Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I used a light hand with my makeup, shoved my tablet with its folding keyboard into my purse along with my planner, notebook, and a small makeup bag.
With that, I headed out, mind on catching my boss in a criminal scheme. Which, by late morning, proved impossible when he refused to drag his ass into the office, even though he was supposed to have a meeting with all of us and then two video calls with big political vloggers.
Which was what I was arguing with him about when I stepped out of the office, the humidity hitting me like a wall as I listened to Michael wax on and on about how vloggers weren’t worth his time, not even if they had eight million followers on their socials, and the young people polled said they got most of their news from them rather than the actual news these days.
I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I was too busy choking on my frustration while my boss yelled in my ear.
Not that I would have seen anything.
I mean, as a woman, I was raised to be aware of strange men looking a little too hard at me, of cat calling me, of suspicious parked vans. That sort of thing.
Not to be on the lookout for random guns aimed in my direction.
The first two pops only managed to confuse me.
It wasn’t until others on the street started to scream, run, and duck for cover that I realized what was happening.
A shooting.
Then there was this blinding sort of pain across my arm, making me drop my phone to the ground as I just stood there. Frozen.
Apparently, when it came to fight-or-flight, I was born with neither.
Until a sleek black sedan with dark windows pulled out in front of the cars parked on the street, the door flying open, and a man telling me to get in.
There was never a time in my life when I thought Oh, hey, a strange man in a car; I should jump in with him.
But I found myself ducking and running, throwing myself into the seat, and dragging the door shut as the driver peeled off, getting us out of the area of the shooting.
My heartbeat was punching against my ribcage as the driver took several quick turns.
“What—“ I started when we pulled up to a red light.
“You’re hit,” he said at the same time.
He had a smooth, rich voice, conjuring up images of coffee and leather and cigars. For reasons that made absolutely no sense to me.
But, then again, nothing was making sense right then. Sitting in a car with a stranger after being in the middle of a shooting.
I figured I was allowed to not be thinking clearly in that moment.
“What?” I asked, turning to look at him for the first time.
He was tall and seemingly fit under a dark gray golf shirt and a pair of pressed black slacks. His black hair and golden eyes offset his olive skin. And his square jaw and brooding brow were almost universally considered attractive.
He was.
Attractive.
I mean, the man belonged on billboards.
Not in getaway cars.
“You’re hit,” he said, reaching for my elbow to lift my arm from my side.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to glance down to see what he was looking at.
It wasn’t until I saw the little rivers of red slipping down my skin to drop onto my shorts that I remembered it.
The pain that had me dropping my phone.
I’d been hit.
Shot.
I’d been shot.
“My shorts,” I heard myself say, looking at the material that was surely ruined.
“Baby, I think you should be a little more worried about your arm,” he said, voice soft as he was forced to release me, a chorus of horns behind us letting us know the light had turned green.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at my arm, though. My gaze stayed fixated instead on the way the blood slipped off my arm and dripped onto my shorts.
“They were targeting you.” I was aware of him speaking, the sound of his voice shivering over my skin, but I couldn’t seem to focus on the actual words. “Hey, stay with me here,” he said, doing a couple snaps that had me looking over. “Why were they targeting you? Who are you?”
“I’m… nobody,” I said, slow blinking at him, sure I wasn’t understanding him.
Because no one would be targeting me.
No one would want to shoot me.
“I think I need a doctor,” I said, the pain finally starting to pierce through the shock, a sharp, burning sensation.
“I know,” he said, taking another turn, going the opposite direction of the nearest hospital.
“You’re going the wrong way,” I said.
“There’s a clinic right there,” he said, pointing out of the windshield toward a building with a line of people out front.
“What if I need surgery?” I asked.
“You don’t. It’s not that bad,” he told me. “I don’t know why you’re bleeding so bad.”