“Who the fuck are you and why are you looking in my girlfriend’s house?” Damiano hisses.
The man mumbles past Damiano’s hand until Damiano lets him go.
“I live next door,” the man gasps. “Right over there.” He jerks his head to the side. “I saw the lights, wanted to check on Madison. You gotta help her. There’s these guys?—”
I push past him and peek over the window ledge. Instantly, I catalog the occupants in the kitchen. Four men. Two in police uniforms—fake, is my guess. Two in street clothes—dark jeans and dark sweatshirts. Madison, with her arms behind her back like she’s been tied up. There’s a gag in her mouth. Rage fills me. How dare they touch her, how dare they silence her.
One man in a police uniform holds up a knife, his head cocked like he’s considering the best way to use it. Madison cowers in front of him. We have to get in there. Before I can move, the second uniform grabs a length of twine from one of the drawers. I can clearly read his lips as he says, “Less messy.”
Fuck. I start for the front door. “Damiano. Now.”
Damiano goes in the other direction, to look for a back door. The neighbor follows me. I’m shocked because he seems like a coward who’d rather watch through the window, but I don’t question it. He’s big and intimidating. He may come in handy.
I step carefully through the front door. I hold a finger up to my mouth, telling the neighbor to keep silent. He nods. He looks nervous as fuck. He’ll probably run as soon as the action starts, but I’ve been surprised by how people handle violence in the past.
A loud crash comes from the back of the house. No idea whether it’s Damiano breaking in, or those assholes attacking Madison. There’s no time to waste figuring it out. If they’re strangling her, she has seconds. I race forward.
The kitchen is full of movement. Damiano has one of the uniforms in a headlock while the second one comes after him, twine held taut for garroting. A knife lies on the floor, kicked to the side. Madison inches her way toward it while the two skinny guys in street clothes advance on Damiano to aid the second uniform.
I go for the taller guy in street clothes and kick the back of his knee. He yells in pain as he goes down, his head banging hard against the counter.
He doesn’t move. I don’t think the blow was hard enough to kill him, but he’s out cold.
Police sirens sound in the distance. It’s taken them long enough, but at least they’re almost here.
Madison’s neighbor surprises me and tackles the second guy in street clothes. The uniform with the twine has come around behind Damiano. Damiano spins, keeping the first uniform in a headlock. The second uniform spins with him. Now the asshole is right within my reach. I punch him in the kidney and he groans, twisting with the pain. I put my arm around his neck and start squeezing.
Damiano finally gets the right pressure on the guy in his hold, and the guy passes out.
“About fucking time,” Damiano says, kicking the unconscious man out of his way before rushing to Madison.
It doesn’t take me as long to knock out the man in my chokehold. He goes down and I turn to the neighbor. He’s sitting on top of the skinny guy in street clothes, but he’s taking just as many hits as he’s giving.
I step over to them, grab the skinny guy’s arms, and nod at the neighbor to get up. A couple of moves and I have the guy on his stomach, arms tied behind his back with a bunch of twine. It won’t hold forever, but it’ll do for now.
“Watch these guys. If anyone moves, tell me.” I give the neighbor a good, long look. Can I trust him? I’ll have to, but not for long—those police sirens are close.
Damiano has removed Madison’s gag, but she doesn’t seem interested in speaking. He next frees her wrists from their ziptie, rubbing the faint, red indentions on her skin. “Bella,” he murmurs. “Bella, it’s okay now.”
Police officers—real ones—burst into the scene. The kitchen turns into a chaos of questions, explanations, accusations. Through it all, my eyes are on Madison and Damiano, on the way she clings to him, finally safe.
There’s something real between them. Something I can’t be a part of. As much as I care for her, as much as she turns me on, infuriates me, and melts my heart, I can’t do this.
MADISON
A week has gone by. Derick and Crane are locked up. No bail, because even though they’ve burned through a lot of the money they inherited, they’re still seen as flight risks. I don’t know much more than that. The district attorney explained it, but I barely listened. The bottom line is that they’re in big fucking trouble, and they won’t have access to me ever again.
And I’m…healing. It hasn’t been easy. Damiano has been my rock. On the rare night this week that he hasn’t slept over, he’s been with me for at least a few hours every day. Sometimes an emergency comes up, usually after a series of texts buzzing on his phone, one after another. He gives me a sheepish look each time, apologizing for needing to leave.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to babysit me,” I tell him. “Go save the world.”
He kisses me, his hand on my cheek, a guilty look in his dark brown eyes.
Later in the day, a chiming sound alerts me to someone waiting at the gate. Except I’m not expecting anyone. Ford came by yesterday with a bouquet of flowers. A sort of apology for his brothers, it felt like. The blossoms looked like they were picked from my own flower beds, but it was the gesture that mattered.
At any rate, it isn’t Ford sitting in a car at the gate. I push the intercom to ask who’s there.
The voice that comes through is crackly over the speaker, but I’d recognize that deep timbre anywhere. “It’s Seth.”
