Shit.
“My brothers?” I improvised.
Nothing about these guys suggested they were some criminal geniuses. If they didn’t know I left quickly from the shop andwent right to Zenos, if they didn’t know who Zeno was—or any of the other guys for that matter—then they weren’t really doing any kind of research. That worked in my favor.
I saw the way the guys’ eyes flickered, unsure.
“Yeah, sorry, but if my brothers found out I was attacked in my own store, they’re going to show up and puff out their chests. That’s what brothers do.”
In theory.
“And why aren’t they here now?”
“Because they have their own lives?”
“Why are youhere?” the killer, clearly the smarter of the two, asked.
“On my other brother’s couch? Because someone broke into my apartment.” I rolled my eyes for good measure.
“Where is he then?”
Oh, so theyreallyweren’t watching.
True, I almost never left the apartment, let alone with the kids. And I guess maybe Christopher didn’t that often either. It was usually Liam taking Char to and from school. Maybe they’d only caught me with Christopher.
“The hospital,” I said, shrugging. “He’s got the flu.”
The killer hopped up on the couch, walking over the cushions to loom over me, his cold blue gaze holding mine as his hand reached out.
It didn’t close around my throat this time, though. He grabbed my chin and jaw, squeezing so hard I was sure my bones were crumbling to dust.
“If you’re fucking lying to me, I swear to God, I will choke you little by little,” he told me. “I will watch you fade just enough, then let you come back, over and over and over. Until you’re begging to die.”
I was so distracted by the threat, by the promise in his eyes, by the horror of thinking that was the fate Robin had suffered, that I couldn’t see past it.
Until there was a flash of motion in my periphery.
It was too late.
To silently tell him to go back to bed.
To call his uncle.
To do anything but go on the attack himself.
I saw the flash of metal.
I heard the howl of pain.
Then I saw the blood spraying out of the guy who was holding me’s arm.
It dropped immediately as he automatically went to grab his stab wound.
My gaze was everywhere then.
On my attacker.
On the other guy who was momentarily too stunned to move.
