I hate his touch, the way he roughs me up then fucks me until he’s tired and laughs while I try hard to stay numb. It’s not in my nature to sit back and take it, but I kind of don’t have a choice.
This is my penance. I’ve messed up bad a couple of times in the past few months and hacked two people I shouldn’t have: Tony and George. Too much is catching up with me, all at once. If not for the protection of Tony, the man who likes to hit before he fucks, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life.
Or worse.
Pulling on my jeans and shirt, I shudder as I look over his body. He’s lying naked on his bed, overweight and pale, his limp dick resting between his thighs. He’s snoring, content after tonight’s round.
I need a shower. Or maybe, sandpaper to rub all over my body until every last skin cell of his is gone. Now is usually when the tears come. I don’t feel them yet.
Tonight, I feel angry. It’s not a good emotion, not where he’s involved. I learned quickly it was better to lie there and let him do whatever his sick mind tells him than to fight back, because he gets off on me struggling.
And it takes a long time to heal, if something down there gets torn. I spent the first month in constant pain. At his beck and call, I’d hoped he’d keep his rough hands off me except for a night every week or two. It seemed like a small price to pay.
But it quickly escalated from one night a week to three or four, to this week, five. I don’t know why the sudden change, and I can’t help thinking it’s a really, really bad sign. Like a kid eating all the cookies he can cram in his mouth before brushing his teeth for the night.
I need to disappear for a while.
I hate him. My body is bruised, my pussy filled with his filthy, disgusting cum. I hate me.
There come the tears. Brushing them back, I finish dressing mechanically and walk to the laptop seated on a chair near the bed. He records every one of our sessions, backing them up on a server I haven’t been able to hack yet. His reasoning is good: if I kill him, it’s recorded. If I steal or walk out with something, it’s recorded. He has it set up to where, if he doesn’t enter a password by six in the morning, the recordings and every piece of evidence he has about me goes to every law enforcement official looking for me and every person I’ve ever hacked.
Jail would no longer matter. I’d be dead by noon, if not from those I crossed then because he promised to spill my client list, too, and a lot of people who hire hackers are not exactly walking the straight and narrow.
I click stop on the recording and close the laptop. My gaze strays to him again. The sense that something is up nags at me. I don’t have the nerve to take his laptop, but maybe there’s something else here that will help me hack into his fortress so I can free myself from his clutches. Something more than his increased appetite this week makes more willing to take a chance: my best friend, Natalie, who’s asked me to help her escape her larger than life circumstances. I’d do anything for her, even run away with her like we’ve planned, and the knowledge I probably won’t be around the next time Tony calls makes me braver tonight.
Sitting quietly at the modern, glass desk, I open a drawer then a second, seeking anything that might give me a key as to how to access files he doesn’t want anyone in. He’s got an entire bottom drawer filled with tiny storage devices - thumb drives and the like - and I gaze into it. I can’t carry them all, and I doubt he’d leave something important tossed in there.
I swipe at my nose and continue searching, not even sure what I’m looking for. Leverage. Something to blackmail him the way he is blackmailing me into having sex with him. Anything I can take with me when I leave town for a while with Natalie and use against him from a distance.
Please god, give me something!
Just my luck. There’s nothing but the laptop. I sit back and stare at it. If I take it, I’ll have all of five hours to hack it, and my equipment is busted, thanks to George, the second mistake I’ve made recently.
Happy thoughts, Alisha. I made it through another night and only have a few bruises to show for it. I’m naturally a cheerful person, crazy according to my friends, though I think what they’re seeing is probably my self-destructive side at work. The more cornered I feel, the more erratic I become, the stranger I dress and the more chances I take.
It’s a vicious cycle, one that’s helped me dig my grave so deep, no one will find me when someone finally finds me and kills me off.
I can just walk away tonight. Think it over and come back in a day or two with a plan or idea of what I need to take to help me. I’m waiting for a few more arrangements to fall into place before I can disappear with Natalie. I have time to think.
