Page 50 of Love Him Like Water

“I… I…” I tried to say, but found it impossible to speak past the fist of panic in my throat.

I didn’t have a purse.

That was what I wanted to say to him.

My brothers had always tried to beg me not to walk around the city with one, saying it was like a target on my back, and how there was no reason to carry one if I just tucked my cash or a small card wallet into my front pocket, where no one would be able to snatch it.

And I wasn’t in the habit of carrying a lot of stuff with me most of the time. So I’d always just done what they’d told me to.

What was left of the cash I’d brought with me to Renzo’s house was in the front pocket of the jeans I was wearing.

“Give me your fucking purse,” the man growled as slivery chains of anxiety tightened around my belly, chest, and throat at the wild, savage look in his eyes.

His hand released my arm, and my feet moved instinctively, trying to get away, go back toward people, toward the safety they provided.

“Bitch,” he snarled, and I thought, hoped, he might have been discouraged, would just walk on.

Until I felt hands slamming into my back, shoving me forward.

My belly plummeted as I threw out my hands, feeling the sidewalk burn across my palms as my weight came down on them.

This couldn’t be happening.

In broad daylight.

Just a few blocks from home.

Uselessly, another thought formed.

This wouldn’t happen in my old neighborhood.

Not because crime didn’t happen there. It did. More often than anyone wanted to admit.

But because there was a certain level of protection my family provided. Because people knew of them and my connection to them.

Not here.

Where I’d never been seen with Renzo, save for at our private wedding and at a party in our own apartment with only his close friends in attendance.

My jacket tightened around my chest, making the whole breathing thing even more of a wish and prayer than actuality as I was whipped over onto my back.

“No no no no no,” I cried as his hand grabbed for the zipper of my jacket, yanking it down.

Looking, likely, for a purse hidden under it. Out of reach.

“No!” I yelled, finding a louder voice, trying to project it, to bring attention to what was happening.

“Shut the fuck up! Shut up!” he growled as I opened my mouth to scream.

I didn’t get a chance to.

Not as he cocked back and swung.

The punch landed to the side of my lips, the pain ricocheting up until it overtook the entire side of my face as I tasted blood.

“Where’s your fucking money?” he growled as I whimpered, reaching up to cover my face. “Shut up!” he snarled again, his hand pressing down over my mouth as his other one roamed over me, fingers brushing over my chest, down my side, lower.

I was fighting then, scratching and kicking, trying to wiggle away, fear of something much worse than a robbery bubbling up in my system.

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