Chapter 3
Cole was lucky the wannabe-rapist bastard’s car had been made before the advent of laminated glass.
The dude wasn’t all that big, either, which made it much easier to drag him out by his overly styled, stupid-looking blond hair.
“What the fuck?” the guy rasped, shaking in Cole’s grip, eyes wide as saucers. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a guy who hates rapists,” Cole said dryly.
He sputtered. “I’m no rapist! This is my girlfriend!”
That’s when his neighbor seemed to find her voice. “Um, no the fuck I’m not!” She reached over the wreckage to hit the release button on the child locks, then got out of the car on wobbly legs. “I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore and he grabbed me.”
Cole immediately noticed how nice her voice was. Kind of low-pitched and a little raspy. It was soothing.
And sexy as hell.
Then he saw her smeared lipstick and the way she was cradling her wrist. Her violently red wrist with visible prints from this fucker’s fingers.
He stayed calm, though. Rage was an emotion he’d managed to stifle over the years. It didn’t suit his profession. Angry spies were dangerous spies. He needed to be cold. Heartless. An emotional dead zone.
Revenge was well within his emotional repertoire, though.
So, he let go of the guy’s hair to grab his wrist. One quick twist and his distal radius cracked like a dry twig. The guy screeched in fury and pain and impotence as Cole swung him around and slammed his face down on the hood of the car, broken wrist wrenched up behind him.
A wrist for a wrist. Totally fair in his opinion. He silently congratulated himself on his superior self-control.
“I’m calling the cops,” the guy wailed.
Cole snorted. “Sure. Why not? Call ‘em. Then she can show them her bruised wrist, tell them you were holding her in the car against her will, and we’ll see who they arrest faster—you or me.”
“You’re fucking crazy! You broke my wrist!”
“You’re lucky I didn’t break more than that,” he muttered. He glanced over at his neighbor, who was still cradling her wrist, looking at her now-sobbing date bent over the hood of his car. “You should call the cops and press charges.”
She blinked her big brown eyes at him a few times but didn’t say anything. Hell. Was she in shock? He didn’t have experience helping people recover from shock. His missions had never ended with horrified witnesses.
But much to his surprise (and immense relief), she gathered her wits, squared her shoulders, and said, “I don’t want to deal with the cops. I just want him gone.”
That suited him just fine. Having this guy report him for assault would bring a world of shit that had nothing to do with the actual charges down on his head.
That’s why he yanked the guy up, ignoring his sputtered protests, shoved him back in his car and said, “Get the fuck out of here and do not come back.”
He let the or else go unsaid. No reason to discuss torture and blood and violent death in front of his already freaked out neighbor.
“This isn’t over,” the dude said, sniffling. He started the car, though, which proved he wasn’t a total moron. At least Cole’s threat had been taken seriously.
“Oh, it’s definitely over,” his neighbor muttered.
He would’ve smiled at her. You know, if he was a guy who smiled. But he wasn’t. So, he didn’t. He just kept his eyes on her not-boyfriend to make sure he didn’t try anything.
He needn’t have worried. The asshole just hit the gas and tore out of there like demons were on his ass. Good riddance, Cole thought.
They watched the car speed away (weaving a little, probably because he was driving one-handed) for a moment in silence before she cleared her throat and glanced over at him.
“Um, wow,” she said quietly.
His gaze dropped to hers and…stuck there.
Sweet fuck, she was pretty. That wasn’t a surprise. He had, after all, been watching her for a few weeks. But seeing all that pretty at a distance and seeing it up close were two very different things. It was disorienting. Overwhelming.
And he was never overwhelmed, so frankly, her prettiness pissed him off a little.
She had the kind of face he imagined wars had been waged for in olden times.
Big, almond-shaped eyes the shade of decadent milk chocolate framed by thick, inky lashes and delicate black brows, a freckle-dusted little button nose, stubborn chin, model-high cheekbones, lush, full lips… phew. She was a stunner.
She blinked those big brown eyes at him, pretty pink lips open in a little o shape and said, “You broke his wrist.”
Seemed like an odd thing for her to point out in this scenario. Obviously, he’d broken the jackass’s wrist. Shit, was stating the obvious a sign of shock? Was crying on the way? He sure as hell hoped not. “Yes. I did.”
“Like it was nothing,” she went on. “Like, just the easiest thing in the world.”
He shrugged, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I mean, the distal radius is the most commonly broken bone for a reason.”
Which was true (it was relatively thin at the wrist) but didn’t properly address her comment regarding how easily he’d broken the douchebag’s distal radius. What could he say? Her prettiness was clearly messing with his ability to…brain and whatnot.
She coiled a piece of long, shiny black hair around her finger. He wondered if that hair was as soft as it looked. “I’ve never seen anything like that in real life.”
He started to panic a little. She’d just admitted she wasn’t used to violence.
Was she horrified by what he’d done? Did she feel bad for the jackass?
Had he done something normal people would consider over-the-top?
He didn’t think so. The very least assholes who trapped women in their cars and forced kisses on them deserved were broken wrists.
But again, if she was horrified, was her next reaction going to be sobbing and calling the police after all?
He should be worried about the cops showing up. But it was the threat of her tears that was really freaking him out. He’d rather lick the floor of a Guatemalan jail cell than deal with that.
And that was saying a lot because he’d been in several Guatemalan jail cells over the years, each more disgusting than the last.
Which, again, wasn’t the point.
Regardless, Cole took a deep breath and decided to keep his mouth shut while he waited for whatever reaction she was going to have next. If it was tears, so be it. Time for him to man up and just deal with—
A wide grin split across her face and her eyes sparkled up at him as she breathed, “That. Was. Awesome!”
Well. How surprising.