Then again, I’ve never been one to think things through. I tend to act first, think eventually. Or conversely, overthink until I’m paralyzed by indecision, and then act on impulse. Natalie is the patient, stable, thoughtful one. I’m the loose cannon.
Fuck it. I don’t have much to lose at this point. I’m grasping at straws, about to disappear anyway to help Natalie escape the psycho she’s engaged to. Why not simply … go for it?
Snapping up the laptop, I leave Tony’s apartment. Adrenaline races through me, and I stuff the computer into my bag. My skin is itching from a combination of disgust and paranoia by the time I step outside into the warm night in the city. Sometimes, I catch a cab home, but tonight, I feel like I need the walk. I’ve been working on figuring something out since earlier in the day, when I last spoke to Natalie. Walking helps me think and calms me down after dealing with Tony.
I already transferred over fifty grand off the credit card number she gave me to an offshore account. In two days, the money will be where I can reach it. It’s enough to help us disappear though not quite enough to keep us off the radar for too long. It’ll be easy for me to hide her, but me …
So many people are about to be after me, assuming I can’t crack the server where Tony is hiding information about me. Dare I risk going with her, or should I go off in another direction, out of concern for her safety?
I want to go with her so bad, to disappear off the face of the planet after telling him to fuck off. I want out of here and the mess I’ve made. I want a new start, one I won’t fuck up, now that I know the dangers of messing around with the wrong people. I’d give anything for Natty and me to have that chance together. She’s more like a sister than a friend.
But with two lives at stake, hers and the unborn heir of a kingdom she’s carrying …
“There’s no fucking way.” I’ll need to spend the rest of my life being a decoy to protect my best friend. Her fiancé’s lapdog, George, managed to fuck up my world bad, to the point I need all new hardware. If he was this aggressive defending his boss from my hacks, I don’t want to know what he’ll do if his boss tells him to find me at all costs.
He’s definitely not the kind of man I should’ve crossed. But I did, and now I’m on his radar, too. Huge mistake, Alisha. At least I’m able to get my best friend away from the psycho prince who someone how managed to convince her to get engaged. Natalie is too sweet, too nice, always looking at the good in people and never at what the bad sides of those people can do to her.
Troubled, I walk the fifteen blocks back to Tenley Apartments, where I’ve lived my entire life, and go up to my floor. A hot shower, hearty breakfast and some time with headphones on, and I’ll start to feel normal again.
Until Tony figures out what I did.
Better pack first.
I walk down the hallway of the sixth floor and pause outside of my apartment, reaching for my keys. My eyes automatically go to the slender piece of paper I place in the doorjamb every time I close the door, my poor-man’s-alarm. As long as it’s there, I know no one has entered.
It’s gone.
My body goes tense so fast, I can hardly breathe. It’s not possible for Tony to know what I’ve done yet. He’s a sound sleeper. Which leaves …
“You had visitors.” The low, sultry voice with the British accent belongs to the other man I don’t want showing up at my door. George moves so silently, I’m not even sure where he is in the hallway, only that he’s close enough I should’ve noticed him before.
“I hate visitors,” I whisper. Since the first day we met, George has wreaked havoc on my senses. He smells good, of light, expensive cologne and warm earth. He’s gotta be ex-military or some sort of workout nut to look like he does. He’s definitely not the kind of guy a self-proclaimed nerd like me ever thought would cross her path.
Then again, I’ve regretted every day since he did. He’s also brilliant and not at all afraid to beat down my door when I fuck with his boss. How he even found me …
If he’s here, he probably knows I helped Natalie leave the City a few hours ago, which means I’m in trouble.
Assuming he’s the one who broke into my apartment, I unlock the door, race in and shove it closed as fast as I can, locking it behind me.
“Damn, damn, damn!” I mutter, staring at the door for a moment. I have all of about two minutes before someone that strong knocks it down, which means I have to act fast.
Turning to start towards my room, I trip over something that shouldn’t be in the middle of the hallway and fall.
The streetlights filtering in from windows and the nightlight in the hallway reveal enough of what’s before me to tell me my apartment is trashed. Wholly, completely, utterly shredded. Deflated couch cushions, broken furniture, a smattering of treasures I’ve collected over the years, all lie in complete ruin.
