(Noah)

I held my hand in the air. This was what my old man used to do everyday. Lift his hand in the air and do whatever he wanted. If you were in his path, you were getting it. He wasn’t the kind of guy who was afraid of men. No, he just wanted to hurt everyone. It took a bullet to stop him.

But that had nothing to do with me in that moment with Penny.

I tried to think of the best place to do this… where I could get blood but not actually hurt her. That wasn’t going to be possible though.

Seth was in the corner of the office, hands on his knees, the bottle in his hand. His head bobbed all over, like he was going to get sick. I had no clue what he was thinking getting himself into this kind of mess.

Just like when we were younger. With Aiden. Christ… what we did…

The memory caught me out of nowhere. I hadn’t thought about that shit in a long time.

Penny sat in the chair, chin out, ready to take a punch.

Who in the hell was this woman?

I stepped to the right and grabbed for Seth. “Hey. Give me that bottle. I’m going to smash it across her face.”

“Yeah,” Seth said. “That’s good.”

I took the bottle and lifted it in the air. Seth had his head between his legs again. I stood with the bottle of booze and knew there was one chance at this. I gently put the bottle on the desk. I put my hand to Seth’s neck and squeezed so I’d have a tight grip. I rocked him left to right and then slammed him against the wall.

He fell to the floor, out cold. He was face down, so if he threw up, he’d be okay.

I turned and grabbed the bottle.

“What are you doing?” Penny asked.

I swung the bottle and smashed it off the table. I took a shard of glass and cut my arm.

“Noah!” Penny yelled.

I stuck two fingers into the cut and twisted. I then put my two fingers to the corner of Penny’s mouth and swiped down.

“There,” I said. “You look like you were hit.”

“Holy shit,” Penny said.

I put a little more blood on her face. Then I searched for Seth’s cell and pointed it at Penny. I opened the camera and told her to turn her head and look terrified. She played it off great and the lack of light in the room helped to cover up anything that looked strange. The picture was good enough as far as I was concerned.

I sent it to Marcos, satisfying his sick need of seeing a woman bleeding.

I put the phone in Seth’s hand.

When I freed Penny, she lunged at me, throwing her arms around me. I picked her up and hugged her back, then I remembered what had just happened. I forcefully put my hands to her hips and put her on her feet. I pushed her away and shook my head.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“Do you really want to have that conversation here? Now?”

I curled my lip. “No.”

“Good.”

I moved toward the door and Penny grabbed my hand to hold it. I wanted to shake her away, but I didn’t. I held her hand and led the way down the hall, out of the building, and to both our vehicles.

I told her to follow me to my apartment.

The ride was quiet as I sat there on my own, thinking about what I had done for her. I had knocked out my best friend to save her ass. Yet I had no clue why. I must have looked in the rearview mirror ten times. Each time I did it, I saw her looking at me and just felt something. Not lust or any of that bullshit. It was more than that. She knew something that I needed to know.

I looked at the glovebox. I always kept a gun there, just in case shit went wrong after a fight. You know, if a guy lost on me and came after me. Or someone trying to get to Marcos comes after me.

It was always smart to have protection.

I parked at the apartment and opened the glovebox to get the gun.

I was going to find out everything Penny knew.

By any means needed.

* * *

I put the bottle of beer on the counter. The gun was in my back pocket. Penny put her hand to mine as she tried to take the bottle from me. She tugged at the bottle and I squeezed it tight.

“What are we doing?” she asked. “Is this you flirting?”

“If I wanted to fucking flirt with you, my tongue would be between your legs writing you a love letter.”

Penny’s mouth fell open. “Okay…”

“Who are you?”

“Penny.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Yes. Do you want to check my driver’s license?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then come find it.”

I opened my hand and she took the drink.

I kept my eyes locked to hers. “This isn’t good.”

“The beer? It tastes fine to me. I prefer draft…”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “Don’t play games right now, Penny. For all I’m supposed to know about you, you like to come to fights and you like to fuck.”

“Check and check,” she said.

“But now my best friend was put in charge of kidnapping you. To take you to the guy who handles all our business. Why?”

“Don’t worry about that part.”

“I’m involved now. So I’m worried.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to knock that guy out.”

I shook my head. “You know what he wanted to do?”

“Yeah. Stuff his dick in my mouth.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“I would have bit it off.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” I said. “Do you even give a shit?”

“About what?”

I lost my cool. I slammed my beer on the counter and it started to overflow out the skinny neck of the bottle. “I put my ass on the line for you. I’m going to get killed for this. And I have no clue why.”

“That doesn’t seem like a smart decision.”

“You keep running your mouth. Watch what happens.”

“You going to cut yourself again?”

