The blade caught flesh. I felt it connect, felt the resistance of skin splitting, and for a half second I felt that cold satisfaction of knowing I’d drawn blood before my brain caught up to what my eyes were seeing.
Before I could sayanything he moved quickly and his hand clamped around my wrist, twisted the blade out of my grip like I was a child holding a toy, and then both his arms were around me from behind, locking me against his chest in a bear hold that swallowed my entire body.
“Calm the fuck down.” His voice was right against my ear, low and steady like he was talking to a spooked horse. “It’s just me. Damn,” he said, examining his hand. “You got me good.”
I threw an elbow. It connected with something solid, his ribs, maybe, and he didn’t even flinch. I stomped at his foot, tried to drop my weight the way my instructor taught me, twisted my shoulders to break his grip, and none of it worked. Every technique I’d practiced in class three times a week assumed the attacker would react to pain or lose their balance or give me an inch of space to exploit, and this man did none of those things. He just held me tighter, his arms locked like steel bands across my chest and waist, and waited for me to tire myself out.
Which pissed me off even more.
“Let me GO!” I was thrashing now, fully aware that I looked insane and not caring. My pulse was in my throat, my breath was ragged, and my body was doing that thing it always did where it couldn’t tell the difference between danger and everything else.
But something was off. Something my brain registered before my body caught up to it. His arms were tight but they weren’t hurting me. He wasn’t squeezing, wasn’t crushing, wasn’t using his strength to punish. He was just… containing me. The way you’d hold someone who was falling apart so the pieces didn’t scatter.
I hated that I noticed that.
“You done?” he asked after I’d burned through another ten seconds of pointless struggling.
“Let me go, Quest. I swear to God.”
He let me go, immediately. He didn’t hesitate nor linger. His arms dropped and he stepped back, giving me space, and I spun around to face him with my chest heaving and my fists balled up at my sides.
He looked at his hand again. The cut ran diagonally across his palm, deep enough to bleed steady, but not deep enough for stitches. Probably. He flexed his fingers, winced slightly, and then had the audacity to look amused.
“Well, good,” I snapped, still breathing hard. “That’s what you get for sneaking up on me.”
“I didn’t sneak up on you. I was walking. In a parking lot. At a normal pace. I was about to say your name, but you turned around and went Rambo on me before I got the first syllable out.”
“Maybe don’t approach a woman in a dark parking lot.”
“Noted.” He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket—who the hell still carries a handkerchief—and wrapped it around his palm. “Next time I’ll blow a safety whistle first.”
I didn’t laugh. But I wanted to, and I hated myself for that too.
“Why the fuck are you here, Quest?”
He leaned against the hood of what I assumed was his car and crossed his arms. The casual posture didn’t match the blood seeping through his handkerchief.
“Kacey reached out to me.”
My stomach dropped.
“Thad’s girl. Baby mother. Whatever. She texted me today saying Thad’s been missing for months and nobody’s giving her answers. She’s got two kids and no money and she’s scared.” He paused. “I met up with her earlier. She’s living out in Frederick in that house Thad bought her, barely keeping it together.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?”
“You know exactly what that’s got to do with you.” He nodded toward the warehouse. “He’s in there, isn’t he?”
“You already know he’s in there. Prime told you.”
“Prime told me a lot of things. I’m asking you.”
“Yeah. He’s in there. And?”
“And it’s been six months, Mehar. At some point you gotta make a decision. Either put him out of his misery or let him go, but you can’t keep a man in a cage forever.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m serious.”
