Page 9 of Tore Up

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could see a little better. I did a quick study of his face to see if he was familiar. Chiseled face, sharp jawline, short and scruffy facial hair, his dark hair wavy and layered. A bandanna was narrowly folded and tied around his head, like Rambo. Deep-set eyes that were alighter color than just mere brown. It was too dark to tell exactly. Tattoos decorated his muscular arms and the hand that was currently caressing the blade of his knife.

Fantastic. I was going to be murdered by a man I’d have considered hot in any other circumstance.

“How many brothers do you have?” he bit out, snapping my focus back to the situation rather than his wide shoulders.

I blinked. “Three,” I replied. “But I doubt the ten-year-old or six-year-old pissed you off. Although I can tell you that I’ve had my moments with them. They can be annoying.”

What was I doing? Rambling on like an idiot. This was panic. That was what it was.

“The oldest brother. Where is he?” the man demanded.

The deadly gleam in his eyes made me shiver.

Ares, what have you done?

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly.

I mean, I did know he was at boot camp, but I wasn’t sure where that was. I thought I had been told, and if given time, I could have remembered, but that was before this man had shown up in my room with a deadly weapon.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, bitch,” he warned, then grabbed my hair with one hand, jerking my head back, and placed the sharp blade to my neck.

I did not want to die this way. I thought I’d have preferred a gun. A bullet seemed less painful. My hand went to my stomach as realization hit me. I’d been trying not to think about it. Pushing it off because I had no idea what I was going to do. But being faced with death—the fact that if he killed me, he would also be killing the baby inside me—turned up my terror to a new level.

“I’m not lying,” I said. “Did you notice this house is empty? I am the only one here, and everything else is gone.”

He didn’t release me; if anything, his grip on my hair wentfrom uncomfortable to painful.

“Where is your family?”

What was the answer that would keep me alive? If I knew what Ares had done, then maybe I could fix this.

“They left. My stepmom took all my siblings and left while I was at work,” I told him.

He was silent for a few seconds, and I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing. Made myself a liability, and now, he was going to slice my throat.

Why was a guy who looked like this one going around killing people? He even smelled good. It was an odd thing to notice, but he was very close to me and it was hard to miss.

“Your older brother went with them?” he asked me.

I thought for a second, then decided to go with the truth. “No. He left back in June for basic training.”

“What day?” he snarled, sounding like he was ready to end me.

“Uh, I’m not sure. I think,” I stammered. But I did know. He had left the morning after Crosby was supposed to meet me and never came.

“You think?”

I swallowed and felt the sting of the blade when my throat constricted. “Yes. It’s been a rough week, okay? And you’ve got a knife at my throat.”

He yanked my hair, and the bite from the knife broke skin. A tear ran down my face, and I was afraid to breathe.

“What day did he fucking leave?”

“It was two months ago,” I whispered. “He left on a, uh … Saturday morning.”

I knew the date because I’d been looking at a calendar all that week. Counting how many days late my period was. Praying it came.

“June 22.”

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