“Alisha!” George pounds on the door.
“Son of a bitch!” I shove myself up, furious with him. Why tear everything a part? If he was after anything, it’d be my laptop, which I have in my bag. From the systematic, disciplined way he hacked me, I can’t see him making a mess here, unless he was pissed off not to find me at home.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out his boss probably knows by now that Natalie is gone, on her way to Ohio. It’s too early for her to be there yet. I’m expecting her to call around mid-morning. I wasn’t counting on George confronting me so quickly.
I make my way carefully through my trashed home, dismayed. I’ve been ready for this moment for years, and yet, I don’t think it’s possible to ever feel ready to flee your own life. Seeing the destruction of my space hurts. My treasures and trinkets, things that are important only to me, are knocked to the floor or destroyed. I can never come back here. Even being prepared, I don’t expect to feel mentally shot by this acknowledgment that I’ve lost everything.
My eyes blur. George is tracking me down, and Tony will be in a couple of hours.
Should’ve left the laptop. Kept it at one manhunt.
As usual, I fucked up. The story of my life.
My bedroom is a disaster. Any hope I had of putting together a getaway bag is gone. It’ll take too long to dig through everything. I’ll have to wait out George in my secret crawlspace then leave with what I can grab.
“Alisha!” His banging is getting louder. “We need to talk!”
“Fuck you, George!” I shove remnants of my life out of my way to get to the back of my closet, where the entrance to the emergency crawlspace is hidden.
The front door slams open.
Screaming at myself silently, I struggle to shove a laundry basket worth of shoes out of the way.
I glance frantically towards the bedroom door, praying for enough time to hide, when I see the strange red glow at the baseboard near my door. I pause, unable to place its source. My parents used to have alarm systems on the windows of their apartment with similar light beams that sound an alarm if broken. This light resembles that kind of alarm beam.
Which makes no sense. I know I didn’t put it there. Who rigged my apartment, if not me?
Footsteps in the hallway. “I know you’re here, Alisha.”
I yank at the door to the crawlspace.
It doesn’t budge.
It’s too dark for me to see if anything else is jammed against it, so I skim my hands over the surface and feel the bar braced across it. Its still got coat hangers attached to it.
“Alisha.” He’s in the doorway.
Bracing myself, I peek out of the closet. George takes up the space in the door, his wide frame outlined by the nightlight in the hallway.
“I see you’ve had some interesting life developments since my last visit.”
I roll my eyes. His inherently British knack for understating the obvious might be charming, if we weren’t on the opposite ends of pretty much everything.
“I imagine this alerts the people who redecorated your flat.” He squats in the doorway.
It’s too dark for me to see his features, but I can guess he’s studying the same beam that drew my attention. The glow of red is hard to miss in the otherwise dark bedroom.
“Like you didn’t set it and trash the place,” I snap. I duck back into the closet and push at the bar blocking my crawlspace. The door is metal with the highest quality deadbolts I was able to afford. I can wait him out.
If I can get into it. I’m not sure what to do if it doesn’t budge.
“I send my messages more directly. By knocking on your door or messaging you online,” he replies, as calm as I am not. My hands shake with urgency. “This was the work of two men at least. Probably three. I’d have to say they aren’t fans of yours.”
Smug, know-it-all bastard. “Okay. I’ll play along. You didn’t do this. What’s the message?” I need more time to try to jimmy the bar loose, so talking seems like a good alternative to being dragged out of my room and interrogated, which was close to how my first meeting with the sexy, hired muscle of a billionaire prince went a few weeks ago.
“Did you trigger the alarm?” he asks instead of answering my question. George stands, taking up the whole doorway again.
“Probably,” I mumble. “Didn’t see it … until …” I grunt and slam the meat of my palm upward into the bar, trying to unjam it. “… until I was … in here.”
“Save your strength. I blocked your emergency hiding spot.”
