EBONY
I punched into the pillow to try and get comfortable. All night I’d been on edge, and all through dinner, which had been amazing. Who knew a psycho killer could be a great cook? He’d given me whiskey after, and I’d drawn by the fireplace while he said nothing. He didn’t even seem upset that I’d called him inhuman. I guess not having a soul meant you didn’t care about such trivial things. He’d taken off his business shirt and put on a tank top. Before he pulled that black cotton tank on, I’d seen the tattoos on his back. He had a huge grim reaper with a scythe dripping blood over the span of his entire back. There was so much detail I hadn’t had the chance to thoroughly look at it, but I knew everything in that image was connected. Maybe to something he’d done in his past, maybe to his kills, but somehow everything was connected and told Jett’s story. I desperately wanted to study it.
For the last two hours I’d tried to get to sleep, but I just couldn’t seem to do it— or to let go of everything that had happened. Jett promised to get me on a flight the next day, but something in me was hesitant to trust a ruthless killer.
Why had he kept me here all day without immediately sending me away?
Why had he asked me all those damn questions?
He didn’t seem the type to care about anyone but himself.
My father has been a killer for hire, mostly at Luca’s behest, but he hadn’t been ruthless. That’s why he was rotting away in a cell, never allowed to see his family or his freedom again. I would kill the person who had him arrested. With him gone, my life had turned to shit, and I didn’t like how it had made me. It had taken years to get back to some normalcy, and well, here I was again, in the middle of a fucked-up situation I couldn’t escape.
It’d been a while since I thought about how much I missed my father, and it was making me sad. He’d always been a loving man, always made sure I was safe and happy. I’d been super comfortable with him around, always knowing I was loved by at least one of my parents. After he had been sentenced, my mother turned into a bitch. She was always drunk and mean to me, and I became nothing but a bargaining chip for my idiotic mother and her lying, cheating ways.
I sat up trying to clear my head. How the hell had this all escalated to me having a hit put out on me by my family and being kept ‘safe’ in a killer’s house?
A loud crash had me jumping out of bed. I ran for the door and looked out into the hall, my heart erratically beating.
Had someone found me?
There wasn’t a sound except from behind the door at the end of the hall.
Jett’s room.
Another bang, and I propelled myself toward the door hoping he wasn’t in danger. He was grunting and throwing shit around the room smashing it against the wall. Opening the door, I saw him spin around, his eyes full of hate. I tried to back out of the room, realizing this was a very bad idea, but he closed the gap between us quickly and pulled me up against the wall by my throat. Frantically, I tried to peel his fingers away, but he had a good grip causing my breathing to become labored. Every time I got one finger loose, another would press harder into my throat cutting off my air again.
I couldn’t breathe. The fury in his eyes was animalistic, and I realized they would be the last eyes I ever saw as my vision clouded and my hands fell to my sides.
“Jett…” I managed on a ragged breath. The fingers slowly released, and I fell to the floor, on my knees, trying to drag in as much oxygen into my lungs as possible. I put a hand to my neck only to pull away when I felt the tender flesh. It burned from the fresh air hitting it.
“Get out,” he said with a growl.
He was an animal.
I stood up when I could and watched him pace around the rubble of possessions which now lay shattered on the floor. He stepped on them with his bare feet with nary a wince.
“Bad dreams?” I managed on a croak.
He turned to face me again. “I said… Get. Out.”
I knew I should have turned around and locked myself in my room until he got over this mood he was in, but I couldn’t. I moved closer to him so I could clearly see his tattoos. The details around the reaper were of different things like roses and a tally which I could only guess what that meant. I saw names and dates in roman numerals all intertwined together on a bleeding ivy plant.
“Ebony,” he growled. “Get. Out.”
“No.”
He moved away from me sitting down on the chair by the window. “Why aren’t you scared of me?”
“I am,” I said as I carefully came over to him sitting down opposite his intensely sexy body. “But I also know what it’s like to be alone especially after a bad dream.”
He laughed. “Really? You think I need company?”
My head was screaming at me to run away and hide until morning when I could escape, but for some reason, I stayed. His gun was lying on the bedside table in reach of his hand if he chose to end me, and yet I stayed.
I must be crazy, I thought.
“I like to be alone,” he said.
“No one likes to be alone,” I replied. He laughed again, an evil laugh which set my nerves on fire. I couldn’t show him how scared I was. I needed to be strong to get away from here without being killed. Yet, I couldn’t find the strength to leave this room.
“Don’t think you know me, little girl.”
There was something wrong with the way he had said that. His demeanor was edgy, and that growl which accompanied his laughter made me realize I was sitting in a room with a sadistic killer, and I needed to leave.
Immediately.
I pushed off the bed and left his room, hearing his laughter follow me until I shut my door, locking it, and moving the cabinet behind the door to seal me in. I felt semi-safe once I’d done that, but if he wanted in, I had no delusions he could get in and do what he needed to do.
Sleep was not going to come, and I knew that. The adrenaline in my body was pumping so hard, I felt myself shake.
Fuck! Fuckity-fuck! How was I going to get out of this one?