Chapter 7
SEVEN
MAX
Instantly, I was transported back to that night with the strobing lights and fear fisting my heart. I knew that voice.
Don’t scream, sweetheart.
Sweetheart.
Sweetheart.
Sweetheart.
The Masked Man. He’d come back. He’d come for me.
I reacted on instinct and adrenaline alone, not a coherent thought in sight. Ears ringing, vision tunneling, I bit the hand covering my mouth, hard.
“Ow!” he said, shaking it out. “That hurt.”
Taking advantage of the distraction, I threw my weight backwards, trying to dislodge his grip. “HELP!” I cried. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
“Fuck,” he cursed. “You’re going to wake up the whole town shouting like that. Hush.”
Obviously, I ignored him. “HELP!” I screamed again, throat raw.
He lifted me, and my feet kicked out, tipping us backwards. With a heavy grunt, he slammed into the wall—I wouldn’t be surprised if he left a dent.
I don’t know how to fix a hole in the wall, I thought wildly, clawing at the arm wrapped around my chest. As if that mattered in this moment when my life was literally in the hands of a murdering stalker.
He covered my mouth again to muffle my cries, knocking my glasses off. They crunched under his boot, shattered and bent. “Jesus fucking Christ. This—wasn’t supposed to—would you stop squirming for one goddamn minute and look at me?”
Absolutely not.
I head-butted him, and he released me with a cry, cupping his face.
Breaking into a run down the hall, I dove onto the bed, reaching for my phone. I just needed to call the emergency line. Even if I didn’t have time to say anything, they had to come and check, right?
I sure as fuck hoped so.
My hands fumbled to pull the phone from the charger, and I dropped it. “Fuck!”
Frantically, I felt around for where it landed on the carpeted floor. There! Phone secure in my hand, I rolled onto my back and swiped up, looking for the emergency call button.
Almost there, almost there, almost there!
But the Masked Man was right behind me. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said, like I was a cat poised to knock a drinking glass off the counter. “We don’t want to do that.” He straddled my hips, batted the phone out of my hand, and pinned my wrists faster than anyone that big had a right to be.
I wanted to shout some more, or maybe beg for my life, but my teeth chattered so hard from the adrenaline pumping through my veins I couldn’t move my mouth correctly. “Pl—se d-don’t—”
“Shh,” he said, running his thumb across the wrist he’d trapped against the bed. It sent shivers down my spine. “Seriously, Max. I am not going to hurt you.”
I froze, heart beating frantically. Staring up into those bright blue eyes, the ones that’d haunted my dreams for two years, I wanted to believe him.
But should I? He hadn’t hurt me before, not really, but why the fuck would he be here if it wasn’t to punish me for something? Did he think I’d told someone about him?
Shaking my head frantically, I tried to get free. “I h-haven’t—told-told any—anyone,” I choked out. “Please.” Please don’t kill me.
Pinned like this, I was a rabbit caught beneath his paw, staring into the maw of the wolf. Maybe if I don’t move, he won’t hurt me.
Except holding my breath wasn’t going to work. My vision grew spotty, and the world tipped beneath me.
Those piercing eyes narrowed, accentuating the gruesomeness of the snarling canine smile. “For the love of God, take a deep breath.”
As if on command, I gasped, inhaling gulps of air. He said it almost like he was annoyed by my genuine terror, which sobered me a bit. What right did he have to be annoyed?
I squirmed beneath him. “Get—get off,” I said, trying for vicious and landing somewhere in the realm of pathetic.
“Ah ah ah.” He bore down on me even more. “Not until you’re rational.”
A wheezing half-laugh, half-cough burst out of me. I couldn’t help my next words. “Rational?” I said. “Fuck off. The only rational thing to do right now would be to stab you in the eye. GET OFF!”
His eyes twinkled, and the mask stretched wide, hiding a grin beneath. Oh, God, what had I done? “There you are. Glad to have you back, sweetheart. But we don’t want to involve the very nice family next door, do we? So keep your voice down.”
Enzo’s sweet little face flashed through my mind, and terror seized me again. Would he really hurt a child? I honestly wasn’t sure.
“Don’t,” I said, teeth clenched to stop the involuntary chattering. My eyes darted between his, pleading. I was panicking again. “D—don’t hurt them. They don’t know anything. They’re n—nice.”
“Hey,” he said, genuine concern entering his voice. “Shh. It’s alright.”
I inhaled and swallowed a wave of calming alpha pheromones. My body immediately relaxed, softening beneath him. My fingers and jaw unclenched, and the shaking ceased. Fuck, I’d forgotten how powerful his scent was. How was he able to do that so effectively? Why did I respond to it so well?
