With the keys in hand, I climbed from my Charger, admiring the almost full moon adding an eerie complexity to the sky. With strange swirling clouds, the look was befitting being so close to Halloween.
As I headed down the sidewalk, every time I thought about another man putting his hands on her I strangled them in my mind. I was clearly incapable of separating business from pleasure.
And no additional pleasure would be allowed. I found myself flexing my hand the entire time I was walking toward my house.
She’d been a wiggling thing. Laughing, I touched my stomach where she’d hit me with three solid punches. I hadn’t acknowledged the pain, but goddamn, the woman knew how to throw a punch.
I was still laughing as I jogged onto the porch. My house was a fucking picturesque, oversized bungalow with a massive front porch and painted Tudor-style columns in a festive blue. I hadn’t selected the colors, but the house had been on the market for a song, likely given a murder had occurred inside.
What did I care since I’d killed many times over the years?
Another funny thing about the house. Emmeline had gifted me with several hours of her interior design skill. And she was legendary.
Well, I tried to keep the house neat while being here little more than to sleep, shower, and occasionally grab a coffee.
I pulled out my keys, taking a few seconds as I always did to glance up and down the street. What the location didn’t have was a garage and it was right on a main street.
Jaxon was always trying to convince me to buy another house, but this one suited me.
As soon as I placed the key into the lock, something caught my attention. I wasn’t entirely certain what it was, but I was positive that I’d either heard or seen something.
Pulling back, I even walked down the stairs, taking more than a few seconds to scan the street. Given the late hour, other than a few cars passing by, there was almost no one out.
After the evening’s festivities, it was possible I was just being extra cautious.
However, I did walk to both sides of the house, the full moon allowing me to see the area clearly. There was no one hiding in the shadows.
With a shake of my head, I returned to the front door, once again sliding the key into the lock. Call it instinct or training, but at the same time I turned the knob, a realization hit me like a ton of bricks.
I hadn’t left a light on in the house and I’d seen one on in the kitchen through a slightly open blind.
A single click and all I had time to do was to jump away from the door before…
Boom!
CHAPTER 8
Donatello
A knock on the door dragged me from my peaceful moment.
And my drink.
I rolled the cool glass across my forehead, wincing as soon as I did. Why the fuck was someone bothering me at… I was forced to blink several times to focus on the crystal face of my Breitling watch for the time.
That wasn’t going to work. The goddamn hundred-thousand-dollar piece of jewelry had been reduced to a shattered representation of my shitty evening.
Besides, all I had to do was to look out the window at the strings of tangerine and fuchsia crisscrossing the sky to know it was early morning.
And I’d yet to get drunk. Imagine that.
I threw back the remainder of the liquid, thudding the dense crystal on the table.
With a deep grunt, I rose to my feet, ambling toward the hotel room door. My gait was so fucking slow, I appeared as Frankenstein brought to life. And with the number of bruises marring my skin, including a few ribs, that’s exactly the way I felt. While I vaguely remembered being told there were guards outside my hotel suite door, I pulled my weapon into my hand anyway. Obviously, I couldn’t be too careful at this point.
Whoever had broken into my house to set the explosives had done so without tripping the alarm.
Just something else to piss me off.
