Page 178 of Unsuitable

Then, there was a hammering at the front door. A voice yelling that it was the police.

Kas pushed off the wall and calmly walked to the front door.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

The instant the policeman saw the gun on the floor where Kas had placed it, he started yelling at us to get on the floor.

Kas was pushed to the floor by one of the officers, hands behind his head.

Cece and I slid off the sofa and got to our stomachs on the floor.

Then, we were handcuffed and separated.

As if we hadn’t been through enough already.

But I got that the police didn’t know the facts of what had happened. All they knew was that a dead man was in our living room.

They had to be cautious.

Kas was taken from the apartment. I saw him being led away. Our eyes connected for the briefest moment, and I said a hundred things to him in my mind.

Then, he was gone.

I was taken into the kitchen and put in the chair where I sat every morning to have my breakfast. Cece was kept in the living room.

The officer took one look at me, with my beaten-up face, wearing only Kas’s shirt, and he removed the handcuffs. He sat opposite me and started asking questions.

I answered every one.

For the most part, it was the truth. About how I’d come home and Damien was here, and he had Cece tied up with a gun pointed to her. I told the police everything.

The only difference was the ending.

I told them it was Kas holding that gun.

I felt sick about lying. My body shook. The policeman thought I was just in shock.

I was. But I was also a liar.

I am a liar.

Clearly believing me and feeling sympathy for me, he then made me a cup of tea.

“For the shock,” he said.

I didn’t bother to tell him that I didn’t drink tea. When he put it in front of me, I just held the cup in my hands and lifted it to my face, letting the steam warm me.

A paramedic was brought into the kitchen to check me over. She cleaned up my eye, which was swelling up big time.

She asked me if I’d been raped. I glanced down at Kas’s shirt that I was still wearing.

I shook my head. Then, I remembered how close it had come to happening.

If Kas hadn’t come when he did, I’d have been raped…or dead by now.

Cece, too.

He saved us.