I walked along the counter and stepped into the kitchen. Penny turned and started to move back. The cut on my arm was still fresh, still bleeding.

“Noah, I was kidding,” she whispered. “I’m fucking terrified right now.”

I reached forward and touched Penny’s waist. Half of me wanted to toss her on the counter and devour her. The other half wanted me to take the gun out of my back pocket and shoot her.

This was why I didn’t bother with women other than sex…

“I have no clue why someone wants me,” she said. “Okay? I came there tonight just like I always do when you’re fighting. I was at my car and felt someone approaching. I thought maybe it was you. So I stood there and next thing I knew, there was a hand over my mouth and I was thrown into a car.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “You only come to my fights?”

“Yeah. I mean, recently, yes. I used to go here and there. Observing. Taking mental notes.”

“Of what?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just there. Okay?”

“But lately it’s just been my fights?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem?”

I thought about Marcos’s suspicions of me being on drugs. “Yeah, it’s a big problem. You’re in danger.”

“I got that hint when I was taken and almost killed.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a writer.”

“What do you write?”

“Words,” she said.

I reached back and put my hand on the gun.

Could I do it? Could I really hurt a woman?

“You have to stop lying to me,” I said. “I can’t help you if you hide.”

“Then let me hide.”

“You can’t run from Marcos. He’ll track you down. Bad enough what I did, but at least I bought us some time to talk.”

“How’s that?”

“Seth is a horrible drunk. I’ll tell him that I found him on the floor, passed out. I saw you bleeding and figured you were there for a reason. You were upset and trying to escape so I brought you here so nobody would find a thing. I left Seth there because I couldn’t trust you alone for a second. That part is easy, honey. The hard part is what comes after that.”

“You’re telling a good story,” Penny said. “Keep going.”

“My story is done. You talk or I’m…”

My hand started to move the gun from my pocket.

“Or what? What are you going to do?”

I hesitated.

We were in silence staring at each other.

The only thing that broke the silence was a loud thumping at my door.

“They’re here for us…”

* * *

I brought out the gun and Penny let out a gasp. “You have a gun?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “Stay the fuck back.”

“You were going to shoot me?”

“Thinking about it,” I said.

I rushed around the counter to the door.

There was more pounding.

“Who is it?” I yelled.

“Yo, it’s Dalton.”

“Shit,” I whispered. I tucked the gun in my back pocket and opened the door. “Dalton. Shit. Hey.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine.”

I backed up and he stepped into my apartment. Dalton came in, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. He had an old pair of gloves - my gloves - on the other shoulder.

“I, uh, oh…” He stopped talking and nodded toward Penny.

“That’s Penny,” I said. “She’s a friend.”

“Yeah, a friend,” Dalton said. “Sorry, Noah. I’ll, uh, take off…”

“No,” I said. “You okay?”

“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Penny said. “Where is it?”

“Second door on the right,” I said. “Don’t try jumping out the window.”

Penny smirked.

Damn, she was cute as sin.

“Hey,” Dalton said as Penny walked away. “I’m really sorry, Noah. I didn’t know you had a girl over.”

“She’s not a girl, Dalton. She’s a woman. And it’s not what you think.”

“You’re not hitting it?”

I smirked. Yeah, I’m hitting it, Dalton. And she’s wanted dead by my boss and I helped her escape. All because of her beauty and body.

Maybe I had been hit in the head too many times.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine. I was waiting for you. You said you’d give a shout.”

“Oh, shit. Dalton…”

“Nah, man, it’s cool. I see what you have going on. I’m out. Don’t let me get in the way of that.”

He backed up.

“Dalton, wait.”

“What?”

“Let me give you a lift home.”

“No. I just got done training. I could use the walk. You know? Helps to relax my mind. I’m not going home to some beautiful woman.”

“You have that cash?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t be walking with that much cash. Assholes can sniff that out.”

Dalton made fists. “I’ll take ‘em on. Street style. That’s how you learned to fight, right?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to be anything like me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dalton said. “A woman that good looking…”

“Okay, get out. I’ll catch up when I can. I, uh, I have some personal stuff going on. It’s… just lay low, Dalton. Stick to the gym. Okay?”

Dalton shrugged the boxing gloves off his shoulder and gave them to me. “Maybe you need these more.”

I laughed. Boxing gloves weren’t going to help. But the gun in my back pocket would.

Dalton left and I shut the door.

When I turned, Penny was standing there, hand on her hip. “Mind telling me what the gun is all about?”

I had had enough for the night.

I reached back and locked the door. Then I grabbed my gun.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. I pointed the gun at Penny. “You either tell me everything I want to know or I shoot you.”