The red gashes were ink. Sharpie.
She pushed me away. “I don’t want you. You have to hear me. Hear me.” She wasn’t even talking to me. She was talking to whoever had attacked her thirty seconds ago.
“Fabian. Abort. No call.”
“I hear you.” I knew she wasn’t talking about me, but I had to answer her to calm her down. “Who was it? Vince?”
Her eyes cleared for an instant, and she nodded. I recalled his car and where the nearest exit led. “Fabian. Douche running out on the Venice Avenue side. Black BMW.”
“Copy,” Fabian replied into my ear. “We got particulars?”
“He did . . .” Emily looked down at the red marks on her dress. Her lashes were wet and her lips quivered. She covered the slashes of Sharpie as if they made her naked and ashamed.
“It’s okay, Emily. I’m here. What was he wearing?”
Her brows knotted. She was in some kind of shock, clutching bunches of fabric at her chest as if she’d been stabbed.
“What was he wearing, Emily? So we can chase him.”
She shook her head slowly.
“Carter, man, what do you got?” Fabian said through the earpiece.
I wasn’t going to get anything out of Emily. Not in time to chase after the only guy in the world who wanted to mark her.
She was fully clothed, but I took off my jacket and covered her. Still looking down, she crossed her arms over her chest and held the jacket closed with her thumbs.
I didn’t have to ask who had done it or how it had happened.
“Forget it,” I told Fabian.
“Everything copacetic?”
Was everything copacetic? Everything was fine. No one was hurt. He was gone. There was no immediate danger. The worst thing? The dry cleaner was going to have his work cut out for him.
Right?
My skin ran hot, and my blood thrummed through my veins like a team of horses. Every joint in my body wanted to do violence, break shit, run hard and fast until I found him, then throw him into the air until he was a speck in the sky.
A second had passed. A second too long. A second where she held my jacket closed over the gashes as if they were humiliating.
No. Nothing was copacetic.
I wasn’t supposed to touch her. I was supposed to call Darlene and the cops and go home. But I didn’t. I took her in my arms and held her so tight she couldn’t move. When the weight went from under her knees, I held her up, and when she started crying so hard her body shook, I held her together. Her mascara and lipstick were getting all over my shirt. I wished I had another shirt to give her. I would have given her my entire closet to cry on.
Fabian rounded the corner at a run and stopped short.
“What the—?”
“Did you see anything?”
“Black BMW booking. Couldn’t get a plate.”
“Don . . . Don’t . . .” Emily’s chest hitched against me.
“It’s all right.”
“Don’t tell Darlene.”
It was my job to tell Darlene. On top of that, she paid a nice salary, showed me respect, and cared about my new principal.
Emily looked up at me with glassy sludge-rimmed eyes, and I knew that the best way to protect her was to protect her from her best friend’s love.
“There’s a back exit.”
Down the stairs, around the corner, and out to the underground parking lot. She nodded a little, and goddamn if I couldn’t let her go enough to make that trip. Vince could be anywhere, but that wasn’t what I cared about. I’d get to him soon enough. Once the rage filtered out and I could think, I’d sort his ass out. But for now, I wanted to be her crutch and her cast. Her splint and tourniquet. I was going to be the bandage over her shame until she could take her hands off the red marks on her dress.
I bent down and got my right arm under her knees, lifting her into my arms. She gasped, and the jacket opened a little. She put her hands between the lapels, which made me want to rip Vince a new asshole.
“I have you,” I said.
She blinked once, hard, as if she wanted to get the last tear out.
“You don’t have to carry me.”
“I know.”
She relaxed, putting her arms around my neck and her head on my shoulder.
She didn’t weigh a thing, and carrying her calmed me. I was doing the right thing. The only thing. I was exactly where I needed to be. Protecting her.
CHAPTER 16
EMILY
I’d gone to the bathroom without telling Carter or Darlene. Why? Because I was an adult with a full bladder. And I wanted to get away from Gene. I wasn’t used to telling guy one I was going to the bathroom, then having guy two follow me in so guy zero wouldn’t do what he did.
Or whatever. Switch the numbers around. It didn’t matter. Someone had come from behind and pushed me around the corner. I didn’t resist because I thought (hoped?) Carter was coming to the back hall to get me alone. I thought he’d come to kiss me again. I was mentally preparing myself for that kiss when it happened so fast I didn’t have a second to scream. He put his hand over my mouth.
Not Carter. Vince. He’d finally come for me.
I didn’t switch immediately from sexual anticipation to fear. I got annoyed. Maybe I should have been scared instead, but I’d been conjuring Carter in the back hall only to be interrupted.
“Say you miss me.” He moved his hand away from my mouth just enough for me to talk.
“Did you not hear me the first time?”
“Say it again, babe.” His breath stank of Long Island iced tea.
“I told you in court. Go. Away.”
I tried to push him, but he pushed back and trapped me in the corner. He smelled of beer and whiskey sour with extra cherries. The edges of his goatee had a crisp edge against newly shaven skin.
“That guy? He wants to fuck you.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I always find you.” He pressed me up against the wall and talked low in my ear. He was too close to knee in the balls or head-butt. “You’re mine, babe. I’m the only one who can make you happy.”
“Listen to me.”
“You like the brownie? Did you laugh, babe?”
God. This asshole was acting as if we’d just started dating. As if none of it had happened. The punch in the face. The crowbar. Socks in a ball of fur at my front door.
I knew what to do. I had to wait for him to put enough distance between us for me to hit him. Keep him calm until then. Not let him take me to a second location. But he was so composed. I was worried about getting killed, and he wasn’t hurting at all.
“I laughed thinking about your tiny little—”
He pushed me against the wall with one hand and got something out of his pocket with the other. I swore it was a knife. I tried to scream, but I just squeaked. I flailed my arms at him, but they were like palm leaves in the wind. My knee connected with nothing. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I felt a pull at my dress.
I was confused. Disoriented. Time skipped backward a little. Back-one-two-and-over.