Текст книги "Hero"

Автор книги: Leighton Del Mia

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

9

It takes time, but I eventually realize that Norman was right. I haven’t seen Guy since the night of my tantrum. I’m granted a second and final chance to call Frida, during which I understand she needs to hear I’m okay as much as I need to tell her I’m not. The threat of being locked in my room again is all I need. I give her the Andersons’ phone number while Norman nods but hope she won’t use it. I’m just convincing enough, and I’m rewarded with a camera. I recognize the Leica M6 as high-end and far more expensive than anything I could ever afford. I smile when I open the gift and thank Norman. He promptly reminds me it isn’t from him but that he will pass on my gratitude to “the Master of the House.”

I’m at the window in my room when a hand touches my shoulder. I jump, my entire body alerting.

“I apologize,” Norman says. “I called your name several times. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I shudder, brushing my hands over my sleeves. “It’s okay.”

“Shall I close your window? It’s getting colder as we head into winter.”

“No.”

“What do you look at when you sit here day after day?”

“I’ve been wondering. Does the exterior of the house have gargoyles?”

He laughs cautiously. “Gargoyles?”

“Those carved, stone, nightmarish things.”

“No,” he says quietly.

“Seems like it should.” He doesn’t respond but looks out the window, so I do too. “I wish I could touch those roses.”

“They have nasty thorns, you know.” I glance up at him, and he gestures to the nightstand. “I can bring flowers for your room.”

“It isn’t the same thing.”

“I see. Why don’t you photograph them with your new camera?”

“Sometimes I do,” I say. “My favorite—” I pause.

“Go on,” he says with a small smile. “Which is your favorite?”

“It was taken on a wet day.” Raindrops pounded the window, forming liquid sheets that distorted the red roses just beyond the glass.

He clears his throat when I don’t continue. My palm smooths over the hardcover book in my lap.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“The book?”

“No. The bookmarker.”

I slide out the torn paper, uncaring that I’ll lose my spot. Yesterday’s date screams at me. Eight weeks here feels impossible. “I’m sorry,” I say, peeking furtively at the desk drawer where I’ve stashed the calendar. “I took it from the library.”

He makes a thoughtful noise. “It’s been some time since you visited the cinema. Perhaps a movie will lift your spirits?”

“My spirits are fine,” I say and return my attention out the window. “Anyway, when I’m not forced to be in here, I like it.” I don’t mention that I do more than look from my window; I wait. When Hero hears about this and finally comes for me, I’ll be here, at the open window, ready for him.

 “Very well. The Master of the House has requested your presence at dinner this evening.”

My head whips back to him, and he chuckles lightly. When the reverberation of his words dies, I’m left with two warring feelings: instinctual fear and a visceral need for answers.

“Please don’t argue or ask to decline,” Norman says.

“I won’t.” I’ve given up my quest for answers with the staff, but I can’t help feeling a new door has finally opened. I’ve been tempted to ask about Guy, but keeping my secret feels like the only thing in my control.

“You’ll need to dress appropriately,” Norman is saying through my thoughts. “Please choose something semi-formal. I’ll send Rosa in to help you.”

When he closes the door behind him, I leave my windowsill to go to the closet. I examine each piece with new appreciation. Money was tight for me growing up, but sewing was a hobby of my mother’s. I never took to it, but I’d often keep her company as she worked. I touch chiffon to my cheek and smile.

In the shower, I overload a sponge with soap and scrub with purpose. I wash my hair twice and condition. Afterward, I take time painting my face, trying not to think of what it means that I want to look nice.

Rosa is in a good mood when she shuffles into my room. I close my eyes and relax as she gently drags a comb through my wet hair, tugging lightly to free any tangles. Her sturdy fingers pull hair off my face, grazing my temples. It’s not often that anyone touches me anymore. My head falls forward, hair creating a dark veil as she brushes. I haven’t even touched myself. My mind makes up for it with occasional wet dreams, sometimes about a shadowed man abusing my mouth. I am guiltiest when I catch myself replaying them during the day.

The floor-length, tea rose pink dress I choose resembles a nightgown. In a way, it’s a small step up from what I’ve been wearing around the house. I’m oddly excited when I slide into heels, even if it’s just to wear them downstairs. I ask Rosa twice in halting Spanish if she’s sure I should wear them at all, and she confirms with a nod.

She accompanies me out but vanishes once we reach the base of the steps. I don’t need her anyway; I could find my way around the mansion, at least the parts I’m allowed in, with my eyes closed.

