Page 51 of Warped

“I don’t. I swear it. I was just getting breakfast.”

I was worried for Vee’s safety. She’d come looking for me as soon as she finished, and chances were she’d run into Johnny. She’d never wanted to believe Johnny was crooked, even though all the evidence pointed in that direction. Having him here now proved my instincts had been right rather than hers. Even so, I had to get out of this. I couldn’t let this guy find her. He’d take her straight back to Tony, and I didn’t want to think about what would happen then. I guessed the reason for the bruises around her neck lay with Tony, and the thought of the other man’s hands on her made me murderous.

Johnny shoved me harder into the ground. “Stop fucking lying. You must think I’m a total idiot.”

I tried a different approach. “When did you start taking money off Tony? Was it before or after you employed Vee?”

“What the fuck kind of difference does that make?”

“It makes plenty. It tells me what kind of man you are. Were you always on Tony’s payroll, and it was just luck you employed Vee, which I think is pretty doubtful, or did Tony track you down and make you report back on her?”

“He didn’t give me much choice. He said he would destroy my business.”

“So you took money from him in return for reporting back on a young woman who was only trying to protect her sister? You know you could have gotten her killed?”

I didn’t tell him I was the one paid to do the killing.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

He was getting riled, anxious, guilty. It was exactly what I wanted. The weight pressing down on me alleviated just a fraction.

Knowing his thoughts were more with his own self-doubt than me, I used his moment of weakness. With limited options, I rolled to my right, dislodging his grip. Now on my back, I drove my knee up into his lower back, making him cry out in pain and simultaneously fall forward. He was still above me, so I drew back my fist and threw an uppercut, catching him right in the nose. There was a crunch as bone broke, and then a rain of blood cascaded down on top of me.

I’d hoped at this point he would fall off me, clutching his face. He was still half astride me. But instead of that, he leaned over me farther, his bloodied face filling my whole vision. I swung my fists again, but this time he was ready for me and blocked the blow. With a roar of pain and fury, he grabbed the sides of my head, and lifted me up slightly, and then slammed the back of my skull on the concrete.

The lights went out, though I still had some connection with the outside world. I was waiting for the second blow, knowing it would probably put a crack in my skull, and then he’d do a third and a fourth, and my brains would end up smeared all over the ground.

But instead, the weight lifted off me, and I could breathe.

Footsteps thumped away from me. I was barely aware of them as I lost my grip on the outside world and fell into myself.

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