Page 18 of Warped

Chapter Ten

X

Harvey dragged me away from the beautiful woman with the wild, dark eyes and shiny black hair. I had tried to strangle her, an automatic reaction to me being threatened, it would seem. It was as though that was my subconscious’s default setting to any kind of perceived attack—to go for the jugular.

But she said I’d been sent to kill her.

Had she meant that in some kind of rhetorical way?

I didn’t remember her, but I felt like I knew her.

She’d vanished into the crowd, and Harvey had pulled me the other way. “Who is she?” I asked him.

“I’m not sure.” He frowned. “But she looked familiar.”

“I thought the same thing. She said I’d been sent to kill her.”

“That would make sense.”

My eyebrows lifted. “It would?”

“Yeah, but I can’t talk to you about it out here.”

We walked another couple of blocks until Harvey stopped and turned to push open the door of an expensive apartment building. The concierge on the desk gave him a nod as we passed. “Mr. Baglione.”

He nodded back. “Good afternoon, Nicholas.”

We took the elevator up to Harvey’s apartment. It was large, with plush furnishings and breathtaking views across the city.

“You can take the bedroom through there,” he said, nodding toward one of the closed doors.

“Thanks, but I’m more interested in answers than sleep right now. You said I kill for a living, so had I been paid to kill that woman? If so, why the hell is she still alive?”

Harvey shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I need to find her. She might be the reason I’d ended up shot and half drowned. She might be able to make me remember everything else.”

He fixed his eyes on me, his brows knitted, his mouth a thin line. “If she was the reason you ended up shot, do you really think you want to be tracking her down again?”

I huffed a breath, sudden exhaustion sweeping over me. It had only been a matter of days since I’d woken, and though I felt more or less okay, my body had been through a lot. Even my muscles were weak from lack of use, and just the couple of blocks’ walk had left me exhausted. I hated feeling like this. It wasn’t me. I didn’t know much about myself, but I knew enough to tell I wasn’t someone who took weakness lightly.

“I don’t know,” I said, my head in my hands. “I can’t explain it, but she’s important. I know she is. Just the way she looked at me …”

He laughed. “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not blind. I could see she was hot, but are you really willing to risk your life because of some pretty broad?”

I shot him a glare. “It’s different than that. Sure, she’s beautiful, but there’s more to it. I know it. I can feel it.” I punched my fist to my chest. “Right here.”

He held up both hands. “Okay, okay. But let me just say the X I knew never did that.”

“Did what?”

“Felt anything. He was a cold fish, and sure as hell wouldn’t have lost his head over a girl.”

“It’s not losing my head,” I muttered. “There’s something. A connection.” I forced my thoughts away from the dark haired woman. “So tell me, if you knew the old me so well, tell me exactly how we know each other. I want to know the story of how the two of us ended up in each other’s lives.”

I didn’t feel like the type of person who would have friends, and I couldn’t imagine myself ribbing some guy over a beer on a Saturday night, or going to a baseball game and shouting at the players. I didn’t think I was a guy’s guy, so how did Harvey Baglione and I know each other?

He cleared his throat, suddenly sheepish, and dropped down into the chair opposite me. “I hired you for a job.”

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