My arms drop, and I groan internally. I really, truly hate this man. He destroyed a hacking set up that took me ten years and all the money I could save to create. He engages me every time I’m online, randomly tracks me down in person to remind me not to fuck with his boss and now this: a trashed apartment and blocked escape route.
“Found it when I walked through earlier and saw the mess,” he adds.
“You’re stalking me.”
“Hunting.”
The way he says it makes a shiver of fear trickle down my back. I stare into the darkness of my closet, trapped and frustrated.
“To answer your question, the message here is that they’re planning on doing to you what they did to your flat.” His cultured accent and calm tone makes me getting whacked sound like a pleasant experience.
“They were probably looking for my laptop,” I reply.
“This wasn’t exactly a precision operation,” he says with politeness I save for church and the elderly. “But you know your enemies better than I do. Perhaps you are right and they are simply … uncoordinated searchers.”
I hate it more that he can destroy my world and then almost pull a smile from me with his dry British wit. He’s a combination of danger and intelligence. It’s a turn on, even when I’m reminding myself of all the reasons I have to hate him for interfering in my life. He makes sense, though. He’s broken into my apartment before and never made a mess.
Like that makes him less dangerous? The man has the severity and hardness of a hit man, softened by his English accent and mannerisms. He’s the kind of an assassin who would humor his victim’s last request for a cup of tea before gutting him or peeling off his skin or something equally horrible.
These kinds of thoughts really freak me out.
“So … I’m in my closet and you’re … here,” I say and clear my throat. “Any chance this is just a courtesy visit to remind me to leave your boss’s super secret files alone?” I tug at one of my pigtails nervously, mind racing to find alternatives for getting out of this mess.
“I’m afraid not.” He sounds a bit distracted, and I peek from the closet to see what he’s doing. He’s crouched by the red beam once more. “You know who did this?” he asks.
“I’m still not convinced this isn’t your work.”
“You’re smart. Use some sense. Does this behavior fit what you know about me?”
No. But I’m not about to admit it to him.
“Either you don’t know who’s after you, or you do and won’t say,” he says. “When I use a set up like this, I’m less than two minutes away, so I can respond when the silent alarm is triggered. It would be helpful to know what kind of storm is coming our way.”
Our way. Not my way. Not like he’s going to move and let the storm take me. My heart is pounding, because I’m starting to realize how much trouble I’m in. Tony, George and … mystery hit men.
“Could be one of many,” I reply vaguely. “You’re welcome to come back later to see if they leave me alive or not. Actually, why are you here, if you know a shit storm is on its way?”
“I’ll inform you shortly.” He stands quickly. “Someone else is here.” His whisper is low and quiet.
For a minute, I think he’s messing with me, wanting to scare me. And then I hear it, too, the creak of the fire escape outside my living room. The sound of someone sliding open a window.
George enters my room. My first instinct is to run – except I can’t. Safe in my closet, I’m nonetheless trapped as well. I’m not sure who I should run from anyway: George or the strangers who allegedly trashed my place.
He takes my arm. I yank at it, but he holds me tight.
“You’ve got a very important decision to make right now,” he whispers. “Whoever is coming through that window isn’t here to offer you a business deal. I am. If you want to take your chances negotiating with them on your own, I’ll dutifully leave you alone to deal with them and let them know where you’re hiding on my way out. Or …” He pauses.
I wait, not at all interested in the first half of his ultimatum.
“If any part of you feels your chances of leaving this apartment alive are less than good, you’ll move your ass out of the doorway so I can climb in there with you.”
I listen to his low, calm voice, knowing someone is creeping through my living room without understanding what they want. Sure, I have a ton of potential enemies. There’s honor among thieves in my line of work, though, so I’m pretty sure as long as I don’t reveal them, most my clients aren’t coming after me.
Except for Tony and George. Those two are the wild cards. I was with Tony earlier and George is here now. If neither of them is out to whack me, then I have no clue who’s in my house right now.
“Business deal?” I repeat.
“I require your assistance.”