But no amount of time exploring this place could’ve prepared me for what I see next.

As I round the doorway into the dining hall, everything I know, all my myriad theories, anything I believed to be true shatters to pieces. Beautiful olive-green eyes framed by black rims bring my world to a halt. Where Guy Fowler should be sits Calvin Parish.

10

My hand spreads over my stomach and clutches my dress. I try to inhale, but air comes in short, impossible wisps. “Mr. Parish?”

“Have a seat,” Calvin says, his voice dripping with heart-stabbing indifference.

I take a step backward and make jolting contact with the doorjamb. “Where’s Guy?” I ask, my head shaking out of my control. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my home.”

“How?” I whisper.

“I’m not sure I understand your question. Have a seat, Cataline.” He removes his glasses with a heavy sigh. “I’m certain you’ve been warned about my patience?”

With tentative steps, I inch my way to sit at the opposite end of the table. As I do, his eyes drop from my face.

“Norman?” he calls, and instantly Norman appears. “What is this? She looks ridiculous.”

“It’s customary for dinner guests to dress as such in your presence, Master.”

“No need for formalities that will only confuse the girl. We’re not playing house here.” His attention returns to me. “Going forward, come to dinner as you are. And on that note, don’t call me Mr. Parish. Calvin will do.”

I swallow, running my hands over my silk-sheathed thighs. It wasn’t long ago that my mouth stretched from his throbbing dick. I shake my head quickly. “This can’t be real,” I say softly to the table. “This whole time—these last two months, I thought . . .” My head overflows with questions faster than I can keep up. I look up again. “Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?”

For rarely having ever made eye contact, his gaze is unnervingly fixed on me. It’s almost more shocking to have him stare at me so directly than what I’ve just learned.

“Norman,” he says without looking away, “excuse yourself.”

And again we are alone. He leans forward with agonizing slowness to set his elbows on the table. “I won’t answer those questions.”

“Why not?” I pause, awaiting a response. “Are you working with Guy Fowler? Is this because of what happened at the restaurant?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “No.”

“No what?” I cry. “No, you’re not working with him, or no, it’s not my fault?”

“Please, don’t get hysterical. Remember your place.”

“My place?” I repeat. “I don’t know my place.”

“The fewer questions you ask, the better. They’ll only lead to disappointment, as anyone you come in contact with has been instructed not to answer them.”

“For how long?”

He shakes his head, an admonishment.

My nails dig painfully into my palms, but I can’t seem to unfurl them. “You’re going to jail for this, and then to hell.” I falter delivering the words, but my need for information is quickly eating away at any fear. “Who do you think you are?”

“That’s a question I will answer. You know me as the founder of the company where you work, your boss . . . but I’m more than that to you now. I hold your fate. As such, you should do as I say if I care enough to say at all.”

“How long have you been planning this?” I ask quietly.

His eyebrows rise lazily.

“You’re psychotic,” I say. “How many other girls have you done this to? And what does this have to do with Parish Media?”

He sighs. “Nothing, I can assure you.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re still in New Rhone.”

Something in my chest breaks loose and relief manifests with a jagged sigh. I am triumphant, clutching to this nugget of reassurance. I lean forward in my chair and open my mouth.

“You’re a glutton for disappointment it seems,” Calvin says. “Go on, ask it.” Slowly he rises from his chair and stalks toward me. My eyelids beat rapidly, and my head tilts further and further until I’m looking up at him. He inclines over the arm of the chair so he’s hovering above me. His nearness is something I’ve furtively wished for in the past, and now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. “Why you?” he asks. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

I nod breathlessly.

His head slants to the side. “I often ask myself the same thing. Why you?”

Time slows. My lips split apart to breathe him in. I’m swimming in green, unfamiliar green, fighting a war I’ll never win. I reach up and feel his jaw, put my finger in his mouth. My arms are too heavy to move, though, and I’m drowning. My hands remain lifeless in my lap, where they always were. We are a mirage, but separately, he and I are real.

I’ve been silent too long. “Were you the one who came to my room?”

His Adam’s apple springs up as he swallows, but his gaze never wavers.

“Am I here for . . . for—”

“Sex?” he finishes. He reaches out but pauses midair when I flinch. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”

My heart is thudding against my ribcage, eager to escape and leave me to the dogs. I break our stare and shift my eyes to his extended hand.

