Page 13 of Blood & Kisses

“Do you want to know who he is so you can track him down to ransack his house? I have no problem turning a blind eye to you doing that, but it may impede my plans,” I explain, taking out my door and key and slotting it into the lock. “And plans supersede yours.”

“Ah, I never thought of tipping over his house,” he croons.

“He won’t have anything worth stealing anyway,” I add, wondering where he lives on the coast. My stomach turns thinking about him cozying up to my parents and brothers with a hidden agenda.

As I turn the lock to my door, a hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m dragged back hard against his body, which is pressed against the wall lined with my door. “Hush,” Blake whispers into my ear.

This is a weird game he’s playing, yet his body language is severe. “What are you playing-”

A gunshot fires through the door from inside my tiny apartment, and I gasp in horror as Blake drags me down the emergency exit. My feet barely touched the ground as his strong, solid body pulled me like a tidal wave down two flights of stairs, then stalled at a landing to let me go.

“I heard a click inside,” he states, gazing up the stairwell, expecting the shooter to come hurtling down the stairs. He pulls out a Glock handgun tucked that was into the back of his jeans and flicks the safety cap off. “Stay here.”

Blake runs up the stairs quietly on the balls of his feet as I listen out for squealing doors being opened and stomping footsteps coming my way. My gaze is fixated on Blake until I can’t see him anymore, and I assume he’s gone inside the hallway. My heart hammers against my ribcage, and I wish I brought my gun with me for protection. Is this a random person in my apartment or someone searching for something particular?

Outside, a siren bleeds out while someone shouts, and I can’t see what’s going on or whether that siren is meant for me. The distinctive squeal of the emergency exit door in the foyer alerts me, and I hold my key tightly to use it as a weapon. I should’ve brought my gun. Jeezus, why didn’t I bring my gun?

Running footsteps coming up from the foyer pound in time with the beat of my heart as sweat pours down my neck from my rising temperature, even though the air conditioner is sending cool air into the space.

I look down the stairwell and glimpse the forearm of someone in a hurry. “Rae,” a whisper swirls about my ears, and I look upward to where the voice seems to come from.

Blake is leaning against the stair rail, looking down at me. “Come up,” in an assuring voice that I trust. “They’re gone.”

7

“They did a number on your apartment, so take a deep breath and be prepared for the worst,” he says, blocking my way inside.

“I’ll be fine,” I promise, even though the thought of my tiny space of solace being desecrated makes me feel unclean.

“Okay,” he says warmly, stepping aside and allowing me to pass into the horrors of my apartment.

It looks like a tornado hit, tossing every item from my drawers onto the floor. The clothes are cast across the floor, utensils in the kitchen are dumped, and there is a smell of urine that I hope is just blocked up plumping in the toilet, which sometimes happens.

“What were they looking for?” I sigh as the base of my spine seizes from the stress, sending pain down my legs.

“Speaking from experience,” Blake starts, picking up a T-shirt slashed with a sharp instrument. “I’d say they weren’t looking for anything.”

“What, do you mean they did this to scare me?” I pose, a thought that’s too frightening to think about because this means someone knows what I did. I can’t let my mind go there, but perhaps another reason exists. Mistaken identity, possibly.

He nods as he points toward my bed, where a large wet patch is, and I discover where the urine stench is coming from. “Don’t sit there.”

“Damn,” I seethe clenching my jaw. “There’s no way I can ever live here again.”

“Are you one hundred percent sure that you never let slip what your plans were with Coach?” he asks, taking his phone from his jeans pocket and starting to snap pictures of the scene.

“One hundred percent sure,” I answer honestly. “I never told a soul. Why would I? That would be stupid.”

“So, what about when you jumped in the parking garage? Tell me about that,” he says quietly, then is alerted by a noise outside my door and signals me to hush. He presses his ear against the door, then opens the door a crack to peer outside into the hall. “It’s fine,” closing the door again. “The men in the parking garage? Continue to tell me about that. All of it.”

I should be upfront and honest about that, too, now that Blake knows everything else about my life. Feeling stifling hot with the sickly urine stench penetrating every inch of the space, I go to the balcony and open the glass door to let fresh air in. “I didn’t tell you the entire story-”

“No kidding,” he replies, guarding the door.

“You could tell?” I ask, now wondering how good a liar I am.

He nods slowly as those warm brown eyes watch me closely. “I’m an expert at these things, Rae. If a couple of random thugs jump a woman in a dark parking garage, they’ll likely want one of two things – to steal or to take…” By ‘take,’ he means rape, but there’s no need to say it aloud; I know exactly what he means. “And according to your story, they did neither, which means they weren’t random.”

“They threatened to keep my mouth shut about what happened two years ago. To protect Coach and the others. But…I had a hunch Coach didn’t send them, if that makes sense,” I explain the best I can.

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