Chapter Five
“I am not crazy. I was doing a comedy scene for a local sketch group.”
Gia stiffened at the deep, rumbling words. Words that were coming from very close by. She’d been striding down the sidewalk and admiring the festive lights that hung from the streetlamps. Those lights had distracted her, and she had not noticed him.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” that same rumbling voice told her. “In fact, frightening you is the last thing I intended.”
She slowly turned toward the voice. Mr. Sexy Werewolf stared nervously back at her.
“My name is Oliver Abbott. I’m an—uh, I’m a tax attorney.” He grimaced.
Why had he grimaced? “A tax attorney…who does sketch comedy?”
“It’s, ahem, probably more improv than sketch.”
“I’m supposed to buy this?” She wasn’t. “You ran from the security guard.”
“After you pepper sprayed me—which you were totally right to do, by the way—I went to wash out my eyes.”
His golden eyes were rather bloodshot.
“I want you to do a background check on me,” he surprised her by saying. “Run all my info and find out for yourself that I’m not a dangerous guy.”
Chill bumps were on her body, and they had nothing to do with the cold. It was a busy sidewalk, lots of people were around, but she still edged back from Oliver. “Why would I want to run a background check on you? There is no need for our paths to ever cross again.”
Pain slid across his face. “I wanted you to do the background check so you would know I could never be a threat to you.”
Her apartment was right behind him. She’d taken the tree up earlier.
Gone back down because the shop on the corner served some truly world-class hot chocolate, and she’d thought a cup would help her feel festive before she decorated.
She’d sipped and savored that hot chocolate goodness before heading back to her place.
She wasn’t normally the type to decorate on Christmas Eve. Usually, when the first of December rolled around, she started decking her halls. But this year had been different, harder, and instead of decking her halls, she’d packed up and fled her previous home on the first of December.
So now it was Christmas Eve. She was finally decorating and… “How did you find me?” Suspicion would not leave her alone.
He pointed down the street. “I just went to the best hot chocolate shop in town. I figured you’d be showing up, sooner or later.”
“Now why would you figure that?”
“Because you love hot chocolate. You’re a connoisseur.”
Her eyes widened.
“Shit.” His eyes squeezed closed. “What I meant to say was that…fuck it, I am terrifying you again, aren’t I?”
“Creeping me out, definitely. You just admitted to stalking me to the hot chocolate shop, and listen, Oliver…I cannot deal with another stalker right now.”
His eyes flew open. “Another?”
“Yes. Another. So let me just tell you what’s going to happen.
” She released a deep breath. “You’re going to walk away from me.
You are not ever going to come close to me again.
Because if you do, I will be calling the cops.
One man almost ruined my life, and I am not going through that again.
I just found a safe haven here and I—” She stopped.
Frowned. Shifted a bit so that she could see around Oliver.
Oh, God. That figure behind him…that familiar figure. “He found me.” He was coming out of her apartment building. Rushing toward her in his long, billowing, black coat.
“What? Who found you?” Oliver questioned quickly. “Gia, why do you look so scared? What’s—”
“Gun!” she screamed. “Behind you!”
Oliver started to turn toward the shooter.
It was too late.
Her stalker yelled, “He won’t take you away from me! I told you before, you belong to me, Gia. You’re mine. Mine.”
The bullet fired.
She tried to shove Oliver out of the way. This wasn’t his fight. But he was big and heavy and the bullet tore into him. She heard his grunt. Felt his surge of surprise but then…
Pain. Burning and twisting inside of her. Gia glanced down at her chest. At the blood. The bullet had gone through Oliver and into her. It hurt so much. More than anything had ever hurt before.
She fell back and hit the sidewalk. Her head slammed into the cement. She stared straight up as screams filled the air around her. Her body was ice-cold everywhere but her chest. Her chest was so hot.
Footsteps pounded.
The shooter was fleeing.
Snowflakes fell onto her cheeks.
***
Some sonofabitch had just shot him!
Oliver slapped a hand to his side. The bullet had blasted right through him.
Hurt like a mother. He’d had worse, though, back in his SEAL days, so he knew the wound wasn’t gonna be lethal, and he started to surge after the asshole who was already racing away.
He hadn’t gotten a good look at the man.
Tall, wide shoulders, wearing a black coat.
“H-help…” Weak. Low.
Gia?
He spun around. She was on the ground, her dark hair spread out and her terrified eyes staring straight up. Her body trembled as she tried to lift her hand and touch her chest. Her blood-covered chest. “No!” The roar of denial burst from him.
The shooter’s footsteps thudded away.
People were screaming around him. Some crowded closer. Some ran away.
“Call an ambulance,” Oliver bellowed as he fell to his knees beside Gia. He didn’t even feel his injury. All he could focus on in that instant—it was her.
His Gia, bleeding out right before him.
He tried to examine her wound. Fuck. No. It was bad. So bad. “Ambulance!” he thundered once more. But in the back of his mind, he was already afraid that it wouldn’t arrive in time.
Time…God, I wasted so much time. A whole year when I could have been with her.
He put his hands on her wound. Tried to stop that terrible flow of blood. Her blood instantly soaked his fingers. “Baby, hold on!” Oliver was begging. He knew it. Didn’t care. “Please, Gia, hold on! Do not leave me! Do not! Please!”
Her gaze fluttered toward him. Her dark, beautiful gaze. Confused. Pain-filled.
“I love you, Gia.” Tears pricked at his eyes. “I love you, and I just found you again, and I can’t lose you!”
But she shook her head. “You…d-don’t…know…m-me…”
More blood. As if just speaking had made her wound worse.
“I know you,” he told her quickly. “You love hot chocolate even when it’s July, and you put ornaments on your tree that you’ve collected from every vacation that you’ve ever taken.
You sleep late on Saturday, but you wake up early on Sunday because you like to get every last drop out of the weekend that you possibly can and you—”
Her dark eyes were still on him. But…the light that had been in her eyes was fading. The light that was Gia was fading.
“You call the fucking furrow between your brows Frank! You name everything!”
Her breath hitched.
“Please, don’t! Don’t leave me. Baby, don’t go! Don’t—”
Her lashes fell.
The snow came down harder. The white flakes mixed with her blood. And on that sidewalk, with a dozen strangers around him, the woman that Oliver loved more than life itself…she died beneath his hands.