Page 55 of Bad Men

He hummed softly. His gaze lowered to the gun. Without missing a beat, he yanked on the hammer. The clack of the bullet loading into the chamber filled the crippling silence, killing my gasp when the barrel was turned on me.

“Unzip your dress, Mia.”

I tried to look past the giant hole inches from my chest, but I couldn’t, terrified even the flick of my eye might set it off.

“What?” I croaked.

“Unzip your dress … please,” he added as if that single word made everything better.

“Why—?”

The gun jerked up to my face. “Now.”

Fighting back a sob, I raised my hands to the zipper of my dress. The tongue slipped from my fumbling fingers several times before I caught it and struggled tugging it down.

Alejandro watched me without a shred of emotion. The hand holding my life in its palm never wavered. I probably should have been relieved by the sturdiness of it, but it only terrified me all the more.

“That’s good,” he said when the material of my top slipped off one shoulder. “Hold still please.”

With his free hand, he retrieved an unimpressive pen from his blazer. The point was brought to the skin where my shoulder met my collarbone. I flinched upon contact. The tip bit into flesh like a knife. A weak whimper left my unwilling lips that went ignored when he began to draw.

Five sharp points of a star in blue ink burned into my skin no bigger than my thumb nail. It blazed bright in mocking sickness, a twisted reminder of our talk.

“I hope this will stand as a reminder that knowledge isn’t always power,” he murmured drawing back to admire his handiwork. “Sometimes, ignorance is the only way to survive.”

I gathered the fabric of my top up around my shoulders, trying desperately to cover as much of myself as possible from his eyes, and his pen.

“Please be safe,” he went on smoothly, stashing the pen and gun back into their proper places inside his blazer. “I would hate to see this city destroy someone as beautiful as you.”

It took me a moment to realize we’d stopped. It took longer to recognize the street and the rundown structures past the dead patches of grass.

He’d brought me home.

My home.

But I hadn’t told him where I lived. How he knew was beyond me but we were just outside, a dozen steps from the front door, in broad daylight where anyone could see.

I didn’t care. Not in that moment. All I wanted was to get as far away from that man as possible.

“Oh, Mia?” He stilled me with my hand on the door handle. “Please remind Nero and Davien that I rarely forgive twice. Next time, I’ll start with your mother, and you don’t want that, not with her already in so much pain.”

I threw myself from the backseat and sprinted up the cracked path to the front door without ever glancing back. I pushed inside and slammed it closed behind me, simultaneously snapping the lock into place, sealing myself up in the only place I’d ever felt safe.

I knew no one should be home, not for hours still. Part of me prayed they would be; I’d never needed my mom more than I did at that moment but, at the same time, I prayed they would be nowhere near the house while that monster was close.

A shadow shifted in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. I knew immediately it wasn’t either of my parents based on the sheer size alone, the width of the shoulders, the cruel chunk of metal glinting in their hand.

“Nero?”

The gun vanished into the waistband of his pants. Then he was storming towards me. In seconds, I was engulfed in his arms and held with a ferocity that cut off my air.

“Mia,” he breathed into my ear. “Did he hurt you? Mia?” His hand raked up my back and stiffened at the brush of skin where the zipper of my dress gapped in a V. He pulled back to look into my face. “Did he hurt you?”

I hadn’t realized I was crying until droplets rained from my chin. They stained the front of my uniform, leaving little, dark circles in the fabric. I heaved a heavy inhale that caught in my chest in a sob. Then another, each one a fist tightening around my throat, suffocating me.

Nero bent at the knees and scooped me up into his arms, lifting me against his chest. In two strides, he carried me to the sofa and sat with me in his lap.

“Talk to me,” he murmured into my temple.

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