mad at himself for not being there when I needed him, and wasn’t sure which of those things had him more fired up. I also wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to look me in the eye after I told him why I had the gun and what my initial plan had been to do with it. He said we would work through it but I was going to let him down again, and I wasn’t sure his innate sense of morality was going to be able to handle me admitting I was fully intending to be part of another person’s death. It was a lot for anyone, especially a man with such a strict code of right and wrong, to have to muddle his way through.
I wasn’t supposed to get the stitches in my chin wet, so I submerged myself up to the top of my shoulders and did my best to scrub the raw wounds on my arms and legs. My hair floated out like a dark cloud around me and I had to concentrate really hard on my breathing so that I didn’t start shaking and crying all over again.
Not much scared me. I had seen a lot, lost a lot, suffered a lot, but being blindsided by Zero in a place that had felt so safe was enough to make me feel like I would never be secure again. He was just there, in my face and everywhere, without a sound and I knew he was there to kill me on Conner’s orders, but the look in his eye told me he would make it hurt and make me suffer for his own pleasure.
He was a brutal-looking man. I recognized him right away with his bald head and tightly trimmed goatee. He smiled at me when I screamed and I saw the knife flash out, and it caught me across the fleshy part of my arm before I realized I should be fighting back. Only I was in the bathroom, in my pajamas and completely unarmed. I was as helpless as I had ever been in my life. It wasn’t a fair fight by any stretch of the imagination, and just as I realized I should make noise or try and run he lashed out with a closed fist and punched me in the face. It was a hard enough blow that I fell immediately to my knees.
He put a hand in my hair and jerked my head closer to his crotch as he brought his knife down and touched the tip to my cheek. “No wonder Conner has such a hard-on for you. You’re even better up close and personal.”
The sting of the blade and his crude words were like a slap across the face. I had no clue how he had gotten inside the condo, but I knew only one of us was walking out the front door.
“Conner is a lunatic. He’s ruining lives because of a man that was a sociopath, a man that didn’t claim him as his own until he needed him!” I didn’t think, I just threw my head forward until my forehead connected solidly with the vulnerable parts of his body hidden behind his zipper. It was enough of a shock that he doubled over, giving me enough room to move around him. I scrambled on my hands and knees out the bathroom door, leaving a sizable chunk of my hair in Zero’s fist. He swore and dove for me, but I was faster, and as soon as I cleared the bathroom I got to my feet and made a mad dash for the stairs.
The Glock was still in my purse. No one had seen Booker and I wasn’t ready to admit to anyone else that I had it, and right in that moment I was so glad I hadn’t gotten rid of the weapon.
When I was halfway down the stairs I was hit from behind hard enough to pick me up off my feet and send me flying through the air. I didn’t hit any more stairs and crashed to the ground floor with all of Zero’s weight on top of me. My teeth tore into my bottom lip, my chin cracked into the hardwood with enough force to make me black out for a second, and my palms and knees lost the first layer of skin as I hurriedly tried to find any kind of traction on the floor to get away from the