Page 18 of Filthy Little Lies

I don’t need the peephole for me to know who it is. The tingling down my spine has already identified the threat.

Gabriel.

“Who is it?” Cassie asks.

“It’s him,” I whisper, hoping my voice doesn’t seep through the paper-thin door.

“How’d he find you? You said you didn’t have your real address on any of those IDs.”

“I didn’t. I don’t know.”

“Savannah, you have until the count of three.” His voice comes through crystal clear.

“I’m not opening the door!” I yell back at him. “You should leave! I have…a…I have a gun, and I’ll shoot!”

Cassie’s eyebrows are raised, and she’s covering her mouth with her hand. I tried shooting a gun once in my life. Cassie thought we needed protection, but after nearly shooting my own foot off, we decided it was safer to not have one in the apartment.

“Savanah.” He drops my name like it’s a bomb. I can almost hear the ticking of the clock. “Open. This. Door.”

“No!”

“Open it or get away from it.”

“Dammit, just go away!” I fist my hands at my sides and retreat several steps. He wouldn’t kick it in, but it’s probably better to be safe.

Just as I get clear of the space, wood splinters, and the door swings in. The doorknob goes straight through the wall behind it, latching it open.

“Are you insane?” I yell, covering my head as fragments of the wood frame fly across the room.

When the last piece of wood hits the floor, I open my eyes.

Huge mistake.

“Holy shit,” Cassie whispers from the iPad.

She’s not wrong.

The devil himself would be shaking in his hooves if he were to come face to face with Gabriel Valenti at this moment. The muscles in his neck are strung tight, his jaw the same way; but his eyes are where the real terror lives.

He looks down at the iPad. “Who are you?” he demands of Cassie, who suddenly forgets how to speak.

It’s a reasonable reaction when the devil strikes up a conversation.

“Leave her out of this.” I snatch the iPad. “I’ll call you later.” I hit the end button and drop the pad back onto the table.

I peek out into the hallway expecting to see at least one neighbor checking on the noise he’s made, but not a single eyeball. Good to know.

“Look what you did to my door.” I grab the handle and yank it free from the wall, only to have the hinges give out completely and the whole thing come down at me.

He snatches it from behind me before it knocks me to the floor. “Move.”

I step to the side, and he picks up the door and leans it against the open doorway. Once he’s satisfied it’s not going to fall, he turns back to me. His heated stare fixes on me.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I say when he seems content to burn me with his glare.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he counters.

“It’s my home.”