“You’re blushing,” he murmurs as his fingertips graze my cheekbone. “You’ve gotten away with this behavior because of the circumstances, but after tonight, I’ll have no more questions. I’ll only tell you one more thing. All right?”

I agree with a fractional nod.

“This is in your best interest.”

“My best interest?” I say. “I don’t believe you.”

“So be it.”

“When you came to my room—that was in my best interest?”

I’m frozen while he fingers a piece of my hair and moves it behind my ear. “No. That was for me.” He backs away, returns to his end of the table, and sits. “We’re ready to eat,” he says levelly. He slides his glasses back into place, but he continues to watch me. Norman appears within moments, dishes in hand.

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

“I don’t care. You’ll eat.”

“I’ll eat if you answer my questions.”

He chuckles. “It doesn’t work that way. You’re not in charge here.” He takes a bite of food, his head down as he chews.

When I blink, there’s wetness on my lashes. After weeks of waiting for this conversation, I’m left with no real answers and many more questions. It’s a minute or so before I speak again, and I hardly recognize my voice through the grit. “Hero will come for me.”

His head snaps up as suddenly as his eyebrows draw together. The stare he pins me with is so piercing that I sink into my seat. I always knew I’d find something grave in his depths. But my imagination never scratched the surface of how it feels to have him actually look back. It’s as if he’s trying to see harder, to dive inside me through my pupils.

“Hero will come, and when he does,” I pause to deliver my next words with a snarl, “you’ll regret your existence. I hope he shows you no mercy.”

There’s a marked passivity in his face that knots a hard and guttural pit in my stomach. Just when I’m sure he’ll fly into a rage, he bursts into loud, bellowing laughter. There’s nothing joyful about it, though; it’s taunting, echoing through the massive dining hall. He shakes his head and gives me a look a parent might give an amusing child. He forks a bite of his steak and points it at me, a drop of blood leaking from the meat. “You’re funny.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he says, shoving the food in his mouth.

11

It’s the kind of stillness that only exists in the unshakable hours before dawn. I sit up in my oversized bed, rubbing my eyes for a while until they adjust. It used to be that almost nothing would wake me once I’d finally fallen asleep. The comforter is fluffed, inviting me to bury deeper, but I push it away and slide off the bed.

I ease open my bedroom door and slip down the hallway. My eyes and my imagination are on the fourth floor. The cold air assaults my thin nightie, but that’s not the reason for my shudder. Whatever’s luring me to the forbidden darkness is impossible to ignore. The only real answer I got at dinner was that I’m not getting any answers at all. I’ve been so fearful of learning my fate that getting nothing hadn’t ever crossed my mind.

Each barefoot step is careful, and my fingers trail the railing as I climb. I never take my eyes off the shadows, expecting someone to appear and send me back to my room. At the top, I hold my breath. A squeal rips through the quiet, and rakes over my jittery bones. My heart pounds, my body a statue, until I’m sure nobody’s coming. I’m drawn closer to the squeaks and feminine yelps coming from behind a sturdy pair of double doors.

His jaw at dinner was set sternly, even as he chewed. His brown hair obedient except when it fell over his forehead. Those stormy eyes. Calvin Parish fits the role of captor too well, and my mind has already reconciled my mistake. A bass growl jerks me back to reality. My front is molded to the wood doors and my ear to the sliver where they meet.

Warmth behind my ears prickles its way up my scalp. My teeth dig into my lower lip. Calvin’s grunts are virile venom injected into my bloodstream and surging between my legs. There’s a sharp slap. My hand curls around the doorknob. It turns. Adrenaline courses through me faster than disbelief or sense. I push it open.

The woman on her knees has her cheek on the mattress. Calvin’s muscles are tight, and his ass flexes as he thrusts into her. He smacks her backside, and she jerks, but he holds her to the bed with a hand around her neck.

My dry throat turns my cry for help into a stunned whisper. Calvin whips around anyway, jarring me from my trance. “Help,” I screech suddenly as he jumps from the bed. “Please h-help, I’ve been kidnapped, my name is Cat—”

In a split second, my back is pulled against his front. His hand clamps over my mouth. My screams don’t relent as the woman looks over her shoulder. She’s blindfolded with fabric that almost covers her entire face. I’m fighting Calvin’s strength, trying to ignore the hardness digging into my back while he drags me from the room. He throws his shoulder into the next door we come across, and it pops open. He kicks it shut with his foot before throwing me further into the room.

