Page 41 of The Woman on the Jury

But I came back with a damn meat tenderizer.

Not a knife.

But solid, heavy, capable of doing damage.

A hand shot out toward me, and I just… swung.

The crack of it hitting bone had my stomach twisting and sloshing.

The roar that escaped him told me I was winning though. Even if his hand wasn’t broken, it would be weaker from the strike.

When the other hand reached out, and I swung again, though, he’d been prepared, snatching it from me, and swinging it toward my head.

“Help!” I started to yell, but the sound barely escaped before a hand was crushing over my face again, muffling the sound against his palm.

No, damnit.

I was too close.

Just a few feet from the door.

From help.

This couldn’t end here.

My hands reached out, grabbing the man’s waist, trying to use him as leverage and to gauge where to bring up my knee.

Which I did.

Hard.

With freaking everything in me.

Right into his crotch.

Another roar escaped him as he fell backward, one hand cupping his junk.

Knowing he would only be more pissed, I didn’t try to run. Not yet. I turned, pushing myself further into the kitchen, yanking open a cabinet, and reaching inside until I felt the weight of it.

A cast iron skillet.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you fuckin—“

He didn’t get a chance to call me a bitch again.

I grabbed that skillet with both hands, and swung it with every goddamn bit of strength in my body. Enough so that when it collided with his head, the impact made my shoulders scream.

Heart pounding, I watched as he stumbled, then fell backward with a loud thud.

I leapt over his body as I rushed toward the door, the skillet still in one hand while the other fumbled for the knob, throwing open the door, and looking both ways into the hall before rushing down the front stairs.

How long would it be before the brothers came looking for the one who’d come for me?

I was in the lobby when I damn near screamed my head off, seeing a man there, half slumped forward, his leg kind of dragging behind him as he shuffled forward.

I must have made a sound without realizing it, because his head rose.

I didn’t know him.

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