My eyebrows shoot up. George, the man who has become my personal Big Brother the past few weeks, needs my help. If he knew I helped Natalie leave the City, he wouldn’t be requesting my help. Something else has to be up.
Unless, he’s lying.
Either way, I kind of like the idea of leaving my apartment alive, and I’m pretty sure he’s just offered to make sure that happens. I can definitely believe someone like him has the skills to muscle me out of here, if that’s what it takes.
I can lie, too. Make it out of here then run for it.
“Okay,” I say and tug at his grip on me. “Welcome to my closet.”
George moves into it with me. I lean into one wall. The closet is small enough without the mess, and he maneuvers his way through shoes and fallen clothing to rest lightly against me, his wide chest and hard body at my back. I usually date overweight computer nerds who smell like Doritos. The combination of his warmth, scent and hardness leave my senses a little overwhelmed. He wraps one thick arm around me and leans into me, bringing his muscular frame in full contact with mine.
Wow. If I wasn’t standing in a closet hoping I survive the night, I might find this to be the best moment of my entire life. It’s like snuggling with a real live action hero from one of my comic books. I’m not sure what scares me more: that I like being in his arms or that I know now for a fact he’s strong enough to break me in two, if he wants.
I stealthily move my hand down my side and to the bag at my feet. It’s hard to manipulate it within reach, but I manage, hopefully without drawing his attention. I trap my bag between my thigh and the wall and reach into it, searching for the Taser I took with me tonight. I have this fantasy about Tasering Tony. After five nights in a row of his sick sex, I can’t stop daydreaming about the idea.
Stealing his laptop isn’t quite as satisfying as seeing him convulse in a puddle at my feet, and it’s probably more foolish. That’s how I roll – stupidly at times.
George grips my wrist, and I jerk, surprised.
“Not that I don’t trust you, but dropping the Taser is in your best interest right now,” he murmurs.
“It’s to use on the bad guys, not you,” I lie smoothly. “Seems smart to have it ready, doesn’t it?”
“No.” He pulls the bag from between my body and the wall and drops it somewhere behind him. “And no going for the gun under your mattress.”
My mouth opens and then closes. “How many times have you been in my apartment?” I’m envisioning him standing over me while I sleep, debating whether or not he should kill me.
“Once before tonight. A wise man always finds the weapons first, escape routes second.”
“Are you armed?” I ask curiously.
“Don’t need to be. Killing with a weapon does a man a disservice. You Yanks like to make it easy to take a life. There’s no respect in killing from a distance, where you can’t fully experience the consequences of your actions.”
“Deep thoughts on murdering from a real live action figure,” I mutter. “Some of us don’t have the benefit of being beefy.”
“You’ve got something better: intelligence. You’re smart enough to know you need someone like me tonight, which leads me to believe you know how much danger you’re in,” he replies. “Care to share a list of potential enemies, before I put myself between you and whoever is here?”
His words make me swallow my retort. I’m not exactly sure what happened here. I went from running from him, to hoping he doesn’t come between me and a bullet, because it doesn’t seem right for him to lose his life over my messes. “You would do that?” I ask suspiciously.
“I need your assistance. If that means keeping you alive, then consider me your temporary, ill-tempered, reluctant bodyguard, until I have what I need.”
I knew he wanted something. I didn’t expect he’d go to this extent to ensure he got it. It’s kind of gratifying yet freaky, because it means whatever he needs, it’s worth his life.
I don’t know enough about him to know what that might be. In all honesty, I didn’t think him capable of anything of the sort. He definitely strikes me as having sociopathic traits with the level of robotic devotion he’s shown to his boss.
“Well …” I pause to think. “Should I start with the local mafias, international criminals or politicians?”
“You really don’t know.”
“Not at the moment, no. Give me a few minutes with them and I might.”
“Nice.” He almost sounds amused. “Quiet.”
I suck in a breath and listen for the sound of footfalls or others whispering. Anything to tell me how many people are in my apartment or where they are. Whatever George hears, I don’t, just the sounds of our breathing. His heartbeat at my back is slow and steady. His warm breath skates across one ear as he bends his head to whisper. “Do not move or speak. Understood?”
