Page 51 of Sinner's Secret

She considered the possibilities.

There had been shots fired, men screaming, and now there was no sound at all from any other people but her and Baz.

Her stomach did a double back flip, then dove toward the floor so fast her lungs stuttered to a stop. It took an endless moment for her to remember how to breathe again. Even then, her voice was barely above a whisper as she asked, “What did you do?”

“What I had to do to free you.” For a second there was a bleakness in his eyes that was so deep it hurt her heart. “As soon as I came in the door, they attacked me, but I had to get you out, keep you safe.” He looked away as if embarrassed or guilty.

Wait, multiple men had been present, armed, and more than willing to shoot any one not involved in their disgusting business, and Baz had—what, killed them all? He must have had a gun too. He must have had help.

But no one else was here and she hadn’t seen him with a weapon, not even when he confronted that suit wearing monster, who did have a gun. How did that work?

“You were more than just a medic in the military, weren’t you?”

“I...” He paused, then sighed. “Some of the things I had to do never made it into any report.”

And those past actions haunted him. It was why he lived on the edge of society, virtually homeless, and estranged from his family. Their business activities, with its inherent conflict and violence, would just add more trauma to the staggering amount he already carried.

Today, he’d killed again.

He’d saved her from a fate worse than death, and not just her, all the women who’d been herded in that truck like livestock.

Without a weapon, there would be no question of it being something other than self-defence. He would have had no choice but to kill her captors or they would have killed him.

More bad memories he would have to carry.

“Do you trust me?” she asked him. “Whatever you had to do, it was forced upon you. They gave you no other option.”

“I could have let them kill me.” The grim bleakness in his tone made her shiver.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “You had a mission, and I think once you decided that, there was only one way for this situation to end.”

He grunted and a sad smile flashed across his face. “Yes, but Nika...” he rubbed the back of his neck. “That asshat was right. I am a monster.”

“I think his definition of the word and mine differ. A lot,” Nika said. “Besides, he was a disgusting creep whose opinion of other people was worthless. Trust me. Please.”

Baz winced, then squeezed her hand a little. “Okay, just know, I would never hurt you. I will never hurt you.”

They walked a few steps further when he stopped again. “I think I need to carry you anyway. You’ve got no shoes on and there are some sharp things on the floor.”

“Okay.”

He slipped one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, then strode into a living room. The bodies of two men lay on the floor, their limbs extended at awkward angles, bodies twisted oddly.

Only someone with advanced martial arts skills could have done this. Outside of the movies, she’d never seen anything like it.

They went around a corner and there was another man’s body huddled against a wall upside down, as if he were a large doll an even bigger child had thrown there.

She blinked, it was the fat man, Teddy.

The kitchen was all but destroyed with pots, pans, and plates all over the place. Three bullet holes had penetrated the refrigerator door, and another two bodies were twisted amongst the mess on the floor.

There was some blood mixed in with the dead men and debris on the kitchen floor, but she couldn’t see any wounds that might account for it.

Baz paused at the apartment doorway, looked right and left, then stepped out into a non-descript hallway. They went down a set of stairs, five flights down before they reached ground floor.

Again, he paused at the door to check outside before going through it.

The sun had set during all the chaos and only a few streetlights were lit. The darkness would help to hide them, at least until they made it to a more affluent area.

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