down long enough so you can get away. Just point and pull the trigger twice. You don't need to cock it or anything. And aim for the torso, it'll be a bigger target."
"I don't want this."
"And I don't want you to have it. But it's better than sending you in light."
She shook her head and closed her eyes. So ugly this business of life sometimes was.
"Bella? Bella, look at me." When she did, he said, "Keep that in the outside pocket of your coat on the right side. You want it in your business hand if you have to use it." She opened her mouth and he talked right over her. "You're going to stay with Butch and Phury. And as long as you're with them, it is extremely unlikely you will need to use that."
"Where will you be?"
"Around." As he turned away, she noticed he had a knife at the small of his back-in addition to the two daggers on his chest, and the pair of guns on his hips. She wondered how many other weapons he had on him that she couldn't see.
He stopped in the doorway, head hanging low. "I'm going to make sure you don't have to take out that gun, Page 133
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Bella. I promise you. But I can't have you unarmed."
She took a deep breath. And slipped the little piece of metal into her coat pocket.
Out in the hall Phury was waiting, leaning against the balcony. He was also dressed for fighting, with guns and those daggers all over him, a deadly calm radiating from his body. When she smiled at him, he nodded and drew on his black leather coat.
Zsadist's cell phone rang and he flipped it open. "You there, cop? What's doing?" When he hung up, he nodded. "Good to go."
The three of them walked down to the foyer and then out into the courtyard. In the cold air both males palmed guns, and then all of them dematerialized.
Bella took form on her front porch, facing the glossy red door with its brass knocker. She could feel Zsadist and Phury behind her, two huge male bodies full of tension. Footsteps sounded and she looked over her shoulder. Butch was coming up onto the porch. His gun was drawn, too.
The idea of taking her time and easing into her house struck her as dangerous and selfish. She unlocked the door with her mind, then walked in.
The place still smelled the same... a combination of the lemon floor wax she used on the wide pine boards and the rosemary candles she liked to burn.
When she heard the door shut and the security alarm get turned off, she glanced back. Butch and Phury were tight on her heels, but Zsadist was nowhere to be seen.
She knew he hadn't left them. But she wished he were inside with her.
She took a deep breath and looked around her living room. Without any lights on, she only saw familiar shadows and shapes, more the pattern of the furniture and the walls than anything else.
"Everything seems... God, exactly the same."
Although there was a blank spot over her writing desk. A mirror was gone, a mirror that she and her mother had picked out together in Manhattan about a decade ago. Rehvenge had always liked it. Had he taken the thing? She wasn't sure whether to be touched or offended.
When she reached out to turn a lamp on, Butch stopped her. "No lights. Sorry."
She nodded. Walking deeper into the farmhouse, seeing more of her things, she felt as though she were among friends of long acquaintance whom she hadn't seen in years. It was delightful and sad. A relief most of all.
She'd been so sure she would get upset...
She stopped when she got to the dining room. Beyond the wide archway at the far end was the kitchen. Dread coiled in her gut.
Steeling herself, she walked into the other space and halted. As she saw everything so neat and unbroken, she remembered the violence that had taken place.
"Someone's cleaned it up," she whispered.
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"Zsadist." Butch stepped by her, gun up at chest level, eyes scanning around.
"He... did all this?" She motioned her hand in a sweep.
"The night after you were taken. He spent hours here. Downstairs is neat as a pin, too."
She tried to imagine Zsadist with a mop and bucket, getting rid of the bloodstains and the glass shards.
Why? she wondered.
Butch shrugged. "He said it was personal."
Had she spoken out loud? "Did