Ruthless

by Sybil Bartel

  Then I did the only thing left there was to do.

  I pulled out the divorce papers, signed them, and walked them down to the mail drop in the lobby.

  Nothing of my old life left, I crawled into bed.

  My body spent, my mind shot, I prayed for sleep.

  It didn’t come.

  Making my way to the couch with my comforter in tow, I turned on the TV and mindlessly stared at it until the sun came up on my new life.

  I COULDN’T SLEEP.

  It was a dick move going into her apartment, but Preston had been right, the place was a disaster. More, I could smell her. Her shampoo, the faint smell of perfume, and just… her. Her skin, the scent of her neck, the smell of her body—I could’ve sworn she was there, hiding in her closet behind the hanging clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look.

  Instead, like a pathetic asshole, I’d sat in her parking lot for an hour. Her Jeep didn’t move, and she never showed up on foot. I’d finally had to call it. But now a few hours later, the sun was rising, and I couldn’t lie in bed another minute.

  Forgoing the gym, I showered and dressed for work, but then I went to a coffee shop chain where I knew I could get a damn lemonade.

  Bearing sustenance in the form of a bribe, I drove to her place. Thirty-one years old, and I’d never chased a woman. I’d never had to. My last name and genetics were all I usually needed.

  But here I was at seven a.m. because a five-foot-nothing redhead who drove me absolutely insane had sucker punched me with her own brand of innocence and strength, and I didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore.

  Bypassing the elevator, I took the stairs and strode to her door. Hearing a TV on inside, I exhaled and knocked.

  Nothing.

  Impatient, I knocked again.

  Still nothing. No shuffling sounds, no shadow passing across the peephole, no turning down of the TV.

  Fuck.

  “Genevieve.” I knocked again. “Open up.”

  Ten seconds… twenty.

  Goddamn it. “I brought you breakfast.” I knocked again, then I did something I’d never fucking done in my whole damn life. I begged. “Please. Open the door.”

  Forty-five seconds, no response.

  I counted down another fifteen seconds, but she still didn’t answer. I put the lemonade, hot tea and carrot muffin on the floor. “Fine. If you don’t want to talk to me, at least eat the food I brought. It’s outside the door.” I waited a beat, then headed back to my car.

  Once I was behind the wheel, I cranked the engine, but I didn’t pull out. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. I had fifty-two minutes before I was due at work. Not that any of us had set schedules, but I rolled in at the same time every day I wasn’t out on assignment. You could take the Marine out of active duty, but you couldn’t take the Marine out of the man. I liked routine. I craved it. Until I’d met Genevieve, routine had kept my head straight. But sitting my ass in my Range Rover parked outside a woman’s house I’d been cock deep in was anything but routine.

  I still fucking sat.

  I sat for forty-five minutes, silently berating myself for every damn thing I’d done wrong with her. Not the least of which was blaming her for me having sex with her. I could’ve turned her down, kept my damn dick in my pants, but the simple truth was I didn’t want to. I’d wanted to dominate her since the second I’d laid eyes on her.

  It was no excuse for breaking the promise I made to myself all those years ago to never be a damn thing like my father, but maybe, just maybe Luna had been right. Maybe there were shades of married. I wasn’t ignorant, I knew I had nothing to do with breaking her marriage apart, but I’d always thought if temptation did arise, I’d be a stronger man, an honorable man.

  But there was no honor in stalking a woman who didn’t want to speak to you.

  A KNOCK SOUNDED ON THE front door.

  It wasn’t the usual early morning knock that I’d been getting and ignoring every day for a week. That knock came complete with a one-sided conversation, breakfast food, lemonade and tea, and it was all neatly delivered on time and left outside my door. This knock, at night, wasn’t that knock, but I ignored it just the same.

  Another knock sounded.

  I stared at the TV. A couple was house hunting. I pitied them.

  A third and fourth knock sounded, then it turned into outright rude banging.

