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After dropping it off, I come back to the computer lab. Since it’s so empty, it’s a good time to do the tests on my more extensive projects, especially the problematic one.
It’s early enough I don’t need to check-in. I know that there are bodyguards keeping an eye on me. I want to be good and smart, and one way to do that is to check in with Tizio if I’m running late, but I figure I can get this done.
So, I sit and lose myself in my work.
The rumble of my stomach, followed by that woozy, lightheaded low blood sugar thing from forgetting to eat, comes over me, and I start to pack up. It’s only then I check my phone and see all the missed calls from Tizio.
Oh, God. I lost track of time, and it’s dark out, after seven. I’m surprised no one came in to order me out. Still, maybe their orders are to wait for me. I text Tizio as I head to the door.
I run into a wall of muscle that sends my phone flying.
“Hey—”
Before I can finish, whoever it is grabs me and hurls me face-first into the wall.
Chapter Seventeen
TIZIO
She’s shaking when I grab her, and Karlee fights like a fucking demon.
But on the steps of the computer building, I wrap my arms tight around her. Karlee’s breathing hard, she’s winded, and she’s making a sound like a wounded animal, something that’s going to fucking haunt my dreams.
Where the fuck is her bodyguard?
“Hey, Karlee, Karlee? It’s me, Tizio. You’re okay. What happened?”
She drags in grating breaths of air and clings to me for a moment.
I untangle her as the girl Wendy put on her races out of the building. She’s red-faced, and stark fear streaks over her features when she sees me. “I’m sorry. I went to the bathroom and when I came back—” She gulps. “The guy was running. I chased him, but . . .”
The girl doesn’t need to fucking finish that sentence as she holds out Karlee’s phone with shaking fingers. I snatch it away.“Just give Wendy whatever details you can remember. Now.” The girl hesitates. “Go.”
She takes off.
I want her fired. I want her hanging from hooks and bleeding.
Fuck. I need to calm down. Things happen, I know that. But not on my watch. Not to Karlee.
I also don’t know what happened. My phone beeps, and I don’t look, I’m sure it’s Wendy.
“She . . . don’t . . . don’t do anything.”
“What I want to do and will do in this instance are two very different things,” I mutter, pulling Karlee back from me so I can check her over. There’s a bruise on her cheek and above her right eye.
Karlee’s shaking. “It’s not her fault, it isn’t. No one can be with me twenty-four seven, not even you, and I was alone, the building mostly deserted.” She swallows.
“What the fuck happened.”
“I was leaving the lab, and someone grabbed me, I fought them off. They had a mask on, and the bodyguard punched him as I started fighting him. She then took off after him.”
“Let’s get you home.” My voice is clipped and cool. I slide my hand beneath her elbow, taking her bag and steering her to my car in the lot. As I drive, I don’t look at her. I don’t dare. “I told you to contact me?—”
“And what? You’d use voodoo to protect me, Tizio?”
“I’d have fucking pounded him into the ground.”
She sighs. “I’m good. Spent years in New York, remember?”
