Chapter 2

two

Nevaeh

The whoosh of another sent email interrupts the reader of my audiobook right as it’s getting to the good stuff. By good stuff, I mean they’ve finally found the killer. The sleuthy bakery owner turned detective (unlicensed), and the very annoyed, very manly, (real) detective are about to crack the case. Then, I’m confident they’ll fall into bed together, because the flirty heat has been—real. Listening to audio as I work keeps my mind sharp as a tac, I like to tell myself.

Really, it just makes me happy. Even though I spend way too many of my quickly depleting dollars on audiobooks. Hence the whoosh of yet another email.

I hate sending invoice reminders. It’s so cringe, but I’ve given my time and done the work. It’s only fair I get paid, right?

I mean, if I don’t get paid, I don’t have an address to give my internet provider, and if I can’t do that, then I can’t work. The ball just keeps rolling downhill from there.

Hooking the handle of my dollar store cup, I lift it to my lips and find it empty. Huffing a sigh, I pad into the kitchen to make myself another cheap London Fog. By cheap, I mean I haven’t yet bought myself one of those cutsie little home blenders that froth the milk. I do it the old-fashioned way with a jar that I shake the ever-loving crap out of for a solid minute. It’s worth it.

With a pinch of vanilla and probably too much sugar, I set to shaking the milk for my tea. When the kettle on the stove starts to whistle, I add the water and pad back to my mini workstation—better known as the far side of the kitchen table.

Antonio had hated coming to my little apartment. Everything annoyed him here, from where I worked at the table to the fact, I’d painted my kitchen a warm, rich, landlord-approved orange. He’d loathed the drawer I chose to keep my utensils in, to my pillowcases that weren’t cooling silk—whatever the hell cooling silk is. So, I always went to him. He’d tried tooth and nail to get me to move in with him, but I hadn’t been able to take that step. Something always kept me back from that, even when I agreed to wear his ring on my finger. I’d made the excuse that I wanted to wait until we were married.

Looking back, there were so many signs that we weren’t meant to be. The fact that he didn’t seem to like me for me being a neon red flag of warning I’d been too hopeful to read.

Honestly, I’m ashamed of myself for letting things with Antonio get so far. I’d almost married him—a man who hadn’t loved or respected me at all. Proved by the fact that, when he wanted to cheat on me, he’d gone for my best friend. The woman who was supposed to be my most trusted confidant.

Losing her hurt so much more than losing him. I blamed them both equally for their betrayal, but hers hurt more.

No matter how many times I went over things, I couldn’t figure out why he’d cheated. The sex, I’d thought, had been good—at least for him. We’d done the deed often enough, so it couldn’t have been lack of sex. And he always came. Every time. Me—not so much. But I figured that was a me problem, because I’d been with three men before Antonio, and none of them had ever gotten me there, either.

No biggie, I’ve got toys and I use such toys. Often.

Shutting down work for the night, I carry my tea to my bedroom and snuggle between the sheets, pausing my audiobook for the spicier book I’m reading on my kindle.

At first, I think the weight on my chest is sleep paralysis. Awful as it is, I get it from time to time. It always leaves me gasping, unable to move, not even a twitch. Terrified.

This is different. The weight is heavier and yet less encompassing. My lungs burn and my chest aches even as my fingers twitch against the sheets.

I feel like I’m drowning in sleep, unable to grasp hold of consciousness. My limbs jerk once, a little leap that jars my heart. Then the pressure eases and I’m gasping in breath, realizing just now that I hadn’t been breathing.

There hadn’t been any air to breathe.

My eyes fly open to black. Pitch black. All wrong.

My apartment is never this dark. I always have some sort of light on, like the overhead stove light for example. Or even the plug-in light that makes the small hallway outside my bedroom glow blue. I don’t like the dark, never have.

But it’s dark now, I realize as fear begins to build inside me. Smothering me. Stealing all the air I gulped into my lungs just moments ago.

Even my curtains have been pulled shut, cutting out the light of the moon.

Maybe the power is out.