Before I can even right myself, he picks me up and tosses me. I land with a bounce on a mattress. He’s on me in a second, his long body covering mine, his hand back over my mouth. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The harder I wriggle, the heavier his torso gets, but even when my breath runs out, my screams don’t stop. His fingers seem to go through my cheeks to my molars.

“Shut up,” he snaps, pinning my arms to my body with his elbows.

My hips rear to shove him off. My screaming dies instantly because he moans, a pained but lustful sound. It’s then that I notice his length has slid up my inner thigh, under my nightgown. His mouth drops to the curve of my neck, and his hand muffles my gasp. He bites my shoulder, pulling skin between his teeth like he’s about to dig into a meal.

My protests are pathetic gurgling under his gag. I yank at his wrist, trying desperately to free my mouth.

He lowers his hand to trace the line of my underwear. “If you don’t stop squirming, I’m going to fuck you.”

He shifts my panties aside. I shake my head hard, pleading with eyes swallowed by pupils. He fixes my thigh against the mattress with a firm hand. He’s everywhere at once, making me his doll. There’s pressure at my entrance, and it’s burning hot. My legs fight to close. His fingers squeeze into my thigh. My pussy grasps for his crown, but my teeth try vainly for the skin of his hand.

His hips roll in waves. “Come on,” he says, his jaw so tense it could snap. When he’s worked his head in, I’m groaning from my chest, my face flushed. “You like that,” he says.

I want to hit him, slap him, push him away. More than that, there’s this visceral need unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s so thick I’m choking on it.

He lowers his mouth to my ear and waits there. His breath seems like it could blister my skin. “Tell me you like it.”

I shake my head hard.

His tongue traces the shell of my ear until it reaches my lobe. He takes it between his teeth. “No?”

I’m certain my tightly-coiled body is going to break in half. His head rises to hover above me. He removes his hand, and my mouth tilts up. He laughs something base and gritty and stands in a flash, leaving me open and bared to him. His gaze drops between my legs, and his dick is thick in his large hand. He takes another step away from me.

“Do not pull a stunt like this again,” he says. “This is your warning. Go back to your room. Stay there until I say you can come out.”

The next thing I hear is the slam of his bedroom door. I’m stunned and alone, my chest heaving with deep breaths. I fix my nightgown, my underwear. I follow his scent until my ear is back at the doors where I hear muffled voices. A hand on my shoulder makes me spin around with a gasp and flatten my back against the wood.

“Shh, Cataline.” Norman’s eyes are sympathetic in the dark. “I’ll escort you back to your room.”

My breath catches in my throat at the sight of him. Had he heard me scream? Did he see anything? “You don’t have to escort me,” I say. “I’ll go.”

His head hangs slightly as he shakes it. “It wasn’t an offer.”

I descend the stairs with him behind me.

“I’m sorry, dear, but I have to lock it.”

“Oh,” I say, clasping the doorway’s molding. “Please, Norman. Don’t lock it. I can’t stay in this room alone any longer.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not up to me.”

He pulls the door shut once I remove my hands, sliding the lock into place after him. Alone, I am unable to fight the feelings of confusion washing over me. I slip between the buttery sheets feeling filthy. There is a strain of anger coursing through me—anger for my missed opportunity, anger with Calvin. But my hottest anger stems from the fact that underneath him, my fight wavered. My body threatened to give in. I began to melt.

12
Calvin

I get fleeting satisfaction from the way my bedroom door splinters down the middle when I slam it. My control is proving slippery around her—a first for me. I’m too strong, too powerful for that. I’m not built to lose control, except when it comes to those who deserve it. Criminals. Killers. People who hurt the innocent. Even whores, who can sometimes fix what a good kill can’t. Cataline is none of those things.

The woman is still in position on my bed, her ass red with my handprints as it wiggles in the air. Unlike Cataline, she knows better than to move an inch without my permission.

“Who was that?” she asks, searching for me behind the blindfold.

“Nobody.”

“Did she say something about being kidnapped?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose as I cross the room. “It’s my niece. Got into some trouble at home, so her parents sent her here for the school year.”

“Oh.”

I snatch her clothing from the floor and toss it at her. “Get out.”

Her bottom lip puckers. “But you paid for the whole night.”

“Consider it a generous tip.”

Her body sags before she huffs and leisurely gets to her feet. She pulls off the makeshift mask, and I cringe, wishing she’d leave it until she’s out of the room. I recline on the bed, my arm behind my head, watching as she pulls a tube top over her gigantic tits and squeezes into jeans. She shoves a hand into her pocket and tosses gum in her mouth as she prowls toward the bed.