“You canssstop the alpha Xanax now,” I said, words slurred and eyes fluttering. “I’mmcalmmm.”
He chuckled, and I felt it everywhere. We lay there for a moment while I settled, my hands still pinned above my head and my body beneath his.
Just like I remembered, he was covered head to toe in black with a hoodie pulled low over his brow. Underneath, that snarling masked face stared back, eyes bright from exertion.
A feeling bloomed in my belly, sharp and thrilling. It wasn’t entirely fear or excitement, but somewhere in between.
I blamed it on the leftover spaghetti I’d had for lunch.
He shifted my wrists so they were pinned in one hand. “Feeling better?”
I narrowed my eyes, even though I was still slow-blinking at him. “A masked man broke into my apartment. What do you think?”
His jaw shifted under the mask. “I meant to catch you outside, but you came home earlier than I expected. I had to improvise.”
Earlier than he expected? Did that mean he was following me again? Stalking me again? “And the front door didn’t come to mind?”
He coughed a laugh. “Security cameras, sweetheart. Can’t have your boss snooping around now, can we?”
He had a point. I’d never tell him so, but still. I refused to lose my job over a psycho stalker creeping around in a mask. Even if I had no control over the situation, I wouldn’t blame Mr. Marino for kicking me to the curb—not with Enzo to consider.
Rich people don’t take weird shit like that from the staff very well. They’re the only ones allowed to be freaky.
Not that I could imagine Mr. Marino doing anything resembling freaky. The man probably came out of the womb wearing a button-up.
“Plus,” he continued, voice a bit gruff. “Can’t have you answering the door looking like this. Human Resources would have a field day.”
Was that a joke? Too late to stop my blush, I looked down and realized I was still in only a towel, now precariously close to falling off. I glared. “For the last time, get off me, or I’ll bite you again.”
He winked. “Don’t threaten me with a good time. You bite like you mean it.”
He said it like a compliment. The omega deep inside me, the one that’d been dormant for so long, cracked one eye open in interest.
With one more appraising look, he finally obeyed, releasing my hands and sliding off the bed in one smooth motion. My omega harrumphed and promptly closed its eyes again, the little weasel.
Hitching the towel up, I glared some more. "Why are you here?”
“I’m here to talk,” he said with a sigh. “That’s all.”
My eyes darted down to the large knife sheathed at his waist. Was that the same one he’d gutted all those people with? “It doesn’t look like you’re just here to talk.”
Following my gaze, his mask shifted again in a smirk. “Would it make you feel better to hold it?”
I blinked, flabbergasted. “Was that a dick joke?”
He laughed again, raw and raspy like it didn’t happen often, and pulled the knife out.
My heartbeat went haywire as warm amber light flashed off the large, serrated blade.
It was clean, no blood in sight, and yet all I could picture was the way tissue and viscera had clung between the teeth, wet and thick.
With deft fingers, he spun it around, offering me the handle. “I never joke about my knife.”
Well, I wasn’t stupid. I snatched it and pointed at him with it. “Get out of my room so I can get dressed. After that, maybe we’ll talk.”
His eyes glinted icy blue in the orange light of my bedroom. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”
He swiped my phone off the floor on his way out, making a show of powering it off so I couldn’t call anyone, but otherwise listened to my orders.
Which made me even more suspicious.
Alone in my bedroom, I took a moment to breathe. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
The Masked Man was in my apartment.
The last time I saw him, we were both covered in someone else’s blood, and I was in a state of…. Well. It was best not to linger too much on that particular subject.
In the years since, I’d thought of a million different scenarios where we stumbled into each other in a grocery store aisle, or at the doctor’s office.
His eyes were unmistakable. I’d know him immediately.
And yet, I could never figure out what I’d say. “Thank you for stopping them,” came up in a lot of those imagined meetings, although that spiraled quickly into, “I wish I could’ve been the one to do it,” on my darker days.
“I wish you hadn’t left me to endure that heat alone,” that voice whispered on my worst ones—the ones where I mourned the fact that I’d never have a normal heat again.
I wasn’t ready to look at that one too closely. The stimulants were the reason I’d swiftly and deeply fallen into heat, and were also entirely to blame for the way I’d screamed for him in the subsequent days of riding out the waves in the clinic alone.
It was the only logical explanation.
But now he was in my living room, probably rifling through the giant pile of mail on the table, and I realized how many questions I had. How had he known I needed help? Why did he do it?
I think most good people who walked into that room would’ve tried to stop it, but outright killing them?
It was vicious. Personal.