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“You’ll think of something.”
“You’re a big help.” She kissed me and then wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her head against my chest. “I love listening to your heart.”
I didn’t speak but held her as tightly as I dared and basked in the warmth that emanated from Shiloh’s slender body into mine.
Happy, I thought. I think this is what happy feels like.
We kissed until time started to slip away, and then I left her and walked home, stupidly thinking I could hold on to that feeling forever. I should’ve known better.
I was halfway across the parking lot at my complex when they got me.
I heard a shuffle behind me and instinctively ducked. A club meant for my head glanced off my shoulder, and I spun around. Two figures in ski masks—one big, the other skinny—had slunk out of the shadows from behind a van. The skinnier one had the club, and it took zero seconds to recognize the eyes that stared at me.
“Dowd,” I seethed, backing up slowly as they both circled me. I jerked my head at the bigger one. “Grimaldi.”
Fuck me.
In that instant, I went over every time I’d been with Shiloh in the last month, praying we hadn’t been careless. That no one knew.
This can’t touch her. I won’t let it…
“You’re dead, fucker,” Mikey Grimaldi bellowed from beneath his mask. “Fucking dead. I know it was you who tagged my Jeep. I saw you.”
“You saw me tag it, or you saw me the night you violated that girl?” I asked, my voice low and steady while inside, the fire was simmering, ready to ignite.
“Fuck you!” Grimaldi spat. “You didn’t see shit. But A&M canceled my scholarship. My mom can’t even look at me. You fucking ruined my life, asshole!”
I wondered if he spared a thought for Kimberly’s life and guessed not. Frankie was moving behind me, jumpy. His breath loud through the mask.
I cracked my neck from side to side. “What are you waiting for?” I asked, deadly casual. “Let’s go, if we’re going to do this.”
Grimaldi’s eyes flickered at something behind my shoulder, and I spun in time to catch Frankie’s club—a police baton—coming down. It whacked my palm, and I closed my fist around it and yanked it easily from his grasp. I sent a left hook to his face, connecting square, and he reeled.
“Fucker!” he shrieked, staggering back, clutching his masked cheek with both hands. “Not this time. This time we got you. We got you.”
From behind, Grimaldi lunged. I spun again, swinging the baton. He danced out of reach and jabbed a punch to my kidney. The baton dropped from my nerveless fingers as pain rocketed up my side. I took a fist to the cheek and saw stars but let instinct take over. I put the pain somewhere else and delivered a heavy blow to his gut. He bent in half, the breath gushing out of him, leaving himself wide open for my fist to smash into his jaw. Blood and teeth flew. Pain crackled up my knuckles, but I hardly felt it. I lifted a boot and kicked Grimaldi in the side, sending him sprawling.
Frankie was trying again, reaching for the baton. I kicked it away—it skittered across the cracked pavement and into the shadows—and gripped him by the collar, driving my knee into his gut. He made a hitching sound and I shoved him roughly. He fell on his ass, clutching his stomach.
Too easy.
I stood between the two of them, my gaze going back and forth, wanting it to be over while the dark place in me hoped for more.
“Well?”
“Fuck you!” Frankie sounded like he was crying. “I’m not done with you. I’m not…”
I leveled a finger at him. “You are fucking done. Stay down.” I looked to Mikey. “How about you? You want to go again or nah?”
He got to his feet slowly, muttering a curse and holding his gut, but his eyes through the mask showed second thoughts.
Then came a voice from behind me, turning my blood to ice.
“Sniveling little pussies, the both of you.”
I whirled around. A bigger guy in a ski mask stepped from behind the van. He wore jeans, a polo shirt, and a blue windbreaker I recognized instantly.
“Two of you can’t take him?” Mitch Dowd snorted. There was a flash of yellow and then something jumped out of the dark and bit me.
