Nurse whatshername's screams ghost after me into the waiting room.

There are three large rooms flanking this waiting room, all of them sporting large glass paneled doors as their entrance. Two of the rooms are unoccupied, one of them occupied. By a small, sleeping little girl with blonde curls falling into her face. On top of those curls, rests a scuffed paw, filthy and unworthy, both abusive and absent. A serpentine hiss escapes me, venom curdles on my teeth. It's just back at the house. My body and mind detach, go their own separate ways. My body hurtles towards the room with the small, sleeping gold-haired child and once again, my arms snake around the neck of the bastard that raised his hand to the mother of his own daughter.

He gives a strangled cry,

Unlike back at the house, here, I am restricted. Masie is asleep. Whether that is by choice or medication I do not know. But she cannot, on this the day of her life changing surgery, wake up to see two grown men brawling at her bedside. I will not have it. Clamping my hand down over the piece of shit's mouth, and keeping a painful upwards pressure on his neck, I haul him firefighter style from the room. He's struggling, writhing, positively convulsing in my grasp but I do not let go, no fucking chance.

His teeth sink into the skin of my palm and my mind, detached as it is, simply smirks.

The pretty pink doors that I broke through just a moment ago are once again kicked in and on the other side Nurse whatshername is screeching down the phone at security. Given the overall standards of this shithole, I know I have time. The elevator is a no-go, obviously. The stairwell is where it's at. Scott is spitting my blood back into my hand as he chokes on the combination of it and his own compressed saliva. He's turning a mild to moderate shade of puce as I continue to restrict his airway. The stairwell is bright and spacious, the upper and lower flight of stairs sharp and narrow.

Perfect.

I release the bastard for a second and resist with the greatest restraint I've ever exercised from shoving him clean down the stairs. He sways as I knew he would from the rush of blood to his pi's poor excuse for a brain. I allow him a second, just a second, to reacclimatize before I calmly reach out and with years of training and anger, easily and bodily lift him by the neck. His eyes pop wide, his hands with the filthy nails reach up to scrabble hopelessly, pointless at my skin. The bannister of the stairwell is a blood red color.

How appropriate.

As I deftly maneuver my hold, Anastasia's terrified voice bleeds into my brain and the temptation to end him rises again, but I know I cannot. Instead, just like I used to do for fun with Elliott all this years ago, slide my hands down this cunts body, adjusting and readjusting pressure until it's just right. His strangled yell of pure, raw terror as he adjusts is like pollen to a honey bee. It's right, it's karmic, it's the universe righting one of its many wrongs.

As he hangs by his ankles over the bannister, many, many feet in the air, Scott is silent.

Scott knows he's fucked up.

Scott know's he done now.

Well, Scott better know, because if there is a next time... I know it's going to end a different way. He's weightless in my arms. Piece of shit has never seen the inside of gym or a ring, has no more muscle than an anorexic fucking jellyfish. His silence ends and roars of terror zing around the bare stone walls. I wait for them to subside, I know they will, and they do. My time is getting short now. Whatever rent-a-cop's this place has will be on scene soon, half a donut crammed in their mouths.

"Scott. I thought I made myself clear back at the house. You are not to contact Anastasia. You are not to contact Masie. You are not to even try to attempt Anastasia or Masie. It is no longer your place. You have no ex, you have no daughter. You are an abusive, woman-beater and a dead-beat sperm donor. Those traits are no longer required."

I let him slip a little.

Just a little.

His whimper is not unlike a fucking rat in a trap.

"Now, I have grown... fond, of Anastasia and Masie and when I grow fond of someone, Scott, I will do whatever it takes to keep them safe. I will do unspeakable, illegal things to ensure their happiness and health. You are a threat to Anastasia's and Masie's happiness and health and I thought I had impressed upon you at the house that I wouldn't tolerate threats."

He slips a little more.

Hey, my palms are sweaty, what can you do.

"I don't know how you got out of lock-up so soon, but I'll be looking into and those responsible shall be sorry. But no one... and I fucking mean no one, will be as sorry as you will if you ever set foot near either of them again. I see you so much as within spitting distance of them, I'll end you. I'll-"

I let him slip a little... no a lot, a lot more.

The front of his jeans suddenly darken in a steady fashion.

My nose wrinkles.

