in the pit of my stomach.
Something feels off and I’m a man of instinct. There’s no point assuming this doesn’t feel right when it doesn’t. it’s truth. I haven’t known her that long, but this doesn’t feel like her.
I switch on my computer and I know that what I’m about to do makes me look like some obsessed bastard, but I accept that I am.
I log in to the employee files at the club and pull her address. I then frown when I see where she lives.
I never expected her to live in a shit hole like that. A dangerous shit hole and on the twentieth floor too. Drug dealing and all kinds of shit happens in that apartment complex she lives in. A few years back there was a gang that settled there and every week there was a murder of the worse kind.
That’s enough for me to get ready, jump in my car and head out. I don’t care what I look like or if she thinks I’m crazy. I am crazy, but that’s what makes me tick.
Like fuck am I gonna be okay with my girl in a dump like that. If she’d told me where she lived, I would have moved her fine ass somewhere else.
I get there and the first thing to hit me is the stench of urine in the elevator. Fucking hell, I have to clear my throat to get the smell out and I opt for the stairs too. I’ve had to endure some type of shit smells in my lifetime but if I have a choice, I’ll take the easy way out.
I take the stairs two at a time, grateful for the rigorous way that I work out and barely bust a sweat when I get to the twentieth floor.
As I open the door leading out of the stairwell though that feeling of unease comes back to me when I see a can of pepper spray on the ground. It looks like Lilly’s.
I wasn’t going through her things; I just saw her bag open one night on the floor of the suite. When I saw the pepper spray, I had a fleeting thought that maybe it could be for me. I didn’t actually believe that but I was glad she had street smarts.
Now I see why she had it. She lives here. why would Lilly drop her pepper spray though? Did she have to use it?
Fuck.
I reach for my gun and hold it by my side marching to her apartment door. There’s a noise behind me so I turn and look. Someone was there, and I just caught a glimpse of them retreating into the shadows.
I’d check it out, but I need to see Lilly first and make sure she’s okay.
There’s no doorbell so I knock on the door. A minute passes and there’s no answer.
I knock again and still no answer.
“Lilly it’s me,” I decide to call out. I’m aware I’m being watched. There’s someone in that corner watching me, watching intensely trying to figure me out. Who I am. In a place like this all I’d need to do is give my full name and I know it would be enough.
But I won’t do that yet. Not until I know what’s happening.
“Baby it’s Christian. Are you there?” I add and that’s when the door opens.
It swings open and my hand grips my gun hard when I see her face. She’s been beaten so badly I only know it’s her because of her crystal blue eyes. One eye is nearly shut, and her face is messed up with black and blue bruising within the swelling of her skin.
She’s shaking, terrified. her lips tremble and she tries to speak but doesn’t seem to be able to.
I’m about to ask her what the fuck happened and for a name when the patter of little footsteps behind her catches my attention. A little blond girl comes out of the bedroom. A baby. There’s enough babies in the family for me to guess that’s she’s about three. Maybe younger.
“Mama,” she says rushing up to Lilly and grabbing on to her leg. “Who’s that Mama?”
Lilly has a child. When she said she had people who depended on her I didn’t think. I kind of thought maybe she meant her parents or siblings. I never thought she meant she had a child.
“Are you here to save us from the monsters?” The little girl asks.
There’s that word again. Save.
She has brown eyes, but she’s exactly Lilly. A