The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

My hand shot out, digging inside, trying to find the handle as my pants and panties were pulled down, as I felt a weight move over me.

Knees pushed mine open just as my fingers curled around it, pulled it out, flicked it open.

I didn’t think beyond feeling him curling over me, feeling his weight, feeling his dick against my thigh.

I just swung out with every bit of force I possessed.

The knife lodged itself in the middle of the man’s neck.

I remembered the bulging of his eyes, the internal panic as I saw the blade stuck in the center of the man’s windpipe, the gut instinct to yank it back out, the gasping, and wheezing after I did so.

And the fact that he was still moving.

Still grabbing for me.

A hand struck my cheekbone, sending sparks across my vision, creating an immediate migraine.

My arm struck out again, stabbing.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Blood splattered everywhere.

Over my face, neck, the bed around me.

His body collapsed forward, unconscious, pinning me down.

I fought against his weight as he slowly bled out, soaking my clothing through.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” I gasped, finally shoving his body off of me, scrambling away, falling off the side of the bed, tripping over my pants around my ankles.

I fell backward against my bedroom door, gasping for breath, trying to think through the shock in my system, my racing brain.

I don’t know how long I stayed there like that. Eventually, though, the shock subsided into tears that dried and left me with dread.

Regardless of my reasoning, I’d killed someone.

Sometimes, they didn’t care about the why. They just cared about the result. They just cared about getting a case closed. Getting a guilty party.

I could go to jail for it.

Eventually, I stood up on shaky legs, pulled my pants back into place, made myself take a few slow, deep breaths.

And then my father came home.

“I always used to think it was ridiculous when someone who’d been hauled in for a murder charge would say they blacked out,” I told Christopher. “But, honest to God, I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was standing over my father who had stab wounds to his chest and neck.”

I seemed to be on autopilot after that, showering, gathering my bloodied clothes in a trash back, grabbing the knife, and just… leaving.

I walked out.

I tossed the bags in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.

And I didn’t go back.

“Where’d you go?” Christopher asked, breaking into my memories, helping my stomach unclench.

“I lived on the streets for a while. Which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was Spring. I imagine it would have been hell in the winter. But it was Spring. People took pity on me and gave me some food. I learned how to wash my hair in a sink with hand soap.”

“How’d you get into the world you’re in now?”

“I ran into this guy I knew from high school. He had been moving drugs on school grounds for as long as I remembered. And he was getting into a scuffle with some other dealer. From an actual legit gang. I stepped in. Brokered a deal that they were both happy with. I got a cut. Got off the street. The next time his boss wanted something from some other dealer, he came to me to help out. Eventually, word of mouth got out. I had a little business going.”

“Hey,” he said, drawing my attention back to the present moment.

“Yeah?”

“You did what you had to do to survive, Melody. No one would ever hold that against you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I learned something when Quin made me legit, when I rejoined the real world again.”

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t kill him. My father,” I clarified. “I thought I did. Everything pointed to me doing it. But he lived. And he told the police some guys came in, attacked him and his friend, and took me.”

“He deserved to die,” Christopher declared, voice icy.

“He did. And three months after this whole ordeal, he did die. Overdose. With the drugs from the dealer I’d gone to school with.”

Christopher’s arm reached across the table, his hand closing over mine.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said, voice soft.

It felt good, I realized.

Telling someone.

Giving someone those parts of my past.

“Why haven’t you told your loved ones?” he asked a moment later, hand still covering mine.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, shaking my head.

Now that it was out, I couldn’t quite figure out why I had felt the need to hold those secrets so close.

What happened hadn’t reflected on me.

Maybe there had always been a bit of embarrassment and shame for being the child of such a destructive addict. Maybe I didn’t want people to think it was possible for me to go down the same path. Maybe an insecure little part of me was terrified what people might think to learn that even my own father hadn’t been able to love me. That it spoke to something lacking in me.