As soon as I have the thought, I know that’s not the case. I know it because I sense, terrifyingly, that I’m not alone. That sense is proven chillingly correct when I try to sit up and I’m met with that weight again, pushing me back into the bed.

I start to thrash like a wild thing as fear for my life snaps into place in my mind, sparking thoughtless actions. I’m a rabbit caught in a snare. Right now, I’ll break limbs to break free.

“Where’s your gangster now?” The words cut through the terror to stab like a blade into my mind. Recognition wars with confusion because the words make me think of Antonio—he’d said them last weekend at the club when I’d used Big Guy as a shield against him—but this voice right now, it doesn’t belong to Antonio.

“Who?” I start, gasp. “Are you?”

“You don’t need to know who I am to receive the message.”

My skin pebbles in response to the cryptic reply. Muscles coil under my skin, preparing to fight. He must sense this, must feel the way they move under my flesh—because he throws a leg over my body to straddle my belly, and his hands find my throat once more.

Understanding flares red hot even as my blood temperature plummets to Arctic degrees. Terror claws from my throat in a scream that is cut off by squeezing fists. The thundering of my heart threatens to stop right there, paralyzed by fear. My legs kick out, trapped under the sheets.

I’m going to die. The thought is one I’ve never had, not even once before, in all the years I’ve lived. In the seconds that have ticked by, the moments of foolishness that reap accidents—I’ve never once truly believed that I faced the end. Looked down the dark tunnel of death. Scented the dark musk of the reaper as he crept slowly closer…

“Please,” I manage.

“Where is your gangster?”

He loosens his hold around my throat to allow me to choke out the words. “I—don’t—know.”

A dark laugh spills into the room and the hands around my throat tighten again. My eyes bulge. I realize just now that tears are leaking from my eyes, spilling rivers across my temples and into my hair.

I can’t die like this. God, please, don’t let me die like this.

“An—” I can’t get the words out.

He loosens his stranglehold. “What was that?”

I gasp in air. “Antonio?”

“Sent me. To kill him.” His voice is filled with something terrifying at the possibility. Almost like—arousal. “Too bad he’s not here.”

Ice. A shield of it. Slams into me.

If I had any air in my lungs to knock out, it’d have done the trick.

Still, I manage to wheeze. “He—sent you?”

“Without the gangster here, I’ll just deliver a little message.” His hands around my throat squeeze once more, as though he just can’t resist the pleasure of crushing my windpipe, before he rears back off my body. I’m already trying to scramble away from him, but it’s no use. He catches a fistful of my hair in seconds, yanking me across the bed.

I scream. Loudly. I let it rip from my lungs, knowing without doubt that I’ll wake at least one of my neighbors.

The crack of a fist on the side of my face has something cracking in my jaw. Or maybe it’s my teeth clapping together, I don’t know. I can’t tell past the explosion of pain. I can’t think past the dribble of warm blood I feel spilling from my now split lip.

“Quiet,” he murmurs softly, as though he’s talking to a small child. “Or I will have to punish you.”

Antonio sent this monster. Antonio, the man I’d let into my body—the man I once considered spending my life with—sent a monster to hurt me.

How can this be real?

The monster pulls me close, hauling me into his body. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

Now that my eyes have adjusted to the unusual dark in my apartment, I can see he’s in black tactical gear and a black mask. His outfit terrifies me. The experience it says he has in this kind of crime.

My heart skips a couple beats. Threatening cardiac arrest.

Not like this. I can’t go like this…

Mom and Dad. They won’t survive it. Uncle Miguel, he’ll spend his life looking to avenge me—never suspecting the man who promised to love me.

“Please,” I rasp again.

He ignores me, stuck on whatever crazy train his thought process has him riding. “I can see why he can’t let you go. Why he hired me to convince you to see your mistake. To understand the terms of your relationship going forward.” There’s a thoughtful pause. “I had someone like you. Beautiful.”

The pain in my jaw is muffling my thought process. I don’t understand his words.

As though sensing this, he leans in to speak directly against my ear. I feel his breath push through the mask to assault my flesh. “You’re going to return to him, but more specifically, you’re going to crawl to him.”

“No.” I shake my head in what I think is brave refusal only to find it was foolish. Very foolish.

