“She fucking stabbed him!” He yells, looking between his bleeding friend and the knife in my hand.
The last man stares at me and goes to reach for the gun at his waistband. The sight of it sends pure terror ricocheting through my body. If he grabs that gun, I’m dead.
I charge him without thinking, my knife slicing at him in shallow, messy strikes. He curses at me and slams his elbow into my back, knocking the breath from my lungs and sending me tumbling forward.
As soon as I hit the ground, rough hands grab me from every direction. Ripping at anything they can get their hands on. Someone pries the knife from my grip, and before I even realize what’s happening, I’m forced back on my feet, and a thick arm is wrapping around my neck and crushing my throat.
Fuck.
I claw at the arm choking me, kicking wildly, but my feet barely scrape the pavement as he lifts me off the ground with terrifying ease.
“Kill that bitch, Rico!” One of them shouts, tending to the first man I stabbed. “Look what she did to Aldo!”
The arm around my neck squeezes harder, and my vision starts to blur at the edges. I try to head-butt his chin, but miss, and in return, he slams my face hard against the brick wall. White explodes behind my eyes.
“You have no idea who you’re fucking with,” he snarls, pressing his cracked lips to my ear.
I try to kick, to fight, to do something, but my body betrays me. He has me pinned against the brick wall, and my limbs are heavy and utterly useless.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
A deafening bang rings out, and I flinch as the soundricochets through my entire body. The arm around my neck loosens, and the weight pressing against me eases off.
I suck in a ragged breath as I turn to face them, my eyes narrowing at the puzzling scene. The four of them are just standing there, staring at each other with wide-eyed confusion.
What the hell is happening?
Another bang rings out, and the man who was just choking me jerks forward. Before I can even process what’s happening, his face explodes, and he collapses to the ground. Another one sounds, then another, and another, and like a twisted version of “Down the Clown” the rest of the men collapse next to him. Their bodies land with sickening thumps, and I stare, transfixed on the glistening pools of blood stretching across the pavement beneath them.
I slowly look back up, and the sight in front of me makes me audibly gasp.
The man they were beating is now standing. He’s tall, at least a foot or more above me. Maybe somewhere around 6’5 or 6’6. There’s a gun in his hand and a gnarly gash above his brow. Blood streaks down the side of his face, sliding against the hollow of his cheeks before catching on the edge of his clenched jaw. He stares at me through the dark strands of hair hanging over his eyes, and I can’t help but stare back.
He’s stupidly pretty for a killer.
Full brows, dark eyes, and the kind of panty-melting bone structure you can stare at for hours. He has tattoos crawling up the side of his neck, half hidden by the collar of his white shirt, and despite the blood and the gun and the four bodies at his feet, he looks completely unfazed.
He takes a step towards me, and I flinch back, pressing myself harder into the brick. I’m trying to stay calm, but my body is acting purely on instinct. It’s as if it can sense the danger I’m in and has shifted into pure self-preservation mode.
As he inches closer, his eyes stay on mine, then dip lower for a second too long, before lazily lifting back up.
I glance down at myself.
Shit.
One of the straps on my dress is torn, and the neckline is pulled down and stretched from where their hands grabbed at me. I didn’t wear a bra today, and my breasts are almost completely exposed.
I jerk my arms up immediately, yanking the fabric back into place, and trying to cover myself as best I can. When I look back up, I find him watching.
The muscles in his jaw flex, and then he slides his gun into the waistband of his pants.
My grip tightens on the fabric as my brain scrambles, every instinct screaming at me all at once.What is he doing?
He starts to take off his jacket, and I freeze.
He’s just as bad as they are,a voice in the back of my head whispers.He’s worse. You misread the situation. You saved a monster.
He strips the jacket off, and I just stand there trembling, bracing for something I can’t even force myself to think about. Then, without warning, he tosses it at me.
