Page 7 of Midnight Torment

The light in the toilet flickered above me, a toilet roll lay on the floor, and the bin was overflowing. Yet again, I envied men being able to stand and pee instead of hovering with your thigh muscles engaged to keep you from sitting on the pee someone else had left on the seat before you. My nose wrinkled in disgust.

A headache brewed in my temple from the fluorescent lighting and my lower back ached. I was just drying my hands when a man stepped into the toilets.

“I’m sorry, this is the ladies’,” I said automatically.

“Oh, I know what it said on the door. Hello, Megan.” My skin crawled at his use of my name. “Horatio was supposed to die in that crash, but the cantankerous old bastard is still clinging to life. Then suddenly, the man who is untouchable appears with a very tasty morsel with him.”

“Excuse me.” I went to walk past him, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. “Jordan Berkeley has some very powerful enemies who would be interested to discover he has someone in his life that he cares about.”

“Get your hand off my arm,” I said in the tone I used for court.

His grin made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Maybe I should use you to send him a message?”

“Or maybe you should remove your hand.” Men had tried to intimidate me in the past. My clients tended to be women, and when the case didn’t go their way, their disgruntled spouses tended to throw threats around.

He lunged forward to slam me against the wall, his hand spanning my neck to pin me in place. “I’ve been instructed to take you in, but maybe we can have a little fun along the way.”

Why did bad men always think that raping and hurting women was fun? His rancid breath fanned across my face and curdled the tea I drank earlier in my stomach. I tried to bring my knee up but he arched back, his lips spreading into a horrible grin.

Self-preservation and all the training Jordan put me through flowed through me instinctively. When he brought his head toward me, the tip of his tongue darting across the seam, I headbutted him in the nose. My hand snapped up to break his hold on me, my leg kicking up to connect with his balls since he was too distracted to dodge my blow this time.

“You little bitch!” He tried to grab me again, and I used my long, manicured nails to gouge his eyes. If he couldn’t see me, he couldn’t follow me, and these blood-red beauties weren’t just for show. He lost his footing and fell forward onto his knees.

His hands latched onto my arm as he tried to drag me back. I grabbed the sanitary bin just inside the cubicle door and battered him with it until he let go of me, not caring that the lid disconnected and the contents fell onto him.

Then, I ran.

Jordan took one look at my face when I skidded to a halt in the waiting room.

“Where?” he demanded.

“Toilets,” I wheezed out.

He stopped beside me to quickly examine me for wounds before he disappeared down the corridor with his deathly predator prowl that tended to make men step out of his way and women to swoon. I doubted I had done any real damage to the man in the toilets, but I knew that when Jordan was through with him he’d be seriously injured or dead.

***

Chapter Three

Jordan

The past few days had been crappy and my temper was running hot with a short fuse on it. Then I got the phone call I had dreaded for years and ended up in this hospital with fluorescent lights and too-white walls. The cherry on this shit storm of a cake was Megan running into the waiting room pale and shaken. I knew she’d been attacked without her even having to say the words.

“Where?” I demanded, the rage building inside my chest.

“Toilets,” Megan replied in a hoarse whisper.

My attention zeroed in on the red marks on her neck. Whoever dared to touch her had signed his own death warrant. I left her in the waiting room with Emma and stalked down the corridor, texting Xavier and Ash on my way. If there was one man in the hospital, there were others outside.

I stopped for a brief second inside the toilet door because the sight in front of me hadn’t been what I expected. The guy was covered in used sanitary towels and tampons, blood trickling from his nose, and huge scratches down his face.

Pride bloomed inside me at the amount of damage my tiny woman had caused. She’d trained every single day, but you never knew how someone would react to a threat or assault until it occurred.

“I’d offer you a hand up, but you seem to be covered in shit that I’m not dealing with,” I informed the irate man who was trying to toss the used kitty litters away from him. One stuck to his hand and I had to purse my lips together to stop myself laughing. Just to add to his humiliation, I took my phone out and snapped a few shots. The guys would never believe me and you couldn’t make this shit up.

He eventually stumbled to his feet. Normally, I would have kicked the shit out of him lying there, but there was no way I was getting one of those little bloody bombs stuck to my boots. Fuck that. He pulled a flick knife out of the inside pocket of his coat, opening it to pace toward me.

I stared at him with disdain, my top lip curling up. “Who sent you?”

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