I went silent. I’d never been hit. It shocked me into immobility, but I had to move.
Run.Escape.
This wasn’t a warning. It was a message. It was life-altering, world-shattering—something I’d never recover from. I stretched my jaw as it throbbed with pain and willed myself to fight back, but the knife sharpened in my view as my vision blurred with tears.
The thought of blood instantly nauseated me. I could already see it smeared on my pajamas, pain searing through my side, the shouting, my father’s voice soothing me between roars to call 9-1-1, the sirens, my mother’s sobs . . .
Mark put the tip of the knife to the spot he’d hit me, stinging my cheek with the cold blade. Without breaking skin, he dragged it down my face, my neck and chest, between my breasts. When I flinched, a slow smile spread across his face. “I want there to benoquestion,” he whispered, pressing his body flush to mine, “that Bill Wilson understands what we’re capable of—”
Mark flew backward and landed on his back with asmackso loud, it knocked the wind out ofme. Standing over him, David Dylan looked like a superhero in a pressed suit.
“Run,” David commanded me. “Now.”
He grabbed Mark by his shirt, levied him off the ground, and hit him square across the face, putting him back on the ground.
I yanked my blouse closed as my entire body shook. Where was the knife? David was definitely bigger than my attacker, but Mark fought dirty and had an axe to grind.
Blood trickled from Mark’s nose as he writhed. “Who the f—”
“Go, Olivia,” David said, anger shaking his voice. He lifted Mark by his shirt collar just enough to hit him again. Mark groaned but reached under himself, searching for something in his waistband.
“He has a knife,” I cried.
Still bent over my attacker, David whipped his head up to me, his hair and suit disheveled. “I said get the fuck out of here, Olivia. Go—”
Mark rammed his boot into David’s stomach, sending him onto his back. Mark scrambled to his hands and knees, shot up, and ran.
On his feet in the next second, David put a hand out. “Stay here, Olivia. I fucking mean it,” he said and bolted out.
I searched the office for the knife, but it wasn’t there. Mark still had it. As much as that fact made me want to hide, I had the stronger urge to help David, who’d put his life on the line by coming back here.
I fisted my top closed with one hand and hurried through the doorway. Two shadows darted through the dark office’s cubicles and crashed through the lobby’s glass doors.
With a gunshot, I yelped.David. I sprinted forward, my eyes frantically roaming the dark. When I reached the dimly lit lobby, I found Mark on his back with David straddling him. Each man had his hands locked around the other’s neck.
David wasn’t shot. He wasn’t bleeding. Relief didn’t come, though.
The gun sat a few feet away on the glossy porcelain tile. I snatched it off the ground. Small but undoubtedly powerful against my trembling palm.Jesus. Growing up, my father had kept a gun in the house, but I’d never held it.
And I’d certainly never aimed one. I did now, raising it at both men.
Was I really going to shoot someone?
I couldn’t. My heart hammered too hard. My hands too unsteady. And they were moving too much.
“Stop,” I pleaded. “I’ll shoot.”
David’s back straightened, and he released Mark’s neck. When Mark looked over at me, David pummeled his fist into his face over and over until Mark groaned and started to go limp.
David got to his feet, came toward me, and took the gun. “I told you to run,” he rushed out, sticking it in his waistband. He whipped off his suit jacket.
“I wasn’t going to leave you.”
A charged pulse beat between us until David wrapped the blazer around my shoulders and turned around. Gun in hand, he raised it. “Get back,” he said to me over his shoulder, then spoke to Mark. “You. On your feet.”
The self-possessed David I knew had returned, his posture straight, at ease with the gun, as though he’d done this before.
“Who the fucking shit are you?” Mark asked, struggling to his feet.
