Rose is at his desk on the phone. He drops his jaw as we walk in, and Bianca quickly runs to the other side of the office and whips the phone cord out of the wall.
“What… What are you doing here?” he gasps out.
I don’t answer him. I leap across the room, soar over his desk with my hands outstretched, and wrap them around his neck. He coughs, sputters, and his eyes start to bulge out of their sockets.
But before I can get him unconscious, he kicks me in the balls.
Oh fuck!
Pain. Such fucking pain! It shoots through my whole body.
I hunch over on the ground in agony.
He scrambles to his feet. But before he can hurt me again, Bianca smacks him across the face with the marble bust of his father.
I get up in time to see blood gushing out of his nose as he turns on Bianca. No way in hell is he going to lay a finger on her. Despite the pains still hurdling through my lower body, I get to my feet, throw myself between the two of them, and land a right hook to Rose’s left cheek. Then an uppercut for good measure.
He stumbles back but quickly returns with a punch to my gut. I double over and he lands a kick to the back of my knees, bringing me down again.
The floor is strewn with pens and pieces of stationery. I grab the nearest item to me—a navy-blue fountain pen—and get back to my feet.
Rose is advancing again, but this time I have a weapon.
Before Rose can land another hit, I raise the pen and ram it right into his left eye.
21
BIANCA
I hate the sight of blood.
And this office is now flooded with it.
First from Mr. Rose’s nose, and now from his eye. A blue fountain pen sticks out of it. Rose instinctively grabs at it, but before he can pull it out—and likely his eye along with it—he trips on a three-hole punch on the ground, falls backward, and hits the base of his skull on the side of his desk.
He’s on the ground now. And he’s not moving.
“My God, Harrison.” I walk slowly toward his body. “Is he… Is he dead?”
Harrison kneels and takes his pulse. “No. Just unconscious. The blow to his skull plus the loss of blood. But he needs immediate medical attention if he’s going to live or have any chance of regaining sight in his left eye.”
I swallow. “Should we take him to the hospital?”
“Someone should, but it’s not going to be us.” He gets to his feet and offers me his hand. “The two of us need to get the hell out of here before the cops show up. We’ll let someone at the front desk know Rose had an accident or something, and then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
I look around, my heart pounding into my throat. “Does Mr. Rose have any cameras in here? The footage of you jamming a pen into his eye will look pretty damning.”
He crosses his arms. “It was in self-defense.”
“But you attacked first. It’s not going to look good. I know what this man is capable of, but the rest of the world doesn’t.” I continue to scan the area. “It doesn’t look like there are any cameras, though.”
He chuckles darkly. “Of course not. He probably takes young male callers in here often. The guy at the front desk didn’t seem surprised to see me. Rose wouldn’t want any video evidence of his affairs to exist.”
I bite my lip. “I guess not.”
“That said, there is certainly footage of the two of us entering his office right before all of this, so we still need to move quickly.” He grabs my hand. “Come on.”
We open the door to the office and leave, closing it behind us.