I nod with a shiver. His breath smells minty, and I wonder how many hit men remember to use mouthwash before tracking down their prey.
George releases me and moves away, his slow step silent as he ventures into the cluttered room. I wait until he’s out of the closet before reaching for my bag. Groping in the darkness, I feel the strap beneath my fingertips and give a tug. Whatever it is, it’s not the bag I want. The yank sends something that sounds like one of my snow globes thumping onto the floor. It rolls and hits the bedpost, and I gasp.
The thud-and-roll shatters the silence of my room. As soon as it’s quiet, I hear the footfalls of more than one person racing down the hallway.
“Alisha …” George does not sound happy.
“It was an accident!” I grip the bag I’m looking for and sling it across my chest, not caring at this point how much noise I make.
Two shadows then three clog my doorway and dart into the room. The sound of a fist meeting flesh makes me flinch empathetically, and I stumble back towards the window. I’m not finding my Taser in the depths of the bag and nearly topple to the ground when someone shoves into me. Catching myself against the far wall, I try not to imagine what’s going on and focus on getting the hell out of here.
Staggering through the mess and around the fighting men, I make it to the doorway and into the hallway. The window air conditioning unit in my living room drowns out any sounds, so I take a chance and run. Sprinting down the hall, I can see the outline of the front door and am starting to think I’ll make it, when someone clotheslines me.
I drop like a rock in water and lie on the ground, stunned and coughing. I’m seeing stars, and I blink rapidly to clear them, aware of someone’s body heat as he squats by my head.
“Tony says thanks for tonight,” a man whispers.
That son of a bitch! Forcing me to sleep with him – and ordering a hit anyway! He couldn’t have known I’d grow balls and take his laptop. I bet he’s so hurting in the morning …
Not that it matters, because I’ll be dead.
The stranger presses the cool metal of a gun to my temple, and my whole world seems to stop. I think about Natalie and her baby, about how careless I’ve been with my hacking gift, about how – if I had it to do over – I’d never cave to Tony blackmailing me. I think about George getting gunned down and feel sorry for him as well as a little guilty.
I guess we’ll meet again in hell. I close my eyes, furious at myself for some really shitty life choices. They didn’t seem so bad when I made them, but in hindsight, I look like an idiot. The gun leaves my temple, and I wait for the sound of my death.
It doesn’t come. Either that, or people aren’t exaggerating about the world slowing down in the last minute before a near-death experience. Because this minute is really, really dragging.
Opening my eyes, I’m surprised that the man is gone. I catch a flash of movement in the living room and clamber to my feet, trying to make out what’s happening. It’s too hard to tell in the dark, and I can’t hear much over the roar of the AC unit.
Slapping my hand against one wall, I grope around until I find the light switch and flip it on. Light blinds me briefly, and I hold up one hand to block it as I take in the scene before me.
Tall, muscular George has some man bent over backwards in a headlock. As I watch, he jerks upward. The man goes still.
Dropping him, George straightens and levels a look on me. His biceps are straining in the pristine, white suit shirt, and his belt is gone from his slacks. I’ve never seen him in anything but a full suit, and it strikes me as odd to see him rumpled. His black hair is disheveled, his face flushed from effort, and his searing grey gaze on me. I knew he was strong, and I knew he was big.
But he seems so much more of both than I noticed before. Muscular thighs are outlined in his slacks, and I can see the leanness of his torso without the suit jacket.
Step aside Thor. You got nothing on George. I silently tell my favorite comic book character. George looks incredible, in a very lethal, panther-like way.
Right now I’m hoping he didn’t notice that I made an attempt to run out on him.
He’s got two bodies at his feet and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a kerchief to dab at the blood leaking from his nose.
Because polite murderers always carry handkerchiefs. For some reason, the image in my mind is funny, and I laugh uneasily then end with an embarrassing hiccup. Panic is bubbling within me, and I don’t know if I should laugh or cry at my horrible night.
“Judging by his accent, I’d say the Russian mob,” he guesses. “No one sends five hit men unless they want to be certain the target is dead.”
