Enforcer’s Obsession

Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Hope

How fucking stupid could you be?

A rhetorical question if ever there was one because I couldn’t be any more stupid than I had been during that breakfast.

I was back in Nico’s house, pacing the bedroom, wondering what the fuck I had done.

I couldn’t put my finger on what had compelled me to tell him so much.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

I’d meant it when I said that I never shared any of these things with anyone, just as I’d meant it when I said that him being who and what he was, gave me a level of freedom that I hadn’t expected.

Molly had an inkling that some bad things had happened to me, but she didn’t try to dig. That was part of the reason why we had managed to stay friends. Because if she knew the truth, she would feel bad for me. And that was something I couldn’t tolerate.

Someone pitying me.

Nico didn’t strike me as one for pity, and at no point during that conversation had I seen any.

He had just listened, detached.

I’d found comfort in that, and at the same time disgust.

He was probably able to stay detached because there was nothing significant in my story to him. I knew men like him did or saw horrible things with regularity.

So what was one woman murdered by her husband?

Some kid terrified of her own shadow?

In fact, Nico and men like him probably reveled in that.

A realization I wished I’d had before I’d gone and run off at the mouth.

To make no mention of the other…

I had given myself to him.

The finality of that, the irrevocability of it left me speechless.

So did the lack of regret…

I always had believed that I had escaped my stepfather unscathed, that somehow my mother had protected me.

But I was wrong.

Because even now, after what I knew of Nico, I wanted him.

But it didn’t matter, I told myself.

That foolish, stupid, lovesick part of me could want whatever it wanted.

It was up to me, and my brain to take care of myself.

And that meant being smarter when it came to Nico.

It also meant getting the fuck out of here.

I wandered out of the bedroom and down to the living room, my mind too frazzled to watch television or read a book.

That happened sometimes, and it was part of the reason I love my job so much.

When I was with the dogs, they gave me a place to funnel all that energy, and they received it as love.

My thoughts could be racing, but even still, if I brushed the fur of a ratty dog, or trimmed their nails so that walking was more comfortable, it soothed them, just as it seemed to soothe me.

I felt panic rise again as I thought, and did my best to fight it back.

I couldn’t lose my job.

It was the only thing I had.

Most people would laugh at the thought of a barely above minimum wage entry-level job being all that they had, but it was so much more than that to me.

And after this was over—and I refused to allow myself to even consider the possibility that I wouldn’t leave alive—I needed to do something to go back to.

Nico had assured me that he had sent in a doctor’s note, along with texts to my supervisor from my phone saying I was sick but on the mend.

But that wouldn’t hold forever.

I needed to get out of here.

And there are other factors I had to consider.

I wandered through Nico’s living room and toward his kitchen.

It seemed so…normal.

To think that a man like him had novelty glassware was mind blowing.

But there it was. A pint glass from a local microbrewery.

The kind of mundane shit I would expect to see in a software engineer’s cabinet.

But Nico wasn’t a fucking software engineer, and I couldn’t let waffles or novelty pint glasses or sex, let me forget it.

Nico was a killer.

Everything that I both feared and despised.

He was a dangerous man, and I refused to allow the possibility of losing anything to him. Especially my heart.

So stupid to think, but it had felt good opening up to him. It felt natural.

And that was the scariest part of all.

For lack of anything else to do, I went back to the living room and turned on the television.

Found some silly movie about genetically engineered sharks, and soon felt myself drifting off.

When I stretched, I realized I was sinking into the softest, most comfortable bed I had ever experienced.

“Somebody’s finally awake?”

My eyes were still closed, but my lips turned up at the sound of the deep, rumbly voice, the faint accent at the tale of the words.

“Open your eyes, Hope. I have a surprise.”

I smiled bigger, then slowly lifted my eyes.

Froze when I met the barrel of the gun.

Follow the dark metal up a strong arm, locked eyes with Nico’s.

Watched in horror as he pulled the trigger.

I bolted upright, looking around wildly, realizing that I was in Nico’s living room, the credits of the shark movie scrolling across the screen.

I rubbed my chest, trying to slow my racing heart, but eventually, managed to get my breathing under control.

That terrifying dream only proved what I knew to be true.

I had to get out of here.

That was my absolute only choice.

I refused to end up like my mother.

I had to escape.