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Ahhh, you justgottalove karma.
“Come,” I urged, whirling to face my third and final attacker. When he hesitated, I laughed in his face. “What, you don’t like the odds anymore?”
He’d halted, and the goon’s dirty blond hair had flopped forward into his face. I could still see his eyes though, shifting back and forth. Watching to see if his boss or his friend got up. Waiting to see if they’d do something first, or if he were forced to finally make a decision all on his own.
“Three assholes beating up a woman,” I snarled. “You couldn’t make this shit up if you—”
My words trailed off, as a sudden realization stole over me. The tall guy was still on his knees, still clutching his partially-collapsed windpipe. His eyes were murderous. But they were also somehow familiar…
No.
I cocked my head, forgetting the other goon entirely. The face made sense. So did the custom suit, the silk shirt, the Sebastian Cruz necktie. The Hermes belt around his waist…
No fucking way.
His eyes flared wide, and he tried to get up. He failed miserably, gasping for air. Falling back to the filth-smeared alley, he rolled onto his back still desperate to catch his breath.
But those eyes remained locked on me.
It’s him.
I knew it in my heart, even before my own eyes confirmed the high cheekbones and sharp, angular nose. It was unmistakably him. Either him or his brother.
FUCK!
I threw a sideways kick at the onrushing goon, who’d thought to get the better of me while I was busy staring at his boss. There was the crack of bone as his leg collapsed inward upon itself. There was the snap of tendons and the wet popping of cartilage being ripped away too, but those things happened at audible levels far too faint for the human ear.
Besides, the man was screaming like a schoolgirl with a dozen paper-cuts by then.
Get out.
The tall man wasn’t just staring at me now, he was glaring daggers. I could feel his cold eyes tracing my face. He was scanning and memorizing every aspect of our encounter, from the way I looked to the way I dressed… even the way I moved, as I bent to scoop up the semi-conscious woman who was just now trying to get to her feet.
“C’mon!” I practically shouted. “Let’s go.”
My hand clamped over her upper arm. There was no surprise there, no recoil, no anything, really. She was still in shock from what happened. Still dazed from being blindsided after stepping through the metal door.
“Can you move?” I asked quickly.
For a long moment she stared at me as anyone would stare at a complete stranger. Eventually she nodded, groggily.
“Good, because we need togo.”
I pulled her out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, huddling her beneath my arm as we crossed the street. She muttered something under her breath. I couldn’t tell what it was. All I knew was she began loping along in some up and down motion. Lurching awkwardly like Frankenstein’s monster, or maybe someone with a shattered hip.
“My shoe,” she gasped. “It’s broken.”
I glanced down. The spike of one of her heels had sheared clean off, leaving one leg a good three inches shorter than the other.
“Kick them off,” I ordered.
Thankfully she did as she was told, and quickly too. A look back told me that no one had cleared the alley yet. That was good, because from there we crossed the street and ducked into the next one without incident.
It was definitely him.
The knowledge was grim. A bitter pill that had to be swallowed.
And he knows you, now.
