Page 25 of Rent an Enforcer

She gives me a look, then drops the tube in the basket, which I put on the floor between us. While I’m down there, I check the end of the aisle in the security mirror mounted on the ceiling. Thick Neck has moved. He’s at the end of our aisle now, facing a shelf of easels with his back to us. His jacket is bulky on the left side. That could be a lot of things, most of which are bad.

I need to get Stella out of this situation without her being in the middle of it.

“Hey.” I straighten up and put my hand on the small of her back. I can see the shift in her eyes when she looks up at me. She’s reading my face, picking up on what has changed. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I just need to step outside for a minute, and I want you to stay in the store.”

Her eyebrows draw together. “Why?”

“I need to make a call. A work thing. It’s loud out front, so I’m going to step around the side of the building. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

She’s not buying it. Her brain is cataloguing the details—my jaw, my eyes, the tone of my voice, the hand on her back that’s firmer than usual. She’s a smart girl, and right now that intelligence is working against me. “I want to go with you.”

“I need you to stay inside.” I keep my voice level, one eye always on that mirror so I can check Thick Neck’s progress. “Five minutes. Stay in the paint aisle. Pick out the rest of what you need. I’ll be right back.”

She holds my gaze for a long beat before nodding slowly. It’s obvious she doesn’t like this, but she’s doing it anyway, because she trusts me.

I squeeze her shoulder and walk toward the front of the store. I don’t look at Thick Neck or change my pace before pushing through the front door. The afternoon air hits me before I turn left, rounding the corner of the building toward the narrow alley running between the store and the dry cleaners next to it.

The alley is shadowed and tight. A dumpster, stacked pallets. I take it all in without slowing down, because this is what I do.

Positioning myself behind the dumpster, out of the sightline from the street, I wait. There’s a broken piece of pallet on the ground near my foot, which I pick up and toss against the wall opposite me, where it cracks and clatters loud enough to sound like someone walking.

It only takes thirty seconds before Thick Neck rounds the corner. One hand is inside his jacket, going for whatever makes the left side bulky. His eyes are pointed toward the back of the alley, toward the sound of the broken pallet. That means they’re not pointed at me.

I come off the wall, and my hand catches his wrist before it clears the jacket. I twist it outward—hard, fast—and his whole body follows, momentum doing most of the work. His back hits the dumpster with a sound that rings through the alley. The hand that was going for his weapon is pinned between my fist and the metal, and my other forearm is across his throat. Not crushing. Not yet. Just enough that he knows the next six inches are available if I need them.

Yes, this is definitely him. He walked in with his partner, and they stood by the door and looked at my girl. I only left because Stella was with me, and I didn’t want her in the middle of it.

She’s not here now.

His face is red. His eyes are wide. Up close, I can see the details—a scar along his jaw, a gold chain disappearing under his collar. The bulge under his jacket is, in fact, a gun. I don’t take it yet. I want him scared before I take his options away.

“Hi there,” I growl in his ear after leaning in close enough to smell the fear that’s beginning to leak out of his pores. “How about you tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing?”

11

STELLA

Ninety seconds. Somehow, through sheer force of will or maybe a small miracle, I manage to last ninety entire seconds in the paint aisle, holding a tube of viridian green. He told me to stay put, so I’ve stood here counting slowly and telling myself to do what Tristan said because he’s probably got his reasons.

Ninety seconds.

Then every single nerve in my body overrules his instructions, and before I know it, I’m moving toward the front of the store. I don’t even bother going to the register—as it is, I’m pretty sure he was going to buy all of this for me. I leave the basket on the floor where he placed it, setting the viridian green on the nearest shelf, which also happens to be the colored-pencil section. Somebody’s going to be very confused later, not that I care.

He told me to stay. He even used the flat voice, the one that means what it says. I said okay, and I meant it at the time. But between then and now, I’ve had more than enough time to fill in the blanks, and the blanks are very, very bad. How do I know he’s not walking into something terrible?

How do I know I’m not joining him in something terrible as I step outside?

Normally, I would be monitoring the breeze. Right now, I’m too busy scanning the sidewalk to care about the wind for possibly the first time in my life. There’s no sign of him out front. I look left toward the alley between the art store and the dry cleaner, and that’s when I hear something. A heavy, meaty sound, like a side of beef hitting a wall. My feet make the decision before my brain does.

The alley is narrow and dim. It’s filled with the usual alley décor, too—a dumpster, pallets. About twenty feet in, I see what made the noise that drew me closer. Two men are fighting, and Tristan is one of them.

I should be scared. I know this with the same detached clarity that knows straws are not weapons and turtles are not threats. I should be terrified, because there are two men in an alley, and one of them is throwing punches and the other one is Tristan, who is also throwing punches. This is violence, real violence, the kind that doesn’t come with subtitles or a pause button.

But I’m not scared. Not for myself, anyway. I’m scared for him, which is different. It’s a kind of fear I’ve never felt before because I’ve never had someone to be scared for. My heart is hammering. My hands are ice cold. I’m pressing myself against the wall of the alley like I can make myself invisible, which is unlikely given the amount of red hair piled up on top of my head.