I hefted my bat, holding my stance and staggering my feet for better traction. “I think it’s more likely that Ryker will paint the warehouse walls with your blood. It’s a much more welcome decor item there. You’ll fit right in.” I smiled, watching as he staggered forward another step.
I was too small to attack. Too small to sacrifice my balance and the strength that came from planting my weight.
He came closer.
Slowly.
Approaching me like a caged animal, he looked at me with rabid eyes. Men never saw that they were the animals. That they were the monsters. Women were just theirs to take and use.
Abuse.
I’d be fucking damned if I became a victim when I spent my time teaching women how to be survivors.
So I waited. I itched to hit him and to make him bleed the way he would have done to me if I’d been anyone else. But he’d picked the wrong woman to steal out of bed in the night.
Murphy could kiss my Filipina ass.
He raised his hand, blocking his face as he came closer.
One more step.
And I struck, swinging my bat not for his face like he thought I would, but for the broken elbow he kept hanging at his side like a limp dick. He roared, grabbing at it as pain exploded through his arm.
He dropped his block, and I raised a leg to my chest. Kicking down onto his kneecap, I felt it give beneath him as he collapsed to the other knee.
I swung again, catching him in the temple.
He fell to the floor, bashing his face on the coffee table and staining the carpet too while he was at it.
My landlord would not like me when morning came.
It was a good thing he was my Dad.
I brought the bat with me as I went back to the bedroom. I didn’t let myself look at the bloodstained sheets as I snagged my phone off the nightstand.
Even in the middle of the night, she’d answer the phone. Matteo would want to kill me, but she’d answer.
“Sadie?” my best friend asked in a sleepy voice. I hated waking her up, but I had a feeling Matteo wouldn’t appreciate me calling the cops for this.
“Don’t panic, but tell Matteo one of Murphy’s friends needs picking up,” I sighed, stepping back into the living room to check on my attacker. Ivory sucked in a sharp breath as I watched the body on my carpet, counting every time his chest rose and fell. I wouldn’t get close enough for him to catch me off guard on the chance that he only pretended to be unconscious.
Not until I got my handcuffs from the bedroom.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry, but tell him he’ll want Ryker to be ready and waiting,” I added, hanging up the phone.
Backing into my bedroom, I got my handcuffs.
At least they were being used for something.
6 Sadie
I tapped my fingers on my cheek and heaved out a sigh as I waited. Not wanting to take my eyes off the dude on my floor, confliction filled me.
I hated sitting still.
That was enemy number one, but the blood-stained sheets, wall, and carpet begged me to break out the bleach. The coffee table had also shifted a few inches to the side when his face used it as a landing strip of the less fun variety. The indentations in the carpet where the legs once sat looked like red pools as they filled with the blood dripping out of his nose.
The need to move the coffee table back, and the inability to do so, drove me up the wall until my pacing reached a new speed. I kept my distance, tapping my fingers on my thigh in a steady rhythm.
One. Pause.
Two. Pause.
Three. Pause.
Four. Pause.
Five. Pause.
I waited, and then I started over. When the man groaned and struggled against his hands cuffed behind his back, I fought the temptation to hit him in the head again. Matteo would want him alive for Ryker to play with.
Temporarily.
His groans grew louder as he became more aware with every second that passed. I didn’t have any neighbors in my apartment above the gym who could hear his increasing struggles, but that didn’t mean his voice wasn’t annoying as fuck. Pathetic as only a man could really be. Why wasn’t there a word for man hurt? Mansick didn’t quite apply.
I went to my bedroom, grabbing a pair of Patrick’s boxers off the top of the open box of his that sat and waited for him to take back.
It wasn’t like I could gag the dude with my own underwear.
I stepped up to his head, pinching his bloody nose until he mouth-breathed all over me like the nasty thing he was. Shoving the boxers into his rancid face hole, I stepped back and fought the gag that pinched my throat.
I’d washed the boxers before shoving them in the box.
Shame.
Matteo’s knock on my door was anything but subtle, and I stepped over to let in the Bellandi brigade. Ivory’s body collided with mine in a rush, propelling me back into the room so quickly that I almost fell on my ass. “Woah,” I laughed. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“You were attacked!” she hissed, pulling back to look at me. Her brow furrowed. “Weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, watching as the men stepped in. Matteo and Ryker led the charge, with Scar and Simon hot on their heels. Two more followed them, seeming vaguely familiar from my time spent around the Bellandi Estate, and my small apartment felt microscopic as it filled with too-large male bodies that didn’t belong in my space.
Matteo gave me a quick glance over, seeming to determine I was safe enough and unharmed despite the circumstance that brought him to my personal haven for the first time. “What’s that in his mouth?” he asked, bending down to inspect the dude with the twitchy eyeballs. He’d wake up soon enough.
“Patrick’s boxers,” I
