Page 26 of Rent an Enforcer

Also—and I recognize this is not the appropriate observation for the moment—watching Tristan fight is kind of hot. He moves like it’s choreographed, except it’s not. It’s just muscle memory. His body is doing things it was trained to do without asking his brain for permission. He’s fast for someone his size. The other guy is big too—thick neck, wide shoulders—but Tristan is faster and more efficient. Every hit he lands sounds like it means something.

The other guy swings wide. Tristan ducks it, comes up inside, then drives an elbow into the guy’s ribs. I swear, I feel it in my own chest from twenty feet away. The guy staggers and his jacket swings open. Something falls out and hits the concrete with a metallic clatter that echoes off the alley walls.

It skitters across the ground and stops about six feet from me, sitting on the dirty concrete as if it’s waiting for someone to make a decision.

It’s a gun. An actual, honest-to-God gun.

The cold in my hands goes from zero to arctic. Everything around me freezes, too, while my gaze stays fixed on the gun. It’s small and dark, and I can’t take my eyes off it. A sound comes out of my mouth that I don’t authorize—a sharp, high yelp, the kind of sound a small dog makes when you step on its paw.

Tristan’s head snaps toward me. “Stella?”

That’s all he gets out, because the half-second he spends looking at me is the half-second his opponent needs. A fist connects with the side of Tristan’s jaw, and his head rocks sideways. Then the other guy drives forward and slams him back against the dumpster. Tristan’s skull hits metal, and the sound makes bile rise in my throat. He fights the other guy’s grip, one hand now around Tristan’s throat while the other fist draws back for another punch.

Because of me. This is all my fault. If I didn’t come out here and make a sound like a stepped-on Pomeranian, he wouldn’t have turned his head. He wouldn’t have someone’s hand around his throat now.

The gun is right there.

I don’t think about it. If I thought about it, I wouldn’t do it, because thinking is what I do and thinking always leads to fear, which always leads to freezing. Freezing is not an option when someone has their hand around Tristan’s throat.

I lunge forward, grab the gun off the ground, and point it at the attacker with both hands.

It’s heavier than I expected. My arms are shaking. The muzzle is jumping around like it has its own ideas about where it wants to point. I’m gripping so hard my knuckles have gone white. I hear myself say, in a voice that is definitely not as steady as I would like it to be, “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

Silence. Both men go completely still. Tristan is staring at me. So is the other guy.

“Wait,” I mumble. “I have the gun. That doesn’t... that’s not…”

“Stella,” Tristan croaks through the hand on his throat.

“I’m handling this.” I am not handling this. My hands are vibrating like a cell phone on a hard surface. But I’m holding a gun, and it’s pointed at the man hurting Tristan, and I’m not about to put it back down. “You. Let go of him. Right now. Or I’ll... I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“That’s not a threat,” Tristan manages.

“It sounded better in my head,” I snap without looking his way.

The stranger lets go of Tristan. I’m guessing it’s not because of the Godfather quotes. More like there’s a gun pointed at his center mass, held by a woman whose hands are shaking badly enough that she could hit literally anything in the alley. Arguably, that would make me more dangerous than someone who can aim.

He takes a step back, eyes glittering as he sizes me up. Calculating, measuring me. I watch the decision happen on his face before his body commits to it.

He lunges.

I pull the trigger.

The sound is enormous. It fills the entire alley, bouncing off every surface, slamming into my eardrums. The kick snaps my arms up and back, and I stumble. For a fraction of a second, I have no idea what just happened or where the bullet went.

The stranger is on the ground, clutching his thigh. There’s blood coming through his fingers, spreading in a dark flower blooming against his jeans. He’s making a sound I would not describe as happy. But he’s alive. He’s conscious. He’s bleeding heavily from his leg, though, which means I shot him in the leg. That means I actually hit something. Statistically, that’s kind of impressive considering my eyes were half closed when I pulled the trigger.

The gun is still in my hands. My ears are ringing. The alley smells like something metallic and burned, and I literally cannot believe this is happening. “Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god. I shot him. I shot a man. Tristan, I just shot a man.”

Tristan is already moving. He’s off the dumpster, a hand on his jaw where he took the hit. He takes the gun from my grip gently but firmly, the way you take scissors from a child who’s been running with them. Ironic, since I’m also afraid of scissors. But I can imagine.

“We’re leaving,” he grits out. “Right now.”

“But I shot him,” I repeat, in case anyone has forgotten. “Is he—I mean, should we—does he need⁠—”

“He needs to think about his life choices, and we need to get the fuck out of here. Let’s go.” His hand is on my back, and he uses it to steer me out of the alley. I’m walking on legs that feel like they belong to someone else, maybe to the version of me that didn’t just shoot someone. Behind us, my victim is still on the ground and still making the unhappy sound.

I just shot a man.