by Pam Godwin
My head shakes on its own, taking control of my response. I want to be strong enough to do whatever is needed to free Schubert. But my jaw is glued shut, my legs so frozen I can’t feel them.
His entire demeanor changes, twisting and tightening, his expression transforming from rotten and ugly to horrifyingly evil. I see his intent coming a fraction of a second before it happens. But I move too slowly, too fucking weak to remove his hand from around Schubert’s neck, to stop his arm from swinging, to prevent my beloved kitty from slamming into the wall.
Schubert’s limp body drops to the floor, and something inside me breaks, detaches, and shrivels away. My ears hear him thump against the wood floor. My eyes trace the awkward, unmoving bend in his spine. But my mind refuses to accept it. He’s not dead. He’s not. He can’t die.
The floor rises up and slams against my knees. I’m screaming, but there’s a palm over my mouth. I’m crawling and reaching, but the heavy weight on my back pins me down. I’m sobbing, but I don’t feel the tears. Determination drives me, my arms straining for my little broken kitty, aching to hold him. He needs me to comfort him, to fix him.
But his head’s at the wrong angle. Eyes open. Not moving. Looking but not seeing. Oh God, why won’t he move?
The sane part of my brain knows. But I bury it, focusing all of my strength on reaching him, desperate to shake him awake, to hear his purr, to see him shift those unblinking eyes.
Until the press of hard flesh probes between my legs.
Dead, chilling darkness sits on my senses. Numbing the hand on my hip. Lightening the chest on my back. Muting the sound of hungry breaths.
“Scriabin,” I sob, fingers stretching and bumping against the soft pad of a kitty paw. “Scriabin.”
Just a few more inches, and I’ll be able to pull Schubert into my arms.
The forceful pressure against my core adjusts, realigning with the ring of muscle in my ass. I squeeze my eyes shut. Paying attention to my body will bring agonizing pain, so I concentrate on the notes in my head, the dissonant sonata, the deadening dark where I can hold my kitty.
Fight, Ivory. Emeric’s voice shatters through my mind. Fight and fucking win.
The erection pushes against my barrier, searing my nerve-endings. I twist my neck and sink my teeth into the flesh of Lorenzo’s bicep. Hard.
He bellows and rears back his arm.
Just as his fist flies toward me, Shane’s frantic voice echoes from somewhere downstairs. “Lorenzo! Man, where are you?”
The punch connects with my face.
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!
Lorenzo’s jaw gapes in a silent scream. Blood smears his face, eyes swollen, his complexion waning from red to blue.
I stand on one side, hands numbing around the belt. On Lorenzo’s other side, Shane presses him against the floor as his body writhes, legs kicking, fingers clawing at the l
eather around his throat.
Strangulation is an excruciatingly slow way to go. In those harrowing minutes, the enormity of what I’m doing has time to slither beneath my skin and suffocate my vital organs. I hold strong with the reminder that my responsibility to protect Ivory overrides everything else.
Lorenzo’s fingers fall away from his throat, and with a jerk of his leg, he loses the fight.
It’s finished.
Shane collapses on his ass, hands flying to the back of his head, his mouth hanging open with exertion. Horror. Shock.
Adrenaline tingles through my limbs as I drop the belt and press my shaking fingers against the swollen Destroy on Lorenzo’s throat. No pulse. There’s irony in that, something I’ll contemplate when our wounds are no longer raw.
I step back and shrug out of my jacket, sweating against conflicting bouts of relief and reality.
I just killed a man.
A man who broke into my house.
Who killed our cat.
Who attempted and maybe succeeded in raping Ivory again.
Because I wasn’t here.
My chest burns, my entire world rotating and spinning toward her. “Ivory?”
For the first time since I came in, she moves. Just her eyes, shifting them to mine. Blood rims her nostrils, stains her lips, and dots the front of her t-shirt.
My stomach twists. I need to take the cat, hug her, obliterate the distance between us. I reach for her.
She jerks back, her arms tightening around Schubert’s dangling body.
Not ready to let him go? Not ready for me to touch her?
I understand, but dammit, I feel her rejection like a fist to the heart.
A glance at Shane confirms he’s still dazed, staring at the body with unblinking, glassy eyes.
My pocket vibrates with a text alert. Goddammit. Whoever is trying to reach me has terrible timing.
I loosen my tie and toss it. Then I step in front of Ivory and brush my fingers across her jaw. She doesn’t react, her gaze distant, unfocused. When I lower my caress to the arm around Schubert, she releases an anguished cry and stumbles back.
Okay. I won’t separate her from the cat. “I just need to know you’re okay.”
Her demeanor goes cold, detached, except her arms, which hold Schubert tighter.
“I fought him.” Her voice is a hollow metronome. “Bit him. Scratched his face.”
“Good girl.” I want to pull her against me so badly, but if I do, I’ll unravel. I have to keep my shit together until this mess is contained. “Did he rape—?”
“No.” A flicker of life stirs in the muddy brown depths of her eyes. “Shane stopped him.”
Did her brother have a stroke of guilt? A sudden heart transplant? A hidden agenda? Hell knows why he stepped in, but fuck, I’m breathing a little easier knowing he did.
Shane’s wheezing grows louder, more frantic, his blood-shot eyes on the waste of life that was Lorenzo. Maybe Shane isn’t a threat at the moment, but he will be if he runs. Honestly, he looks like he’s seconds from a meltdown.
Another text comes in. I pull the phone from my pocket, but Shane’s guttural cry draws my attention.
He covers his face with his hands, wailing like a fucking pansy. “He was my best friend.” His body rocks. “Oh God, he saved my life, and we killed him.”
I maintain a towering stance above him, a position of power. “We killed the sack of shit who’s been raping your sister for four years.”
