Page 115 of Niccolaio Andretti (The Five Syndicates)
“You passed out,” his voice was deep and rough. “Drink some tea.”
My eyes flicked to a steaming mug on the coffee table. None of this was making sense.
“You made tea?”
He didn’t answer. He just sat there dwarfing my favourite chair. Black army boots. Legs like tree trunks clad in army fatigues. Herculean arms crossed over a powerful chest. A thick neck. Stubble that was almost a full beard. A strong jaw and brow. Eyes wide and green. Messy dark blond hair.
I worked to remember what I was taught in self-defence. Keep them talking. Humanize yourself. Refer to your friends and family. Talk about yourself as a person. And whatever you do, never ask them what they’re going to do to you.
“Are you going to kill me?” I blurted out.
A slightly shocked expression flitted across his face. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Matt didn’t tell you.”
“What does Matt have to do with this?” I was trembling so hard, my voice was shaking. How did he know Matt? Had Matt hired him?
“Matt invited me to stay here.”
I just looked back at him, while my mind raced, trying to connect some dots. He wasn’t here to kill me. He knew Matt. Matt invited him to stay with us.
“What?”
“You obviously didn’t know about this. I should go.”
He stood up. He was so big he was a man tree.
“Who are you?” I threw the blanket off my body and struggled to a sitting position. I still felt a bit woozy.
“My name is Jackson.” He was moving at an alarming rate towards his bag.
Jackson? This was Jackson, Matt’s childhood friend? I tried to remember what Matt had told me about Jackson. The stories were few and far between.
I stood up on wobbling legs, “You were friends with Matt when you were kids, right?”
“Is that what he told you?”
I had no idea what that meant. I stood there looking at him. His massive frame was crouched over his duffle bag while he rearranged something. My shock was fading and now I realized that I had just tried to kill Matt’s friend.
“Matt invited you to stay here?”
He didn’t look up at me. “Yes ma’am, sorry to have scared you.”
I shut my eyes, trying to think rationally. Matt had invited this behemoth man to come and stay with us. I had no idea why he would do that but Matt must have had his reasons. I tried to imagine telling Matt that I had almost beaned his old friend in the head with a club and then he left. That was not a conversation that I thought would go over well. “You can’t leave.”
He didn’t look up or respond. He just zipped up the bag, stood up, and swung the huge bag over his shoulder. Matt was always accusing me of not being nice to his friends. The truth of the matter was Matt’s friends weren’t all that nice, but that was moot the point. Matt had read me the riot act the last time we went for an extremely awkward dinner with two of his friends, telling me that I really needed to be a better partner, starting by being better to his friends. He never acknowledge that his friends were kind of mean to me, but I had promised him that I would do everything possible to make things better with him and his buddies. There was no way that I wanted to tell Matt that I had tried to kill the man standing before me.
“You can call me Emily and this was just a big misunderstanding,” I started, desperate to figure out how to fix this. “Just because I almost killed you doesn’t mean you’re not welcome.”
“You didn’t even come close to killing me.” His voice was matter of fact. He glanced at the door. I could tell he was about to walk.
“I almost smashed your skull.”
“I was aware of you the moment I came out of the washroom. I just wanted to disarm you without you getting hurt.”
Our eyes met. That part was true. Somehow he had managed to flip me to the ground and cushion my landing at the same time. I hadn’t even been winded.
He added. “I didn’t think you would pass out.”
I felt heat creep up my chest, my neck and then my entire face went red hot. I lifted my chin a fraction, unable to meet his eyes. “I was scared.”
