I should be afraid of him.
"Are you in construction?" I ask, testing.
"Sometimes." His mouth curves again, that not-quite-smile. "When the job requires it."
"Is that what you were doing when you got shot?"
His expression doesn't change, but amusement flickers in his eyes. Or approval that I'm pushing.
"You remember."
"Hard to forget a through-and-through GSW to the shoulder. Especially when I filed it as a construction accident." I hold his gaze. "So was it? Construction?"
"No."
"What were you really doing?"
"Solving a problem." He takes a sip of his coffee. "It didn't go as smoothly as planned."
"Did you solve it?"
"Eventually." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "The man who shot me isn't a problem anymore."
I set down my coffee and look at him directly. "Are you dangerous?"
"Yes."
The honesty catches me off guard. No deflection, no reassurance, no attempt to make me feel safe. Just yes, simple and clear, like it's a fact I should know going in.
"Should I be worried?"
"Not about me." He says it with absolute certainty, like it's a vow. "Never about me."
A dangerous man who says I shouldn't worry about him, which means I should definitely worry about him. Every instinct I have is screaming that this is exactly the kind of man Vincent used to warn me about.
I don't get up or make an excuse to leave.
Instead, I ask, "Then who should I be worried about?"
His eyes go dark. Actually dark, like something violent just moved through his thoughts.
"Anyone who tries to hurt you." He says it quietly, but there's an edge underneath that makes me believe him. "That won't happen again."
"You can't promise that."
"I can." He leans back, but the intensity doesn't ease. If anything, it gets worse. "I do."
"You don't even know me."
"I know enough."
"You know my name and where I work. Where I live because you walked me home. That's not enough."
"I know you save people." His voice drops lower. "I know when you're short-staffed at the ER, you pick up extra shifts even when you're running on four hours of sleep. I know you take the subway home at two in the morning instead of calling a car because you tell yourself you can't afford it, even though you can."
I go very, very still.
"How do you know that?"