The man shoves me away from him and I stumble, falling to the floor with a crash. He’s on me before I can even find my knees, another fist to the face. Another crack. More blood. This time, it’s up by my eyebrow. The roll of warmth oddly takes me back to running long range track when sweat would gather at my brow to roll down my face.

“He’s not going to hide his affairs from you anymore. He likes pussy and can have as many as he wants, without the need for your bitching. You’ll smile like a good little wife when he comes home smelling like another cunt.” The monster leans down as I sob on the floor. “In fact, you’ll take his dick however he wants to feed it to you, clean or stinking like another bitch, and you’ll do it with a smile, got it?”

I don’t know where the courage comes from, but I shake my head.

He laughs a dark, gleeful sound that rattles the very soul inside my body. I’m rewarded with another hit, this one open palmed. It stings, but I don’t feel more blood. “You should be grateful he’s taking other women.” He flips me around, so I’m face down on the floor, and terror unlike anything I’ve ever known in my life bleeds from every pore as I feel his hand move to my ass. Over my little pyjama shorts, he finds the part of my ass and shoves his thumb between my cheeks. I try to crawl away from him. Try to fight or buck him off but it’s no use. None at all as he continues, “He has particular tastes—a demon you don’t feed with your sweet little pussy. You don’t want him taking other women, you’re going to shoulder the burden of those tastes, and we both know you’re not woman enough for that.”

“Don’t—touch me.”

As though to prove a point, he pulls his hand back and slaps me so hard on my ass cheek, I can’t help but whimper.

Can a slap bruise? I think I’m going to bruise.

This can’t be happening to me. Because of Antonio.

“Tell me you understand.”

“Never. I’ll never go back to him. Not after this.”

“Wrong. So very wrong,” he purrs. And I realize then the mistake I’ve made as he hauls me up and uses me like a punching bag. I take a quick hit to my belly and another to my ribs, all while he holds my hair. I feel as though it’s going to be ripped from my skull as he holds me in place against his violent assault.

This monster enjoys this.

“Stop,” I beg, coughing and tasting what I think is blood. “Please.”

He throws me back to the bed and my body bounces from the force before he’s straddling me again. Softly, he asks, “Are we ready to do what we’re told?”

Crying, broken, I nod. This won’t end until I agree. “Yes.”

“We’ll go over things once more, just in case you forgot in the heat of your lesson.” I cry harder. “You will go back to him. On your hands and knees, you will crawl to him. You will submit. The engagement isn’t off. It’s never been off, and the wedding will continue as planned next summer if he doesn’t choose to push it. You will be the doting fiancée who becomes the supportive wife. This includes supporting him in his need for release, however he wishes to take that release. He is a powerful man, a stressed man. You don’t want him bringing that stress home, turning it on you. So, you will allow him to turn it on others, on lesser women, and you will support him. You will also make amends with your friend. She misses you.” He’s speaking as though he’s reciting a script, and I can’t help but sob harder. “You will be faithful and loving. You will take no other man for as long as you live, which, if you fail to see these simple terms through, will be a very short life.” He leans down until his mask nearly grazes my face as he whispers, “Are the terms understood?”

I give a choppy nod and he pushes up from the bed, standing at the side as he pushes a hand into his pocket. The tiny clink of gold connecting with my nightstand is jarring. But it’s not as jarring as the way he taps his finger on the surface next to my engagement ring. “Don’t make me come back here, Nevaeh.” I can’t stop crying. I can’t even speak as he watches me through the mask. “You’ll need medical, but you won’t talk to the police. If you do, well,” he chuckles dryly. “I’ll let your mind wander from there. Just know I’m a very capable man, a professional, if you will. I take my work very seriously.” He leans down to finger my face, the touch more like a caress than anything else. I still flinch, but I also note the terrifying fact that he’s wearing gloves. Black latex gloves.

My heart seizes in my chest.

He pulls back, gives a hard tap on the desk again where the glimmer of a diamond catches a hairline shimmer of moonlight, before he’s gone. A ghost in the shadows. A monster in the night.

I roll to the side and vomit.