Page 12 of Bulletproof Love

“Looking good, blondie. Can I get your number?” the dude calls to her as she passes by.

“Fuck off,” Falin snaps, giving him the finger. That’s my girl.

“Come with me and I will,” he replies, loud enough to be heard over the chuckles of his coworkers.

I stop in my tracks, only a foot away from the bastard, forcing air in through my nose and out through my mouth like my therapist taught me last year. But it’s not doing shit to calm me. Only one thing will.

“Hey, fuck face,” I call out. He whirls around, giving me his toughest expression. He’s gotta be shorter than six feet at first glance and a hell of a lot smaller than me, not that it matters.

I don’t wait for a response—my body acts on its own accord. I swing the hot pink cat tower, the hanging bell toy jingling like a soundtrack to my rage, and smash it over his head.

Caught off guard, he loses his balance and stumbles back against the wall. I barely see the other contractors standing at attention beside him through my tunnel vision. But I hear her, Falin, as she calls my name. “Jasper, what the hell?”

I ready the cat tower to strike again, but she grips my arm and yanks me toward her, ignoring hollers from the guys.

“Call the cops, Gino. This fucker just hit Miller.” Pulling from her grasp, I advance on my target again, wanting to see him crumple to the cold, hard ground.

“Come on!” Falin yells beside me and I finally come to, blinking and taking in my surroundings. “They’re calling the cops. Let’s go!”

“Fuck,” I say under my breath. Hoisting the cat tower on my shoulder, we break out into a run and don’t stop until we’re two blocks away from home.

CHAPTERFIVE

FALIN

My thighs burnand lungs are ready to explode by the time we reach our building. Jasper climbs the steps behind me, oddly quiet. Is it possible he’s actually thinking about his actions?

“You’re pretty quiet for a guy who just assaulted someone with a cat tower,” I say through labored breaths.

As I turn the doorknob to our apartment, he says, “Catcallers get the cat tower… it’s only fitting.”

I shake my head. “How have you lived on this earth twenty something years without serving jail time?”

“Twenty-five years, and I don’t know… My good looks and charm seem to help.” My eyes roll back before I can stop them.

“I cannot with you.”

We’re interrupted by Leon striding toward us with an arm full of kittens, a wild look in his eyes. “Take them. One of them clawed me.”

“Why were you holding them?” Jasper asks.

“They wouldn’t stop meowing.” Jasper grabs the babies, and Leon curses under his breath. “I’m going to get rabies now.” He stomps off toward the bathroom, but not before stopping to stare at our pet store haul. “Apinkcat tower?”

“Ask him,” I say, pointing at Jasper.

“What? They’re girls, they wanted pink,” Jasper says, as if he’s said the most obvious statement ever.

Leon shakes his head and leaves us to our mess of shopping bags and hungry, demon kittens.

* * *

I shut my computer,more forcefully than I mean to. These encryptions are testing every bit of my knowledge and patience. Between Leon and I throwing everything we have into it, we’ve still only managed to figure out the first bit that led us here. I’ve stared at the list of seemingly inconsequential patterns so much in the past few weeks that they’re engrained on the back of my eyelids.

RH-MEXP4521937-12-1022-NYC,

PN-MEXP4521882-07-2230-NYC,

HH-MEXP4521756-16-1845-NYC ,

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