  The couple chose the shittiest house possible.

  The banging kept up.

  Rousing myself, I got up and went to the door, but I didn’t bother looking in the peephole. Safety didn’t matter anymore. I now knew you could die anytime, all it took was someone with a gun.

  My dirty hair falling in my face, I opened the door.

  His scent hit me before my eyes adjusted to the bright light of the hallway. Wearing jeans, a fitted T-shirt, and a baseball cap pulled low over his face, Sawyer shoved his offending knock-slash-banging hands in his pockets.

  “My father cheated on my mother,” he admitted without preamble.

  I hadn’t slept in a week. I didn’t give a shit what his father did.

  “I swore to myself I would never be like him,” he continued. “He’s a fucking bastard all the way around.”

  A strange thing about not talking all the time? I realized other people were just as quick to fill that silence I used to so desperately avoid. I’d spent my entire childhood in silence. Even in a house full of foster kids where the foster parents were only in it for the state funds, my world was silent. I’d had no one to talk to. Not about me or my fears or my crippling anxiety. No one wanted to know how I was, what I was thinking, or what I was feeling.

  I learned quick that true words meant nothing.

  So I never said any.

  I smiled and talked about nothing, and all that nothingness took so much energy that I didn’t have to think about the hole in my chest that grew every day.

  One that was still growing.

  Stark blue eyes studied me, and for a second, I thought maybe, just maybe, for the first time someone was seeing that hole.

  Then he spoke and crushed the hope.

  “Did you hear me?”

  He’d missed the boat. The tide had shifted. I no longer had the energy to speak about nothing and listen to nothing. And his words, they were nothing. I didn’t want to hear them, and I didn’t want to give any back. Those six dead men, gang members or not, they’d never speak again. Why did I get to? Because my desperate beginnings in life didn’t culminate in joining a gang just so I could belong to something other than my thoughts?

  No, I didn’t want to speak.

  Or listen.

  I shut the door and turned to go back to my couch.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t check to make sure the door closed all the way. I didn’t even bother to lock it. What was the point? If I’d learned nothing else, I’d learned that I had no control over when I died, and locks weren’t going to change that.

  So I hadn’t checked.

  But I probably should have, because every other time I’d closed a door on him, he’d done the opposite of what he was supposed to.

  This time was no exception.

  No boundaries, he followed me inside, but unlike me, he locked the door behind him. I probably should’ve clued him in that it was pointless, but he was one of the people in life who carried one of those guns that took away life, so… lucky him. He probably had an advantage in that regard.

  I silently snorted to myself. Advantage. Right. He had all the advantages. Funny how it never made him smile.

  Like now, no smile, he strode in and stopped short, looking around my teeny, tiny living room. “Where is everything?” he bit the question out, making it sound like a demand.

  Too bad for him I was done taking orders from anyone, clients especially.

  I sat on my couch that now only had two pillows, two matching pillows, and I stared at the TV. “I have everything I need.” Until rent was due next month, then I might not. But my last cl
ient had offered me a job in her art gallery. Maybe I should call her.

  His hands went to his hips and his voice came out accusing. “Where are the scarves, the wall hangings, the clothes on the chair?”

  “Gone.” All of it, even the dishes in the sink, and it was all his fault.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  Short and clipped, it was the same voice he’d used on me in the shower. Say it, he’d demanded that day, and the two words had replayed in my head on a daily cycle like a curse. Say it, say it, say it.

  I picked up the remote and turned the volume on the TV louder, drowning out him and his memories.

  “I’m talking to you,” he barked.

  I hit the volume another level higher.

  I didn’t want to talk.

  I was done talking.

  I was done listening too.

  “Genevieve,” he snapped as the old lady who lived below me banged the handle of her broom on her ceiling.

  Leaning over, I picked up the single bookend I still owned. Ceramic and heavy and shaped like an owl, it was a stupid bright glossy yellow. I slammed it on the wood floor four times. Then I sat back on the couch and leaned my head on the even stupider plain-colored throw pillow as I curled into a ball.

