Chapter 26 #2
He winks at me, and I almost pass out because fuck, that’s hot.
Hugo is so unbelievably hot.
Not what I should be focusing on, I know. It must be the arm around my neck cutting off the oxygen to my brain.
Hawaiian Shirt grunts. “That’s not a thing. Nobody’s breaking into houses to fuck in masks, especially not my stepbrother’s house.” His chest puffs out behind me. “He’s a cop, you know.”
Lester Timms has a stepbrother? Judging by the increased tension around Hugo’s eyes, he doesn’t know anything about this guy either, which means I’m going to have to improvise with a gun to my head and a dog with a bondage fetish trying to lick my ankle.
When Hawaiian Shirt looks down to shout at the dog, I catch Hugo’s eye and cut my gaze down to my left hand, where it’s resting against my thigh.
Without moving my wrist, I lift my thumb to point at myself and flick my pointer finger at the ground.
Next, I point at Hugo, then to the left, toward the mudroom and the exit.
I drop. You run. As I mouth the four words, I point to the left again, hoping he’ll notice my knife waiting for me there.
Shit, Hawaiian Shirt’s done yelling at the dog, and I don’t know if Hugo understood me. I need another distraction so I can try again.
“Wait, so you didn’t break in, too?” I ask in my perkiest, most confused voice. “I heard about it from a guy who heard about it online. Some kind of sex party, I guess.”
“I-I don’t go to those parts of the forum,” Hawaiian Shirt says stiffly.
Ah, so he is one of the Philosopher Kings. Now I know what language he’s fluent in.
“Forum?” I laugh like I don’t have a thought in my head or terror in my belly. “I don’t know anything about that, but I love a man who likes a risky fuck.”
Hugo follows my lead and drops into bro territory again. “And look at her. She doesn’t even need the mask, am I right?” He smirks like he’s expecting the guy to high-five him, but Hawaiian Shirt just grumbles and pulls against the leash.
“Cosmo,” he snaps. “Lauf. Walk. Goddammit, get up and walk the other way around us!”
Hugo drifts to my right, still several feet away from me and moving in the direction of the guy’s gun hand, not the exit.
He repeats my first signal with his pinkie finger, pointing at me, the floor, and the door to my left, then tapping his own leg to indicate himself before pointing his pinkie toward the man with the gun.
Fuck, he wants me out of the way so he can take him down.
No! I mouth.
When Hawaiian Shirt gives up on getting the dog to follow his orders, Hugo steps forward with a friendly smile. “Want me to take his collar off or—”
“I told you to stay there!” the guy shouts. “Fuck!”
He lets go of my neck to shove at my back, trying to push us apart. It works to give us a little bit of separation, but it’s not enough for me to slide down and out of the loops.
“I came here to get Les’s mail,” Hawaiian Shirt mumbles. “I didn’t expect to have to kill anybody.”
Hugo, who’s been slowly sliding to my right, freezes. Then he straightens to his full height.
“Nobody’s killing anybody.” His just-us-bros voice is gone, and Hawaiian Shirt’s chest expands on an inhale.
“I’ll do it,” he insists, repositioning the gun to jab me in the ribs. I don’t like this position any better than I did when it was pointed at my head.
The man is silent for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, before he asks, “Did that asshole attorney send you? I told that fucker I’m not gonna say anything about Les’s bitch.”
So he’s involved in the plot to kill Paul Franklin and frame Angie Timms for it, and he knows Greg, the asshole attorney I killed four days ago.
Not good. This is not good.
“We already told you why we’re here, man.” Hugo’s back to being the guy who’s only interested in getting laid. “I don’t know any attorneys, and I never met this chick before tonight. Just let us go, and none of us has to see each other again.”
His story would be more believable if aggression weren’t pouring off him. Even Hawaiian Shirt notices.
“I don’t believe you.” He snaps the gun back to my head, jabbing me in the same spot. I’m definitely going to have a bruise, assuming I’m still alive to notice.
Hugo forces a smirk onto his face. “Maybe you don’t believe me because you can’t find anybody who wants to fuck you, even with a mask on.”
Bizarrely, the insult gives Hawaiian Shirt a boost of confidence.
“I don’t hear her complaining.” He strokes a thumb down my neck, and when I don’t react, he runs his tongue up my cheek, leaving a wide, damp streak.
I jerk my head away with a dry heave. My braids have come undone in my struggle, and I tilt my head to keep my hair from dragging through the disgusting slime he left behind.
When I look up again, Hugo’s forgotten about getting himself into position and has turned to face us fully, fury etched on his face.
“Do not.” He takes a step forward. “Fucking.” Another step. “Touch her.”
Hugo Mohr is desperate to rip this man apart for me, and the two halves of my heart slot together with a click.
Inevitable. He was inevitable. We were inevitable. Even though his threat is likely to get us both killed, at least I’ll die knowing that truth.
For some reason, Hugo’s rage relaxes Hawaiian Shirt even more.
“I’m starting to think you two aren’t strangers at all,” he says with a chortle. “In fact, I think she’s your girl, and you don’t like watching her with a real man.”
He thrusts his groin into me, and my stomach lurches with a new kind of fear.
“No,” I whisper, freezing when I should be fighting even harder to pull away from this man and the erection prodding me. My wide eyes meet Hugo’s, and I watch him clock my terror, then turn his incendiary gaze on Hawaiian Shirt.
Hell. I need to distract everyone in this room before Hugo does something recklessly brave.
Thinking fast, I shriek, “Ew! Get your own internet girl to work out your kinks with.” I’m using my hot dummy voice to keep Hawaiian Shirt off balance, but my panicked thrashing is real.
“I don’t have any kinks!” the guy bellows in my ear, making me wince. “And if I did, used-up sluts like you aren’t my type.”
“Nice try,” I say past my tight throat, “but that’s not even close to the worst thing a man’s called me this week.”
Hugo’s calmed down enough to take another step to my right, getting closer to what I’m guessing is his ideal attack position.
“If I’m not your type, then why is your tiny dick inviting itself to the party?” I ask.
“My what?” the guy snaps.
“She said your tiny dick invited itself to the tiny-dick party,” Hugo says. “Also, I know you’re fucking lying. She’s every man’s type.”
Goddammit, Hugo. We’re in a life-or-death situation. Don’t make me swoon.
“Tiny? Tiny?” Hawaiian Shirt’s voice trembles upward in outrage as he thrusts the gun in Hugo’s direction. “How about this? Is this tiny?”
“Compared to mine?” Hugo laughs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Li’l bit, yeah.”
I’m dumbstruck watching him plant his feet and practically dare this motherfucker to shoot him. Why would he—
He’s making himself the target so I can run.
I want to cry, I want to melt, and I want to punch him in the face.
But if this sweet, overprotective man thinks I’m going to leave him behind with a gun pointed at his chest, he doesn’t know the real me yet.
I dig past my fear and give a light, tinkling laugh that could’ve been engineered in a lab to enrage anyone who’s spent any time in the manosphere.
“No, but for real, it’s sooooo tiny.” I giggle again, sounding amused even though my head fills with images of Hugo shot, bleeding, dead.
Hawaiian Shirt goes apoplectic, swings the gun toward me, then Hugo, then, inexplicably, the dog before turning it back to me.
“Fuck you both!” He’s sputtering so hard drops of spittle land on my cheek. “You have no fucking idea what I’m capable of, you little bitch!”