“You sure?” she asks. She pops the gum and leans over to wrap her hand around me. She winks and drops her gaze as her fist moves up and down. “Pretty thing like this should be in the movies.”

“Call my cock pretty again, and you’ll regret it.”

“But you’re the best client I’ve had in years,” she says. “Hard to come when some fatass is pounding me, but you, baby, you’re nice to look at and you fuck good.”

I’m silently thankful for blindly ripping off the condom before getting within feet of Cataline with my dick. I catch the whore’s wrist mid-stroke and squeeze until she stops chewing and inhales.

“Out.”

She draws her hand to her chest and leaves without another look back. I listen until she’s in the cab I paid to wait downstairs. It’s not long before I regret sending her away, though. My small taste of Cataline leaves me with a dangerous craving for more. That’s a fuck-up that can’t happen.

Pink satin remains on my skin, the ghost of her still on the tip of my dick. When my balls constrict painfully, I grab myself. Within moments, I could be downstairs and fucking her silly. She’d come apart at the seams if I let myself have her.

Meanwhile, Cataline is sniveling in her room. I’ve worked hard to block out the things I don’t want to hear, but a crying woman is something I’m trained to pick up on. Her fear is reassuring. She’s here for her safety, but if I let myself too close, there will be nothing to protect her from the monster that lives in me.

It’s not her usual sobbing, but soft, stuttering gasps. Everything else falls away as those gasps morph into sexy moans. I realize she isn’t crying at all. My entire body tenses. I’ve seen her almost every way imaginable, but until she got here, never in the heat of the moment, never so close to me. I can feel her every movement in my bones, her scent strong in my nostrils. She’s always been jasmine-scented; I know because my survival depends on the cultivation of my senses. Norman doesn’t understand my overbearing involvement in choosing her toiletries, but it’s because I’m addicted to that goddamn jasmine.

To prevent myself from breaking down her door, I get out of bed and punch my code into the control panel across the room. The hidden elevator delivers me to the basement—or my lair, as Norman boldly jokes—and the furthest spot I can get from her. Control is the one thing I must always maintain, and at the moment, it’s a tenuous string inside me, easily snapped.

“I’ve told you,” I say when I hear Norman enter behind me, “you don’t need to get up at this hour. Just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

“I’m aware.”

I glance over my shoulder at him across the dimly lit space. “Since you’re here, any news on the Cartel?”

“Not since we last spoke about it.”

“Right,” I say, removing my armor from the closet. “I just have to watch them even more closely.”

“Or you could back off a bit,” he says. “It’s a big undertaking.”

“You know I can’t.”

“You’re only one man, Master Parish.”

“That’s not true.” I lean over to the security desk and fling the “Opinions” section on the floor near his feet. “I’m both ‘venerated savior’ and ‘single-minded killer,’ depending on who meets my mask.” I shake my head. “I can’t let the Cartel remain in New Rhone. Ignacio was a smart man. Carlos isn’t, but he could still become as powerful as his father. They’ll continue to grow unless I take out their key players—making Carlos my next target.”

“Maybe now that Ignacio is dead, Carlos will rethink their presence in the States and return full-time to Mexico.”

“Maybe.” I glance at the wall clock. “Go back to bed, Norman. I’ll wake you if I need your help.”

“Actually, sir, I didn’t come down here to help.”

I turn all the way around and arch an eyebrow at him. My arms cross. “Go ahead.”

“About the scuffle earlier. Pardon me for speaking out of place, but I feel compelled. Might I recommend a little gentler handling with the girl. She’s still adjusting to her . . . situation.”

“Despite your silence on the matter, your disapproval hasn’t gone unnoticed. But as always, you’ll have to trust in my decisions.”

“As always,” he echoes, “your decisions are thorough and precise. In this case, however, I’m concerned you’re too close to see what you’re capable of.”

“Too close?”

“While you care for the girl, you can’t—”

“I don’t care for her,” I state. “You know what she is.”

“It’s normal to feel confused, Master Parish. She has no idea who you are, yet she’s an integral part of your life.”

“Get to the point.”

“After all this time, surely her feelings mean something to you.”

“They don’t. She’s a duty, an obligation. Another citizen, except that I owe her my protection. Just like New Rhone needs to be looked after, she does as well.”

