“Although, you’ve known her for what, a few weeks? It’s not like she actually means anything to you.”
Everything came at Tony in a split second. Lavender perfume. The way she twirled her hair around a finger as she listened to his stories. The look on her face when she’d tasted his gravy. How she talked to herself while typing away on her blog. The way she’d climaxed so hard on his deck, screaming his name. Had it been only a few weeks? It seemed like a lifetime.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Tony raised the gun, putting the asshole square in its sights, his finger on the trigger. “Sylvie, S.I.N.G. Trust your gut.”
Understanding gleamed in her eye a half second before she drove her elbow deep into Anders’s stomach, then ducked.
He pulled the trigger.
A bang thundered through the office.
A high-pitched scream pierced the air.
The thunk of two bodies hitting the floor reverberated through the room.
Blood pooled around what was left of Anders’s face.
For a heartbeat that lasted a decade, Sylvie—still tangled in the bastard’s grip—didn’t move.
Shit.
Tony dropped to his knees beside her. “Sylvie!”
The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils. A panic he’d never experienced before gripped him by the balls and shook him. Then she opened her eyes. Thank God.
Her voice shook. “Nice advice.”
Blood spattered Sylvie’s cheek and dripped off her jaw. Her face had turned from olive to ghostly white, the normal sparkle of her green eyes dulled by shock.
Something inside him broke.
“My God, where are you hit?” His hands were everywhere, smearing the crimson liquid as he searched for her injury.
“It’s not my blood. It’s—” Her mouth trembled.
Relief flooded through him and lightened his arms. He wrapped them tightly around Sylvie to reassure himself as much as her.
And he didn’t let her go until the cops released them from the scene.
Chapter Seventeen
“Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves, and of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys, they’d walk around naked at all times.”
—Betsey Johnson
Pink water pooled at Sylvie’s feet, besmirching the pristine white shower tile and sparkling silver drain before disappearing down, down, down into the darkness. Water sluiced across her bare skin, steam obscuring the glass door and the view of her bathroom beyond, but still she shivered. Even her bones had goose bumps. She pushed against the slick tile, desperate for something to grasp, to hold on to, to anchor herself on, as the water streaming down her face forced her eyes closed. But the sensory deprivation only heightened the memories.
Cold metal against her temple.
Blood splattering.
Anders crumbling.
His wet gasping death rasp—too much like the one she’d heard on that night so many years ago when her mother had locked her in a closet with Anya. They’d stayed there for what seemed like forever after the loud bang, clinging to each other and too scared to call out for help. Finally, they heard footsteps outside. She’d watched the brass knob turn, hope slicing the Gordian knot in her stomach. It had all been a mistake. The gunshot must have been a car backfiring. She’d squinted against the sliver of light that invaded when the door opened, unable to understand why her mother’s feet were so high up.
“Hey there, girls. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” The cop had hunkered down to their level, but his smile hadn’t reached his tired eyes. “I’m gonna need you to hold hands and walk as fast as you can to the hallway. Don’t look at the bed. Okay?”
Anya had squeezed her hand so tightly that Sylvie’s knuckles cracked as they emerged into the light. Sylvie hadn’t meant to look, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She turned her head toward the uniformed men huddled around her mom’s rumpled bed.