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I’m already kicking the bookshop door open, splintering the wooden frame. The dark shelves whip past in a blur, and I snarl as I take a wrong turn, sprinting into the travel section instead of to the back of the shop.
After tonight, Leah and I will have words. If she wants to set up her store like a goddamn maze, I need a map or something. A trail of red string on the carpet.
“Shit!” There’s a crash behind me, and a landslide of books hits the floor. I dart past Raul wading through a sea of hardbacks and lunge for the door to Leah’s apartment in the back wall.
Unlocked.
Did she leave it like that?
Footsteps move overhead, the ceiling creaking.
Go, go, go.My chest is ready to burst as I take the stairs four at a time, wrenching myself up with the handrail. I don’t bother trying to sneak; don’t have a plan.
I need to get to Leah.
And I’ve known fear before. Plenty of times in my life, I’ve tasted that special sourness on my tongue. I’ve felt my heart thump and squeeze inside my chest, and the panicked ringing in my ears is all too familiar.
But when I burst into Leah’s apartment and find my girl kicking and flailing on the living room rug, a bald man crouched over her with gloved hands wrapped around her throat…
My brain goes blank.
There are no thoughts. No voice of reason in my head. Nothing beyond raw, animal instinct and the need to tear this fucker limb from limb. His surprised grunt as I wrench him off my girl—that ends with a crunch of bone. I splatter his nose across his face, beating him until each ragged breath gurgles in his throat. I pound him into mincemeat on the rug until his body is limp and my knuckles sing with pain, and it’s only Raul shaking my collar that brings me back to earth.
“Nico! Nico, don’t kill him, you prick. The boss will want to question him.”
The doctor’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, but finally, it filters through the thick cloud of rage in my brain. I blink sweat and blood from my eyes and glance over at Leah.
Oh.
Shit.
My girl is huddled by a chintzy armchair, clutching her throat and staring at me in horror. I shake out my stiff hand, feeling sick.
It’s worse when I look down at her attacker again. Worse, because now I see him through her eyes—see the brutality of what I’ve done—and because I want nothing more than to keep going.
See what I mean? Leah’s too good for any of this.
“Check him over,” I rasp, swiping my upper lip on my sleeve. My coat is tacky with specks of the other man’s blood. “His pockets, I mean. Don’t you dare give him first aid.”
“Obviously.” Raul crouches by the unconscious man, pulling a pair of latex gloves from his inner coat pocket. He wriggles them on, snapping them against his wrists, then begins feeling along the man’s limbs, checking his pockets with a wrinkled nose.
“H-he… I got up to get a glass of water, and he…”
Leah’s rocking slightly, still clutching her throat. Her long, brown hair has exploded from its braid, and her red sleep shirt has twisted around her body, sliding off one shoulder.
I move to shrug off my coat, then think better of it. Don’t want to get any blood on Leah, so I fetch her a padded blue winter coat from her front door hook instead, my movements robotic.
“Put this on.” Can’t look at her. Can’t see that horror in her pretty green eyes. “You’re shivering.”
The apartment is quiet except for the rustle of her coat and the shaky scratch of her zipper. “Thank you.”
I aim my question at the wall. “Did he hurt you? Besides your throat, did he hurt you?”
Don’t care about Santo’s questions. If this man hurt Leah worse than we already know, I’ll put him in the ground.
“N-no.”
Thank god. My shoulders drop an inch, and I let loose an exhausted sigh. Never would have forgiven myself.
