The younger cop had looked at me like I needed a straitjacket and a seventy-two-hour hold. They’d left me with generic information, told me to file a report if I ever got the guy’s name, and handed me a card with the precinct’s address and phone number.
And now, I was questioning my own sanity. File a report on what? A corpse that had vanished? A ghost of a not-so-good Samaritan?
But he wasn’t a ghost. He was real. The pressure of his hand on the back of my neck had been real. The heat of his breath against my lips, the way his body had vibrated with fury, the way he’d told me to run—that had all beenreal.
And I had run like a coward. I’d gone back to my apartment, locked the door, and called the police.
Now I was here, taking orders. Smiling. Acting like I hadn’t watched a man die less than three hours ago. And it was the second time in a matter of days! If this kept up, the male population of Manhattan was going to be significantly impacted.
“Hey, you okay?” Trina asked, her voice cutting through the fog in my head.
I blinked and looked over at her. She was carrying a tray of breakfast sandwiches from the small kitchen area in the back, her ponytail bouncing as she moved toward the glass case.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Just tired.”
She didn’t push. Thank God.
The shop was starting to fill up now. Mostly regulars. I wondered how many of them knew who really owned this place. How many of them had noticed the tattooed man in the back corner hammering away on his laptop as he sat there for hours on end? Not that he was ever coming back, but who really knew?
My stomach twisted. I didn’t know which man in my life was worse.
Carlos? A monster.
Delgado? A gang lord.
Carmine? I wasn’t sure about him.
And what about the man who’d stalked me, saved me…killed for me? The man whose name I didn’t even know?
Mr. Stalker haunted my thoughts. Since the first day I’d waited on him, he was never too far away. Part of me actually felt safer to know he was nearby, even if the other part thought he was a psychopath.
I left the counter to take some orders for the guests sitting at tables. I glanced outside; the snow had thickened. The garland and twinkle lights made the windows glow with warm light. All was peaceful.
And then I saw him.
Standing just beyond the glass, staring in the window with an angry scowl. Black coat, dark hair tousled from the wind, and a shopping bag in his hand. He didn’t move.
Every muscle in my body froze.
Of course he was here.
Like the devil reading my thoughts and then appearing.
I turned my back to him and asked the couple at the table for their order.
But I knew—Iknew—I wasn’t going to get through this shift without having another confrontation with him.
I returned to the register.
I’d just finished ringing up a cinnamon latte for a woman in a hurry when he stepped up to the counter.
His eyes locked onto mine—unreadable.
“Step outside,” he said calmly, in the kind of tone that brooked no argument.
The man behind him in line shifted uneasily and took a step back.
Trina froze mid-pour, her eyes darting between us, but she stayed quiet.
