Absolutely nothing.
No friends besides one who was a self-proclaimed workaholic and another who hated going out and doing anything, and that included spending time with me, unless she was between books.
A cat that didn’t like me.
And a job that I hated.
I had nothing.
Except a dead body lying in the middle of the hallway leading to my apartment.
And a man leaning over that body.
I didn’t scream, though.
No, I did something stupid. I pulled out my phone and took a picture right when his head turned.
He tensed, and it was then that I did the only smart thing I’d done in all day.
I ran.
I’d never been more thankful in my life that I only wore tennis shoes everywhere I went.
The jeans were a hindrance since they were so tight, but they didn’t stop my legs from pumping or slowing me down.
Not with my heart beating ninety miles an hour and all that adrenaline coursing through my veins.
The soft curse of the male who’d been leaning over my neighbor’s dead body sounded from behind me and then his heavy footsteps ate up the distance.
I ran faster.
So fast, in fact, that I ran right out of my shoe.
I didn’t dare stop for it, though.
I kept going. Down the steps, out the door, and around the corner to the laundry room.
I made it through the door and got it shut and locked, eyes on the handle just in case he somehow had superpowers that made him able to open the lock without a key.
I bid him good luck. I wasn’t able to do it even with the key. Which was why the residents of the building had started leaving it open for that very reason.
I kept staring at it as I backed up towards the stairs that lead inside the building.
I had just made it to the steps when I felt it.
A man’s—the man’s—steely arm circled my waist, pulling me back against his hard chest.
I opened my mouth to scream but found that my vocal cords didn’t work.
Mostly because the man’s hand had tightened around my throat, putting pressure there and letting me know that freaking out was not the way to go right then.
My body, however, didn’t get that memo.
Using my hands, feet, head and teeth, I started to thrash wildly.
My arms dug into the flesh of the man’s hands.
My feet started kicking at his shins.
And my head turned to the side so I could bury my teeth in his shoulder.
His other hand came up, though, and squeezed my jaw until I had no choice but to let go of him.
And once I was free, he held my head in place and spoke softly in my ear.
“I didn’t kill her,” he growled. “But the man who did is still here. He hasn’t left the building, so please shut the fuck up and be still.”
I froze, utterly and completely.
I also don’t know why I believed him, but I did.
The sureness in his voice, the complete truthfulness I could hear from that raspy dark tenor, had me believing him.
And I went limp in his arms, no longer fighting.
“Where?” I managed to squeak out.
My voice worked this time.
“I don’t know,” he whispered almost soundlessly. “But I need you to go into your apartment and not come out.”
I started to panic slightly.
“How do you know whomever it is isn’t in my apartment?” I asked wildly.
“Because I can see his trail,” he answered, pulling me back and confusing me all at once.
He started walking, me supported in his hands now, until he’d stepped over the lifeless body of my neighbor.
“Go.”
I went.
Straight to my apartment.
Where I then called the police.
Son of a Beard
Truth and Verity’s story
4-27-17
Prologue
I don’t understand your specific brand of crazy, but I do commend your devotion to it.
-Truth to his ex
Truth
“Anybody home?” I called loudly as I came out of my workshop.
Destiny didn’t answer and I frowned.
I could’ve sworn I heard something.
“Destiny?” I rumbled, peaking my head around the corner of the bedroom of the single bedroom shotgun house I shared with her.
Empty. As was the bathroom that I could see due to the door being wide open, and all the lights being on.
I could see Destiny’s makeup, clothes, and shoes strewn all over the floor of not just the bathroom, but the bedroom as well.
She’d gotten dressed in a hurry.
Normally, she didn’t leave the expensive dresses I’d bought her lying in a heap like that unless it was because I’d thrown it there after ripping it from her body.
And boy did she have a sexy body.
That was the only thing keeping us together at this point. The sex.
It was always good, which made it hard to kick her to the curb because she was the easy way out.
If I didn’t have her to come home to, I wouldn’t have the nightly sex I craved.
And I wasn’t the type to spread my dick around to the women that I knew I could land. They always had expectations.
Destiny, however, did not. She didn’t expect me to marry her. Hell, a lot of nights she didn’t even expect me to come home at all.
Which was good seeing as I was a member of The Dixie Wardens MC, Toxey, Alabama chapter.
Sometimes I spend the night at the clubhouse after a club party—which she most certainly did not go to—and she doesn’t complain.
Growling when I saw the empty bracelet box that was supposed to contain the bracelet I’d bought her for Christmas, one she wasn’t supposed to wear unless it was a special occasion due to the fact that it cost several thousand dollars, laying haphazardly on the night stand, I turned off the light and headed to the front door.
The kitchen was empty, as was the living room as I passed through it on my way.
So what had I heard?
Something caught my attention before I could get there, though.
Some motion.
Something that was moving through the sheer white curtains that Destiny insisted we had to have, and I stopped, eyes narrowed.
That was where I parked my bike.
On the side of the house, hugged right up against the window so I could see it as we passed in and out of the living room.
That bike was my baby.
The absolute best thing that’d ever happened to me in my entire life.
And someone was sitting on it.
Was it Destiny?
I hated when she did that.
When she’d go outside to talk on her phone, because I was the first to admit that she was obnoxiously loud and I wasn’t complaining when she did, she’d lean on it.
I’d tell her not to, because her weight could offset the balance of the kick stand and cause it to smash into the side of the house, and then I’d have to fix a dent or a scratch, and I most assuredly didn’t want to do that, but she’d do it anyway.
Just to piss me off, I was sure.
So that was what I expected as I flicked open the curtains to peer outside.
I’d been about to raise my finger to tap on the glass when what I was seeing caught my attention.
Destiny was on my bike alright, but some man was on it, too.
Some man with his balls laying unbound against the leather of my seat.
The leather that I’d fucking stitched by goddamned hand.