I idle the GTO at the gate and punch in my code. With all the neighbors at work, the street is deserted and quiet. I don’t like quiet. It makes my instincts prickle with paranoia.
No doubt my nerves are related to the gamble in canceling my afternoon classes. But since my dad’s delayed at the clinic, I claimed a family emergency, consequences be damn, and picked up her prescriptions on the way home.
When the gate opens, I follow the driveway around the back of the estate, wondering if Ivory hears the rumble of the engine.
I slam on the brakes. What the—?
An old black Honda is parked near the back door. Unfamiliar. Unoccupied. No tags.
My stomach hardens into ice. Ivory.
I don’t breathe until I’m in the house. The alarm isn’t armed.
The next breath doesn’t come until I reach the kitchen. Footsteps on the second floor.
I race through the living room, every cell in my body hyperalert. Who the fuck is here?
“Lorenzo, he’s in the driveway!” A man’s voice echoes upstairs. “Where are you?”
Shane. My blood runs cold as I sprint toward the foyer. Did he say Lorenzo? How is that possible?
Lorenzo’s in my fucking house.
With Ivory.
Rage propels me up the stairs, every step an opponent between me and her. I climb faster, taking two…three stairs at a time.
“The fuck?” Shane roars from the direction of my bedroom. “Get the fuck off her!”
No! Oh, Jesus, fuck, no! Urgency fuses into my muscles, pushing me faster, harder, locking my jaw. I can’t hear her. Why can’t I hear her?
I hurdle the last stair, but the remaining distance feels like it’s forcing my heart to explode out of my chest. The landing is too big, the hall too long. I’m too far away. I never should’ve left. I failed her, and I’m fucking fuming in my regret. Goddamn shaking in my desperation to reach her.
I follow the sounds of rising shouts. Almost there. A few more steps. I rush through the doorway, my focus zooming in on the far side of the bedroom.
Ivory stands motionless in my t-shirt. Blood on her lips. Expression empty. Schubert in her arms. Dead.
Shane’s balled fists. Wounds on Lorenzo’s face and arm. His zipper open.
Each millisecond snapshot sears into me with a viciousness that staggers my steps.
No one notices me.
I’m outnumbered, unarmed, and over-fucking-wrought with fury. Everything inside me pulls toward Ivory, but I fight it, refusing to look at her or think about her. If I do, I’ll lose my fucking shit.
Sticking to the edge of the room, I close the distance. Ivory stands a few feet away from the face-off between Shane and Lorenzo.
“Did you rape her, motherfucker?” Shane throws a punch at Lorenzo and misses his dodging head. “She was telling the truth all this time?”
Cold lethal intent spreads through me, hiking my breaths. My fists flex for destruction. My heart hardens for permanent, irrevocable death. I will end this.
My impulses take over, my hands dropping to my belt and yanking it free as venom simmers through my veins.
Lorenzo widens his stance. “Dude. Look what she did to my face.”
“You were on top of her!” Shane attacks him, arms swinging.
Lorenzo ducks, hooks him around the waist, and takes him to the floor in a series of punches.
I approach on swift silent feet, sliding the end of the belt through the buckle. A foot away, I stand behind Lorenzo. Shane sprawls on his back with Lorenzo kneeling over him. I’m certain Shane sees me, but they’re both throwing punches, blocking, grunting.
I shove the belt loop over Lorenzo’s head and hold my madness together with both fists.
Shane’s eyes, red and outraged, collide with mine. Lorenzo turns his neck.
I cinch the belt around Lorenzo’s throat, wrenching the end with the full strength of my wrath.
His body flings backward with the ruthlessness of my pull, thrashing across the floor, hands scrabbling at the noose. I hang on, yanking harder, fueled with malicious purpose.
Shane crawls toward Lorenzo’s bucking body and glares up at me with feral eyes. How am I going to fight him off while holding on to the belt?
With a bellow of rage, he slams a knee onto his friend’s chest, his fists pummeling Lorenzo’s face. I falter, stunned, and readjust my grip, pulling the belt with a vengeance.
Shane’s weight holds Lorenzo to the floor as I stand over them and wring the garrote tighter, tighter, the brutal imperative for this to end slicing through my wavering breaths.
Fingers clenched around the leather, I meet Ivory’s shattered brown gaze. I’m killing a man in front of her, coldly, consciously, and without apology. There’s no going back from this.
Her legs support her unmoving posture. Her hands hold Schubert’s dead body. Her eyes stay with mine, but she’s not here. She’s not with me.
Probably for the best, because I’m not stopping until this son of a bitch can’t hurt her anymore.
The phone in my pocket vibrates with an incoming call. The school? My parents? The fucking cops following up on suspicious activity? Fuck!