I swiped at the fogged bathroom mirror and gathered my hair at my nape with an elastic band I’d found in one of the empty drawers. Drifting my attention to the locked door and the space underneath, I searched for any signs of Helena and a possible ambush, though she’d be more innovative than to stand in plain sight. Either way, paranoia was getting the best of me, and I had brought the bag of weapons and ammo inside the bathroom. I wasn’t sure where she would go for the night, and I really didn’t care, but she couldn’t stay. Exhausted as I was, I needed sleep, and that wouldn’t be happening while worrying about a butter knife through my jugular.
I pulled open the bathroom door, only to be met with a sight that had my cock twitching beneath the towel at my waist. Helena was standing by a window, dressed in just one of my t-shirts, looking out onto the city skyline. To the average person, she would have seemed lost in thought, mesmerized by the view of the stars on such a clear night. But I knew better.
Helena’s body was tight, much like she’d been since we pulled into the lot. I felt my own muscles stiffening, ready for whatever she planned to dish out.
“Santino,” she almost whispered, eyes still on the window, “he’s a good friend of yours? Someone you trust?”
“Yeah, he is.”
She remained silent for several more moments. “You always follow his advice?”
“Santino is like my brother. He’s been there for me since…” I swallowed hard, deciding not to continue. My story, my broken past, was mine and mine alone and not something I was willing to share with a stranger who was most likely planning my death.
Helena finally shifted her gaze to me, eyes rolling over my chest and then down to the towel before finding my stony glare once again.
“I heard what he said to you earlier before you rushed to remove him from speaker. When you thought I was still in the shower.”
My brows drew together, recalling the conversation. “It wasn’t your call to listen in on; furthermore, it’s not what you think.”
She let out a little chuckle and cocked her head, looking every bit the devious, cold-blooded killer she was. It was easy to forget, to be taken by her beauty and sharp tongue and let down one’s guard and years of training. A chill ran down my back when she twisted toward me again, only this time her gaze was distant, as if she were looking through me. Plotting.
“So, he didn’t tell you not to trust me? To put a bullet through the back of my head when I was turned? Or had I heard wrong?”
I unfolded my arms and raised them defensively to de-escalate the tension running thick in the room. “What Santino says and what I do are two different things, love. Calm down.”
“Calm…down? Did you really just tell me to calm down?”
Fuck.
“No…I mean, you’re jumping to assumptions and making accusations that are wildly off track.”
“Am I? So he didn’t say he’d get his crew to dispose of my body?”
I exhaled a harsh breath. “Helena—”
“Leni—everyone calls me Leni. There’s only one other dick who calls me by my full name, and some days, I’d like to do the same to him.”
Confused by her words, I blinked rapidly, shaking my head. “Do what?”
Time seemed to slow in that instant. For a fraction of a second, she cracked a sinister grin, pivoting her body as she reached behind her just as fast before a blade came barreling toward my face. I dove out of its trajectory at the last moment, but not quick enough to clear the steel. It nicked the top of my head. A thick, steady stream of blood rolled into my right eye when I hit the floor, taking half my sight. I wiped, only smearing it and making things worse.
She rushed me, a side lamp above her head. It came down on mine, shattering as stars exploded behind my eyelids. But I had no time to gather myself, to nurse my wounds because Helena wouldn’t stop until I was no longer breathing. Not now, after she’d reignited the dance of death between us.
Reaching up, I wrenched the blade from where it had impaled itself into the wall above my head, just in time to dodge a knee aimed for my face. I knocked her on her ass, and she groaned as she hit the floor with a painfully loud thud.
“Son of a bitch!” she shrieked, holding the side of her ribs. I grabbed the foot she tried to kick me with and hauled her toward me with so much force I knew her bare ass and thighs had just gotten a rug burn from hell. Her mouth gaped open, tears raging in her eyes.
“You going to stop now?” I asked as I climbed over her, pinning her down.
“Fuck you.” She spat in my face, and I gnashed my teeth in return, raising a clenched fist, the urge to strike her almost too much to resist.
“You spit on me again…” Fury rolled through me, my breaths coming hard and fast. “Why are you acting crazy?”
“Get off me so I can show you crazy. I’ll slit your goddamn throat.”
She reached for a shard of glass, but I used my free hand to cuff her wrist and hold it above her head. “Drop it.”
“Get. Off.”