  The old lady banged on the ceiling again. But this time, she didn’t stop.

  I turned my TV up to full volume, blasting the home renovation show.

  For two whole ear-splitting heartbeats, he stood there.

  Like a sentry, like a giant crusader of judgment, like a glowing neon sign of everything I never was and could never have, he stood there. Hands on his hips, baseball cap pulled low, an angry frown perfected by wealth and privilege and the Marines, he stupidly, crushingly, stood there and stared at me like I was the crazy one.

  Then he moved.

  One second he was a statue. The next he was scooping me up.

  Except unlike the last time he’d picked me up, I didn’t go willingly.

  “No!” I kicked out, making a solid connection with his thigh.

  He didn’t even flinch. His maddeningly giant, muscular arms slid around me like vise grips and he lifted.

  My body left my couch and, sanity be damned, I let loose.

  “NO!”

  I screamed.

  I kicked.

  I hit.

  I called him every swear word that my brain could feed my mouth. “Put me down, you asshole, motherfucker, jerkface, shithead!”

  He didn’t even flinch.

  So I said the very last words I meant and the only ones I could say. “I hate you!” I hated him for everything he’d shown me. I hated him for giving me a whiskey. I hated him for taking me to that diner. I hated him for his perfectly perfect penthouse. I hated him for his stupidly ridiculous cooking skills, and I hated every kind thing he’d ever done for me. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

  I loved him.

  Giant sobs broke a week-long dam.

  “I hate you,” I choke-cried, hitting his chest.

  His giant strides eating up my living room and hallway, he strode into my bathroom like he’d been there before. Setting me on my feet, but not letting go of me, he threw on the water.

  His giant arm clamped around me, holding me to his chest, didn’t give me much room. But one leg free and one arm loose, I gave it my all. I kicked and I hit him. “Let me go! I hate you!”

  Holding me even tighter, he reached in his pocket and retrieved his keys, wallet and cell. He tossed them all in my bathroom sink, along with his baseball cap, while I continued to uselessly beat against his stupidly big muscles.

  I didn’t think about why we were in the bathroom.

  I didn’t think about anything except the unbearable last seven days.

  I wanted out of my head, and I wanted out of his arms.

  But nothing had felt this solid in a week. Nothing had felt this solid ever. His hard muscles, his rising and falling chest, his musk-laced sandalwood and soap scent, his unbreakable demeanor, he was solid. Too solid.

  And I was nothing.

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” I chanted, pounding my fist against his chest.

  My feet left the ground.

  Cold water hit my face, my arms, my chest, and I screamed.

  Huge hands, gripping me firmly, held me in place.

  I kicked out and screamed louder as water sluiced down my shivering body, drenching my three-day-old outfit.

  “That’s it,” his deep voice calmly encouraged. “Get it out.”

  I didn’t want to get it out. I wanted to scream. I wanted to wail. I wanted to unsee dead bodies and unfeel his hands on me. I wanted my life back before I lived a week with no cluttered chaos and homemade dinners every night. I wanted to have never, never pulled off that man’s face mask.

  I killed him.

  I killed a human being.

  He was dead at my hands. They all were.

  But they were going to kill me and not blink twice.

  What was I supposed to do with that?

  What was I supposed to do with the guilt eating at my stomach and the regret suffocating my heart?

  I didn’t know. So my soul screamed until my throat burned like fire, then I screamed some more.

  I screamed until the bathroom door kicked open and a cop stood there, weapon drawn.

  “Arms up!” he shouted. “Arms up!”

  My screaming stopped, but I started to violently shake.

  His eyes on me, Sawyer raised his arms. “My wallet is in the sink, officer. Look at my ID, and please lower your weapon. She has PTSD from an armed robbery.”

  The cop ignored him. “We got a call for a noise complaint. Why is she screaming?”