"Fucking end you," I murmur softly. "You are going to leave here, today, now. You are going to leave Seattle and never come back. Money will find its way to you. Don't ask how or when, it will come when and where it comes. You will take this money and take it be in full and final consideration of severing all ties with Anastasia and Masie. You will build a whole new life some place else, as long as that some place else is at least seven hundred miles from Seattle. You will die in alone and afraid, probably with a needle in your arm at whatever time whatever fictional deity you believe in deems appropriate. You will not die possessed of a daughter named Masie. She and her mother have predeceased you, you are alone."

He slips a little more.

Just a little time, I have only seconds left I would wager.

"Do you understand me, Scott?" I whisper silkily, "Do you understand what I have just said?"

Tears are flowing upwards and into his eyes, piss following in the same direction. He is a broken specimen of shit. A bully who finally met a bigger, badder bully. I want to drop him. My palms itch to drop him. But, no, that would be counter-intuitive. Even with all my strings, I would end up in the slammer. Away from Anastasia and Masie and that can't happen because gave Anastasia my word that I would sit with her through Masie's surgery.

I never renege on my word.

Ever.

So, if Scott doesn't understand... well, Scott's a dead man.

"I understand," he wails, choking on the effort. It's hard to talk when all the blood in your body is beginning to pool around your brain and your windpipe cannot catch up. "I'll go..." he splutters desperately, truthfully I believe. "I'll go... now, I'll go now... they'll never see me again... I don't even fucking want the stupid kid.."

I choke slightly myself..

This bastard.

This slimy, good-for-nothing bastard doesn't deserve life... but, priorities.

With ease, I hoist him up and back over the railing, careful to avoid contact with his piss sodden pants and his snot covered face. My skin crawls as I wipe my palms on my jeans, repulsed beyond measure. We are still alone in this stairwell but not for long. My arm snakes out once more and fastens around his neck, pinning him against the wall, using the other to point down the stairs.

"There will be a fire exit down there somewhere. Go. Go now and don't ever let me see you in Seattle again or you'll live just long enough to pick your own casket."

He is puce as I release my grip and without a single word, he turns and he flees. I watch him stumble down the stars, a sob poorly concealed in his throat and absentmindedly reach up to neaten my tie and smooth my hair. The door bursts open a millisecond later and I calmly reach into my pocket with one hand and hold the other one up in surrender. Dumb and Dumber pant breathlessly, sweat marks appearing under their arms as I extract four hundred dollar bills and split it evenly. Handing two hundred to each, I give them my winning smile that would turn even Rocky Balboa gay and raise a perfect brow.

"Misunderstanding, fellas. All sorted now. Is that okay?"

They glance down at the bills in their meaty fists and nod in gormless unison.

"That's okay."

I side step them hurriedly and make my way back to Nurse whatshername at double speed. She recoils as she sees me coming and I shoot her down with one fucking look. This bitch has caused me enough problems today and I'm no longer in the bloody mood.

"I have spoken to security and they have removed Masie's biological father from the premises. He should never have been granted access to the child. He is a felon with a record of abuse against Masie's mother. An uneducated piece of dirt. You, on the other hand, are an educated young woman who broke privilege when you told me not only who was in a restricted area with a child, but the relationship of that person to that child when you had yourself deemed me outside the scope of immediate family."

She pales and opens her mouth, but I just don't have the fucking time,

"Now, you can either open those doors and let me in to sit with Masie as her mother desires, or you and I can take a trip to the Chief of Medicine's office and explain to he or she why they have Christian fucking Grey suing them for all their worth and why you and all your colleagues will have to find jobs in Tulsa by the time I'm through. So, what's it to be?"

Her eyes gloss over with fear as she reaches for the door release button without a word.

There's a good Nurse whatshername.

Masie is still blissfully asleep when I arrive, completely unaware of all the shit that surrounds her young, burdened life. I inch into the room, suddenly self conscious. My adrenaline is deflating and I am suddenly jaded, exhausted. I sit gently on the edge of her bed and watch her tiny little chest rise up and down, her face scrunched up as if dreaming heavily. There's a funny pain in my own chest as I gaze down at her.

She is a beautiful child.

Without thinking, because I certainly do such a thing if I were thinking, I reach out and replace the hand that Scott had on her head and smile when I feel the silky softness of her hair. She stirs a little in her sleep, and the pained look seems to vanish from her face as I let my hand fully rest on her head. I'm staring so intently down at her, with a stupid smile on my face, that I don't notice that I am no longer alone in the room.

My back is to her, and I thank god for it.

Because if I had turned around to see Anastasia standing there with tears in her eyes as she watches me watch her child, I'd have had had no choice...

She'd have to sign a fucking NDA.

...

No time to check this for typos, a train commute home job! Will check tomorrow and edit where needs be. Thanks for reading!