Why do I care what a mortician would think? I’ll be dead.
My stomach bottomed out at the thought. I wasn’t ready to die, yet. I still hadn’t even gotten a work promotion. Needing to focus on something else, I wondered what was keeping the guys. A siren sounded in the distance. Nate tensed. I closed my eyes and prayed that nobody had called the cops. I didn’t know how he’d react to being swarmed by SWAT, and I didn’t want to find out.
Just when I started losing hope that anyone would come for me before this dirt bag went completely bonkers, I heard my name.
“Jessica? You here?” Wasp called out from the living room.
Relieved, I started to reply, but Nate rammed his pistol in my gut, cutting me off. “Shut the fuck up.”
There was movement outside my bedroom door. Nate heard it, too, and scooted himself half behind me, using me as a shield as he watched the door.
“The cops are on their way, Nate,” Wasp said. “You can still let Jessica go and get out of here before they arrive. Nobody has to get hurt or arrested.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Nate asked. “And why does he know I’m here?”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I replied, “That’s Wasp. He’s Carly’s… uh… friend. She must have told him.”
If his dark scowl was any indication, he didn’t like that answer.
“Nate? Jessica?”
Nate’s eyes were cold, and his glare was hard as he kept his attention on the door, waiting. The doorknob moved.
“Jess? You okay? Nate? Let’s talk and figure a way out of this.”
“Fuck off,” Nate growled. “Get Carly here. I’ll only talk to her.”
“She’s on her way, man, but I need you to be cool until she arrives. You know she’s gonna freak out if you hurt her friend. You don’t want to piss Carly off now, do you?”
“Carly doesn’t know the fuckin’ meaning of friendship. She said we were friends, but she lied. Then she left. Friends don’t do that shit.”
“Dude, friends don’t ask each other out, either. You stepped over the line and scared her. She didn’t want to hurt you, but her ex had just died, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship. You should have waited, man. Hell, I bet if you would have contacted her and asked her out again when you got to town, instead of giving her kid a creepy-ass note, she would have gone out with you.”
I had no clue what was going on, but either Wasp was making this stuff up as he went, or Carly had told him a lot more about her past than she’d told me. That smarted a little, but now wasn’t the time to worry about my hurt feelings at being left out of the loop.
The door eased open and Wasp crept forward, his hands in the air like he was surrendering. He left the door open behind him and I could see two men in the hallway. One was a big black guy I recognized immediately from the news. Havoc’s face had been plastered all over the papers when he’d put Mayor Kinlan’s son in the hospital for raping some girl. Standing well over six feet tall, with muscles on top of muscles, he looked entirely too large and intimidating for my narrow hallway.
On Havoc’s left, stood the most attractive man I’d ever laid eyes on. He looked like a young Antonio Banderas, but with muscles, tattoos, and facial hair. Okay, he looked nothing like the actor, but he did have that Latino sex appeal that made me want to curl up at his feet and be the Puss to his Boots. Like Wasp and Havoc, he wore a black leather vest over a short-sleeved T-shirt with worn blue jeans. The patch on his vest introduced him as “Spade.” Tribal tattoos covered both of his muscular, light-brown forearms, his eyes were dark and mysterious, and his lips were framed in a well-kept mustache and beard. It was his expression that did me in, though, somehow both protective and lethal as his gaze locked on mine.
With nothing but a look, Spade promised me I’d be okay. Every inch of my body heard him loud and clear. As my heart rate and breathing calmed, I held his gaze, ready to move the moment he told me to.
Wasp was still busy flinging nonsense at Nate. “Yeah, man. For sure. I mean, you love her so much you drove all the way here to tell her. Chicks dig that romantic shit. She’ll eat it right up,”
Nate’s grip on me loosened.
Spade gave a slight nod.
I eased forward, shifting my stance.
“Put down the gun, Nate. Let me help you,” Wasp said.
Spade beckoned me forward, reaching out a hand. He looked like salvation wrapped in sin, and I was more than happy to escape the crazy scenario behind me. I lunged.
“Wait,” Nate said.
I was already flying through the air. A flicker of movement came from Wasp’s side as Spade grabbed me midair and threw me to the ground, covering my body with his. All oxygen left my lungs with an oomph.
Two shots were fired.