  “She’s upset,” Sawyer calmly answered. “Wallet, my ID,” he commanded. “Check it.”

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.” The cop slowly lowered his weapon and holstered it to pick up Sawyer’s wallet.

  Sawyer turned the water to hot, then wrapped his arms around me.

  The noise of the TV blaring from the living room stopped, and another cop appeared behind the first one. “Everything okay?”

  No one answered.

  The first cop opened Sawyer’s wallet and looked at his license, his shoulders visibly stiffening. “My apologies, Mr. Savatier. I didn’t realize who you were.”

  “No apology necessary,” Sawyer answered civilly.

  Putting Sawyer’s wallet down, the cop nodded at me. “Does she need medical attention?”

  “No. I’ve got it handled.”

  “Understood.” The first cop glanced at the cop behind him, and they started to leave.

  “The front door?” Sawyer asked.

  The first cop glanced back at him. “You can submit a claim to the department for any repair costs.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Thank you for checking on us.”

  The first cop tipped his chin. “Thank you for your service. The downstairs neighbor requests that you please keep the noise to a minimum.”

  “Ten-four,” Sawyer answered.

  The cops left.

  Sawyer’s arms tightened around me. “They’re gone.”

  Despite the warm water, my teeth chattered. “M-my fr-front door’s br-broken?”

  “I’ll fix it.”

  “Wh-why are y-y-you here?”

  “Let’s get you dried off.” He shut the water off and stepped out of the shower.

  I stared at his soaked clothes as he grabbed a towel from the hook behind the door. “Y-you’re soaked.”

  He wrapped the towel around me. “You have a dryer.”

  “Your sh-shoes.”

  “Waterproof boots. They’re fine.” He lifted me out of the shower like I was a child. Stepping out of his boots in my small bathroom, he undid his belt and pulled it free. Tossing it with his stuff already in the sink, he pulled off his T-shirt and undid his jeans.

  Holding the towel around my shoulders, I watched his striptease.

  No shyne
ss, he took off his pants and fitted boxers. “Get your wet clothes off, and I’ll grab you dry ones.” He dried his shoulders, then wrapped the towel around his waist, but it did nothing to conceal the hard, full length of him.

  All I could think was, how did that fit inside me?

  “Genevieve?”

  I wanted to hate the way he said my name, but I didn’t. Every time I heard it, it was like I was hearing someone else’s name. No one said my name like he did. Hearing it made me look up at his too handsome features and clear blue eyes. I’d stopped shivering, but my heart was hammering irregularly, and more than anything, I just wanted to fall asleep in his arms. I wasn’t even mad at him for throwing me in the shower.

  As if he could read my thoughts, he cupped my cheek and his thumb gently brushed under my eye. “When was the last time you slept?”

  Did it matter? I shrugged.

  “Okay.” Inhaling, he pried the towel from my grasping hands. “Let’s get these wet clothes off you.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder and lifted the hem of my baby doll pajama tank. “Arms up.”

  The memory sandblasted me. “That’s the second time you’ve said that to me.”

  The muscles in his jaw moved, but he didn’t say anything. He lifted my shirt over my head, and I was suddenly acutely aware of my hardened nipples and no bra.

  I reached for the towel over his shoulder.

  Taking over, he whipped it off and wrapped it around my shoulders, but unlike me when he was undressing, he avoiding staring at my half-naked body.

  I held the towel tight against my chest as he gripped the waistband of my black pajama shorts and slid them down my legs.

  Gathering up all of our wet clothes, he stood and turned toward the door. “Wait here,” he commanded before walking out.

  I did what he said, but I made one mistake. I looked at myself in the mirror.

  THE LOST LOOK ON HER face wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen a hundred times over in the Marines, but on her?

  I shook my head and threw our clothes in her dryer.

  I was an idiot for not immediately noticing all the shit missing from her place. I’d been so damn worried that she wasn’t answering the door, that when she finally did, all I had was anger. Misplaced anger.