Snapping his jaw shut, he looks away.
Ivory stares at the floor, her expression blank. She’s in shock. But she’s strong as hell. There isn’t a doubt in my mind she’ll be sassing me again in no time.
I refocus on Shane and steel my voice with authority. “You’re in deeper shit than I am.”
His eyes lift, tears falling down his face. “How’s that? We both—”
“Castle law. In the state of Louisiana, I have the right to defend myself and others on my property. That includes the use of deadly force against intruders. Justifiable homicide.” I point at Ivory. “I was fucking justified.”
Problem is, if I call the cops, I’ll be arrested for a different crime. My high school student wasn’t just visiting my house while I was at work. She lives here. I won’t be able to hide that. Not with Shane involved. If I turn him in, he’ll return the favor.
I have two choices. Call the authorities and face a publicized student-teacher trial that would destroy not only my future, but Ivory’s. Or deal with the body and make all of this go away.
The second option only works with Shane’s cooperation. As much as I want to bury his worthless ass with Lorenzo, we’re in this together.
I glance at my phone. A missed call and two texts from my PI.
Smith: Gandara is free.
No shit. I look up at Schubert in Ivory’s arms, his neck hanging awkwardly, likely broken. A renewed wave of anger funnels through me.
Smith: Released yesterday. My CI just contacted me. Lawyer argued PTSD as grounds for an insanity defense. Got an appeal. Reduced sentence. I’ll be in touch as soon as I locate Gandara’s whereabouts.
Lorenzo had a year left on his sentence. At least now I don’t have to worry about dealing with his release.
I type out an acknowledgment since that’s what I would do if I weren’t standing over a dead body. I’ll let the PI look for Lorenzo. It’s a risk, but I need to see if his investigation leads him back to me.
Shane’s gaze bounces between the phone in my hand and the door, as if considering escape. “You can’t call the cops, man. I stopped him from raping her!” His voice rises. “I killed my best friend. For her.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I hit send on the text and drill my gaze into his. “You broke into my house. You’re an accomplice to murder. If you run, I’ll make the call. If you give me what I want, this stays between the three of us.”
He swallows. “What do you want?”
“Answers. Cooperation.” I flick a hand at the body. No way in hell can I lift that big motherfucker by myself. “Then you’ll crawl back into whatever hole you’ve been in for the past three months and never come back.”
“Okay.” He nods, his throat bobbing and eyes shifty. “I can do that.”
I don’t fucking trust him. In a perfect world, I would’ve killed Lorenzo without another soul knowing about it. Two witnesses are two risks too many. Ivory won’t betray me, but whatever knowledge she has about my next steps could incriminate her. I need to distance her from it.
I also need to disentangle her from Schubert.
“Ivory.” As I wait for her to look at me, I remember the reason I rushed home. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“I—” She hugs the cat against her neck, looks down at her bare legs, at the floor by the bathroom door, and back at her legs. “I might’ve…” Her chin quivers. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for what? Releasing her bladder while fighting off a rapist?
I capture her arm and pull her to me. “I hope you fucking pissed all over him.”
Her hand strokes the cat’s fur. “I hope so, too.”
I slide my arm around her waist, shifting her against me with Schubert between us. I move my other hand over his eyes, brushing them closed, petting his soft fur, letting myself mourn his death.
He was a gift from her father, her comfort when she was scared, her friend when she had no one. He was all she had the last time she lost someone she loved. Now she has me.
I hold her until her tears fall and caress her back while she silently sobs. Her trembling makes me ache. Her grief magnifies my own.
Shane watches us from a few feet away, eyes wet and turbid, noises strangling in his throat as if he’s trying to contain his sniveling. Maybe it’s guilt. I hope he chokes on it.
I reluctantly lean back. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
The look of devastation on her beautiful face threatens to bring me to my knees.
I strengthen my stance and
gesture Shane over. “Your brother’s going to take Schubert.”
Her arms tighten around the cat as a sob climbs up from deep in her chest.
I cradle her face. “I’m so sorry, Ivory. I would give anything to make this easier.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll bury him in the backyard. I’ll build a memorial there, whatever you want, okay?”
Tears drip down her cheeks, mixing with the blood on her lips as she stares at the cat.
I nod at Shane.
After a few cries of protest, she releases her hold. Shane bundles the body against his chest, his face falling.
I turn her away, guide her into the bathroom, and draw the bath. “I’ll be right back.”
Grabbing a towel, I step out, close the door behind me, and meet Shane’s eyes. “Who knows you’re here?”
He flinches. “No one. I swear.”
His promise means nothing to me.
“Go out the back door and get the medicine from my GTO. Park the Honda in the garage. You’ll find a tarp and duct tape in there.” I drop the towel beside the body. “Grab whatever else we might need.”
If he’s going to run, he would’ve done it by now. If he changes his mind, I won’t be able to stop him. So I leave him there with the cat in his arms and hope he’s smarter than he looks.
In the bathroom, I give Ivory some sleeping pills, roll up my sleeves, and silently, soothingly, bathe her into drowsiness. I hate sedating her, but I don’t want to leave her awake and grieving by herself. She needs to be comatose for however many hours it takes to deal with the body.
The urge to call my parents itches at me. Mom could stay with her while I’m gone. But making them accessories to disposing of a body is not an option.
When a fist knocks on the bathroom door, some of the tension eases from my shoulders.
I gaze down at Ivory, her skin pink from the heat of the water and her eyes hooded with fatigue. “If I leave you here for a few minutes, are you going to drown?”
Her lashes lift, and a hint of a small smile touches her lips. “If you don’t stop hovering, I might drown you.”
There’s my girl. I press a kiss to her brow, her nose, her mouth. Then I head toward the door.
“Emeric?”