started down the hallway.

“Thank you,” I called to his back.

After Hulk Dante had emptied the guestroom of every one of her possessions he came back to hover in the doorway.

No further, because I was blocking the way, acting as a barrier between him and the object of his rage.

He let me.  I was tiny compared to him, minuscule, but he let me hold him in his place with just my will alone.

“What don’t you understand about get the fuck out?” he screamed at her, the sound of it booming through the house like the roar of a lion.

Her chin trembled.  “What did I do?” she asked, and started to cry.

“What did you do?  What did you do?  What didn’t you do?  You think I don’t know?  You think I buy your innocent act?  You and my fucking manipulative bitch of a mother ruined my life!”

“I’m going to tell your mother about this.  I’m going to tell her everything I’ve seen here.”

“You do that, but you do it fast.  Because if I have to look at you for one more fucking second—" He took a step toward her, but I was in his way, shoving into him, cutting off his tirade and pushing him back into the room.

He was a brick wall of a man, but he let me do it, let me distract him.

As much as I loved to watch him rip into her, as much as I’d love to see her throttled, I couldn’t sit idly by as Dante got himself into serious trouble.

Also, he was unhinged, unpredictable when he was this out of his mind, capable of forgetting important realities.

Like the fact that he couldn’t confront her about what I’d just told him, no matter what.

No matter what.  

There were skeletons in our closet that the world could never know about, and if he went down this path with her, it would lead her straight to them.

I kept pushing at him, backing him step by step into the room, and when we’d cleared the door, I shut it behind us.

I walked into his chest, eyes closing as I wrapped my arms around his ribcage.

He was panting, shaking, so upset that instead of accepting my embrace, he raised his arms so they wouldn’t touch me.

“Don’t touch me.  You don’t even know.  You don’t even have a clue,” his trembling voice said to the air.

“What are you talking about?” I asked him absently, my hand going down to cup his scrotum.

His head fell back, and I could feel his agitated body trying to calm itself.

I had just the thing.  I got down on my knees.