Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“Louis Vuitton. Authentic. You want to see? Yes! Prada,” he continued, and his footsteps fell into step behind me.
Dammit. I should have stayed on the shopping district street.
“No thanks,” I said as my steps quickened.
“Gucci! You like? Luggage too. Just inside. Come see. I will give you good price.”
Come inside and never be seen again? Not happening, buddy. Go away.
“No thank you,” I repeated more firmly.
His footsteps sounded as if he was getting closer to me and doing it rapidly. Panic was starting to bloom in my chest as the reality that I might possibly be in danger sank in. I’d not been cautious. I’d come out alone and taken off down a road I never traveled by myself on foot. All because of those damn books.
Just as I lifted my hand, ready to aim the can at his face and spray him, his hand wrapped around the upper part of my arm and jerked it hard enough that the pepper spray fell from my grasp and landed at my feet.
A scream welled up in my throat as he pulled me backward and spun me around to face him. I scrambled to keep from losing my balance. I was not going to become one of the missing people who ended up on the news. The fight to free myself overrode my fear, and I kicked at him while struggling to free my arm.
I was just about to claw at his face when a shadow fell over him. My eyes shot up to see a larger man step out of the darkened street and into the streetlight. He, too, was wearing a hoodie.
Shit! Were there two of them? I was going to be abducted. Shipped off and never seen again. I didn’t even have my freaking pepper spray!
“What the—” The man holding me paled and stilled. His eyes went wide.
Confused, I looked at him, then shot my gaze back up to the figure, whose face was still hidden from me. He was now towering over the man whose grip on my arm was cutting off blood circulation.
“Unless you want this blade to go directly into your spinal cord, you’ll let go of her.”
The deep voice sent a rush through me. Recognition, emotion, and relief hit me all at once, and I let out a sob. The man’s hand was gone instantly, and he held both his hands up.
“I was just going to give her a good deal on designer p-pur-rses,” he stammered.
“She said no thanks,” Ransom replied, and his voice made me shiver.
“I will leave her alone.”
“Yeah, you will,” he agreed before the man was slung back toward the door he’d exited.
He stumbled and caught himself before falling backward.
The man glared at Ransom now that he no longer had Ransom’s blade pressed to his back. An evil sneer slid over my would-be abductor’s face, and he pulled a knife of his own from the pocket of his hoodie and lunged toward Ransom.
Where was my pepper spray, dammit?! I dropped my gaze to the ground, looking for my lost can. Ransom had saved me, and I wasn’t about to let this thug hurt him.
“Bad idea,” Ransom snarled.
I snapped my gaze back to see what was happening just as the other man cried out in pain, his body jerking in an unnatural way before he bent at the waist.
“That was your lung. Might want to get that checked out before you die,” Ransom said.
Die? What?
I looked at Ransom for some kind of reassurance that no one was dying, but he stood there, his jaw clenched, glaring at the man with an expression that caused me to take a step back. It was unnerving, savage, hellish even.
Ransom’s gaze dropped to the ground, and then he bent down to get something. I took another step back, needing space. From all of this.
Ransom had just stabbed a man. Possibly killed him. I reluctantly flickered my gaze back to the other man. Even in the darkness, the lack of color in his face was apparent. He was pale. Unnaturally so. There was blood trickling from the corner of his mouth now. He didn’t reach up to wipe it away or spit. Instead, he rasped in a breath with such difficulty that his body slumped over even further.
“You need a Taser. This shit is worthless,” his deep, husky voice said as he straightened, holding the lost can of pepper spray.
“You-you’re here,” I choked out. Not, You just stabbed a man, or, I think he is dying. No, I didn’t say either of those things. My first words were you’re here. That didn’t say a lot for my moral code.
He studied the can in his hand as the man behind him continued to make unnatural noises—I wasn’t sure if they were from pain or the fight to breathe. Ransom ignored him completely. We stood there for a few moments, saying nothing. The world around us felt as if it had gone quiet.