I roll my eyes. Tony is a captain in the Russian mob, a fact I didn’t know when I accidentally crossed him. George doesn’t need to know that, though.
“You okay?” George asks.
“Me?” I respond, surprised he’s asked. “Best night of my life. You?”
“I have reason to question your standards. And your judgment.” He nudges the body nearest him.
An eerie thought crosses my mind, one that makes me shift. My stomach drops out from beneath me and the panic inside me becomes more frenzied.
“Are they … um, knocked out?” I ask.
“You could say that.”
“What do you mean? You don’t mean they’re … permanently knocked out, do you?” I hiccup again, ready to run or scream or maybe return to the closet and hope this is all a bad dream.
George raises an eyebrow in polite offense, as if I’ve asked him where his belt is instead of whether or not he killed five men.
“Because if you killed them to save me … if this is my fault … I’m going to have an issue with that,” I add.
“They sent their message. I sent one in turn. You’re mine, until this is over.”
I shake my head. “Okay but … no. They’re not dead, and I’m not going with you,” I say. I back into the wall, my hands trembling. I took psychedelic drugs once, and my world is starting to resemble what it did then. Confusing, surreal, dream-like.
George smooths out his shirt, gaze still on mine. Five dead guys working for the Russian mafia and an English hit man? There’s no way this is real. It’s … just … not.
Except it almost seems like it is.
“I’m feeling a little sick,” I whisper.
“You’ve never seen anyone die.” His gaze softens. “It bothers you?”
“No, because every day I have Russian mafia breaking into my apartment and watch them get murdered!”
“You’re welcome.”
“What?”
“Let me get my jacket, and we’ll go.” He breezes by me, completely unaffected by what just happened.
I stare at the bodies. They came to kill me and ended up being killed themselves. Does this qualify as a paradox or horrible irony? How do I process this? The sound of my bag tapping the wall behind me fills my ears, and I realize I’m shaking hard enough that the laptops inside it are clapping together as well.
“Alisha.” George reappears and rests his hands on my shoulders. His suit jacket is back on, albeit unbuttoned.
I gaze up at him, taken aback by his size once again and the fact that he smells and seems so real when I want very badly to pretend this is a dream. His grey eyes have flecks of blue and green in them, as complicated as the man himself.
“Sometimes bad things happen for good reasons.” His tone is soft, his full lips forming the words inches from my face. He’s got heavy but refined features, as if the sculptor that carved him from honey colored stone wasn’t certain if he should resemble the slender faces of the royals of England, like his father, or the thicker Hessian features of Germany, where his real mother was born. “I will look after you the way I do EJ, at least until this is over.”
I blink. “And then what?”
“We’ll see.”
This isn’t reassuring at all. Does he mean it to be? And why am I more interested in the warmth of his solid body than the fact he killed two people in my living room? There’s something about his combination of sexiness and danger that makes me shiver for a different reason, that touches the primal woman inside me that kind of gets off at the idea of the ultimate thrill ride. I’m an adrenaline desk junkie. Part of the reason I hack is because I love the challenge and the reward.
But I have a feeling hacking will pale in comparison to being stuck with a man like his.
“You okay?” he asks again, this time running his warm thumb along my jawline.
I can’t look away from him and don’t want to move, even if every instinct in my body is still telling me to run. Something about this man has mesmerized me since the first time we met. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that ended well, and yet my body hums with warmth, the kind I never feel for Tony, no matter how nice he pretends to be to me.
Adrenaline and desire. It doesn’t take a genius to know that George is addicting.
“Not really,” I reply.
“Good.” He offers a quick, small smile then turns away, striding towards the door.
“Good?” I echo. “How is that good?”
“It means you’ll be fine.”
I don’t get him. At all.
“We need to leave before more come,” he says over his shoulder, pausing in the doorway.
That jars me out of place, and I hurry towards him. No matter what I think about him, I don’t want to be here long enough for someone else to try to kill me. Besides, when I’m outside, I can make a run for it and leave all this insanity behind me.