“That’s not to say you can’t care for her too. Don’t you care at all for this city though you consider it an obligation as well?”

“No. My purpose is simply to keep watch over New Rhone to the best of my ability. Frankly, having Cataline Ford under this roof is a relief. For once, I don’t have to concern myself with her childish affairs.”

He shakes his head at the ground and sighs. “Then let her be. You have no shortage of women to meet your needs. If you’re bored, I’ll find you something new.”

“It’s not that,” I say to myself. When Cataline was a small girl, she was quiet. As a teenager—observant and somewhat skittish. Her fight, this inexorable disobedience, is unexpected. It gets under my skin in a way things just don’t.

“Master,” Norman interrupts my thoughts, “I must insist you leave her alone. Or at least permit me to answer some of her questions. She’s still quite confused.”

Norman knows arguing with me will get him nowhere. And as it is, time itself is never time enough. I cannot even justify his request with a response. Instead I turn my back and go to change, his dismissal made clear by my silence.

It’s only hours before sunrise, but tonight, release is essential. The aggression Cataline has stirred in me can lead to mistakes, and mistakes can change everything.

My bulletproof rubber one-piece is thin but dense, specially developed by engineers, scientists, and ballistics specialists with speed, accuracy, and resilience in mind. It’s one step ahead of the armed forces and costs me a fortune. Especially considering I don’t actually need it.

The people of this city—they call me Hero. Their nocturnal vigilante needed a label, and that’s what they gave me years ago. The suit of armor is extra padding, but more than that, it’s for the public. They believe that underneath it, I’m a man like any of them. It’s a lie, but it’s the only truth they can ever know.

Because I’m not like them at all.

I am stronger, faster, and more powerful. K-36, a formula developed for over a decade and a half, fortifies my skin, hones my intuition, and sharpens my senses like the most predatory of Mother Nature’s night prowlers. When injected into my bloodstream, it makes me superhuman. I have the instincts of a killer, but the intentions of a hero. And a hero’s what I’d be if not for my human impulses and urges—like the ones that threw Cataline onto that mattress.

I pull on my gloves. My metal-grey eye mask latches behind my head, secure but conforming instantly to my face. My blacked-out Lamborghini is the car of choice for patrolling, and my agitation settles once the engine revs to life. I enter the limits of New Rhone with my mind buzzing and my muscles warming. This is what I do. This is what feeds me. I hunt.

New Rhone’s silver skyscrapers are even colder against a black sky—soothingly monochrome like it’s always been. My parents would bring me to the city as a boy, and the weekend would go by too fast. Until it was childish, my parents would hold each of my hands, and we’d get lost between the buildings. They’d tell me about growing up two blocks apart but never meeting until their twenties. I’ve long forgotten the names of the plays we attended or the high-end restaurants where we dined, but whatever’s mixed into the concrete of this city is inescapable.

It’s not long before I hone in on an escalating argument. The hour after the bars close is always busiest; fortunately, distinguishing between harmless drunk blathering and slurring that drips with bad intention comes naturally to me now. The car screeches when I yank the steering wheel, and my foot weighs on the pedal when a woman screams. Every muscle in my body strains as if to split my skin. My unsatisfied arousal sits too close to the surface. I almost welcome the stench of the East Side’s garbage—garbage that exists for me to clean up.

I throw the car in park and exit swiftly. An easy jump has me hanging from the fire escape. I haul myself up and take the stairs two at a time until I’m outside an apartment window. I put my fist through the glass, and instantly the woman’s piercing screams become surround sound. A man’s alcohol-laden curses hurl at me as I barge in. In my youth, the barrage of noise, thick with fear, despair, and desperation, would’ve been too much for me. Now I compartmentalize and manage it without even realizing.

I stride across their kitchen’s yellowed tiles. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Who the hell are you?” the man asks. His arm draws back dramatically, but I catch his fist when it flies toward my face.

“I suggest you answer my question,” I say, squeezing his knuckles until his knees give out. I glance at the woman cowering in the corner and then down at the man whose bones begin to crush under my strength. “But since you’re indisposed, I’ll take a guess as to why her face is swelling up, and you can tell me if I’m right.” With lightning speed, I release his fist and capture his neck. “You had a little too much to drink, took it out on her.”

“She’s my wife,” he wheezes. “It’s the first time, I swear.”

I compress his throat. “That true?” I ask the woman without looking at her.

“Yes,” she sobs.

I cock my head to the side, watching him as he gasps for breath. “Want me to kill him?”