Page 8 of Fire
Has he really read my articles? Which one is his favorite?Wait—what was that about a bullet to my head?
“Did you just say bullet to my head?”
“Yep,” he says with a slight pop to the p. “I watched you most of the morning from across the street sitting at that window.”
My head bolts up to look up at him. “You—you were watching me?”
He nods.
“You had no right to inv?—”
He puts out both hands in defense. “I needed to see how easy of a target you were. I couldn’t see details, but I could identify your body position and track your movements.”
He walks over to the window and points across the street. “That was my vantage point. All I needed was any rifle with a scope, and I could have ensured you never wrote another word again.”
My stomach drops at his words.
He examines the window’s old locks. “First thing tomorrow, I’m replacing the window and door locks and getting some blackout curtains so no one can follow your movements from room to room.”
“You think the Reivers would use a sniper on me?”
“It’s not their usual MO. They prefer messier, bloodier kills, but with all the pressure on them right now, who knows what the fuck they’re capable of. My job is to prepare for every threat.”
“How exactly do you plan on doing that?”
He starts spouting off a mental list. “I’ve already done surveillance over your apartment’s exterior. It’s security sucks ass. Tomorrow, I plan on getting close and personal with the building’s superintendent about replacing the lights in the hallways and stairwells and adding cameras and an intercom system that requires tenants to buzz visitors in before they can enter the building.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I bite out bitterly. “The superintendent is also the owner of the building. I spent all last winter begging him to fix my heater, and he still hasn’t gotten around to it.”
Luca’s jaw tenses. “Oh, he’ll be doing that and more.” His lips form into a cross between a grimace and a smile that really shouldn’t be so threatening and sexy all at the same time, but itso is. “He’ll also be apologizing and throwing in a few months of free rent to make up for his maintenance oversight.”
I don’t know what to say to that. No one has ever stood up for me before. I stay quiet and watch Luca as he continues his inspection. Walking to my bathroom door, he looks in and seems satisfied that the tiny room poses no threat. Then he turns his attention to my bedroom.
“There aren’t any windows in there, so you don’t need to see my bedroom,” I insist, not wanting his observant eyes cataloging my room and seeing it decorated in lonely loser chic.
“Old buildings like this one usually have a crawl space between floors,” he says as he barges into my room before I can stop him. “I need to make sure there are no access points.”
I watch him take in the details of my room with its dingy white walls and cheap thrift store furniture. Messy, tangled sheets show the evidence of my tortured attempts to turn off my brain to achieve a few hours of sleep. No pictures of friends or family make it clear I don’t have either—or at least any that claim me, anyway.
When he turns back to me, I expect to see the scorn I’m used to seeing when people spend more than ten minutes with me, or worse, the pity, but his face is set in a concentrated frown as he begins his inspection. Somehow, his nonreaction reignites my anger from earlier. As I watch him knocking on walls and looking for any false panels in the ceiling, that anger simmers until it boils down to a thick, irrational rage.
How dare he hide his judgment from me? And worse, pretend he really cares about my safety.
“All good.” He dusts his hands as he comes out of the closet. Your bedroom is officially a safe zone.”
Not with him in it, it’s not.
“Why are you here?” I demand, my breath almost huffing as I practically vibrate with frustration. “And don’t tell me it’s to keep me safe.”
He looks at me for a long time, and just when I’m about to give up getting a response and storm off, he answers. “Because I used to wear the Reivers patch and hurt nosy reporters like you. I’m here because it’s past time that I stopped running from my past and started making up for it.”
Chapter 2
Evan
“I’m here because it’s past time that I stopped running from my past and started making up for it.”
“You were a Reiver?” I ask, even though Luca just told me he’d worn the Reiver patch.
