Page 101 of Bronx

Karma enters the room just seconds before I can say or do anything to stop her. I don’t know how she discovered my secret smoking place in the building, but here she is, staring at me with those huge disappointed brown eyes of hers.

“Karma?” Lev croaks out.

She makes a beeline for her brother, wrapping her arms around his neck. I quickly release my foot off his leg.

“Lev!”

It makes my skin crawl to watch her fawn all over the man I hate with every fiber of my being. He doesn’t deserve her attention. She’s too good for him.

“I found you,” she grins proudly.

“Yes.”

“But I’m confused,” she looks between the two of us and settles on me. “If you found Lev, why do you have him in this room? Why didn’t you bring him up to the apartment?”

“I followed Bronx to this location,” Lev tells her. “I heard he’s been looking for me.”

“But I’m the one who’s been looking for you. Why would you disappear on me without a single text letting me know you were okay, Lev? You had to know that I was going to worry.”

Lev doesn’t answer her but instead clenches his leg in pain. Total theatrics if you ask me.

“You’re hurt. What happened to your leg?”

“I was shot.”

Karma looks over at me.

“Why?” is all she says to me with accusatory tears in her eyes.

“You think I did this?” I ask in disbelief, although I’ve got a lot of nerve. If I had my gun on me, I would have definitely shot him.

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I don’t even have my gun on me, Karma.”

Lev pulls back his face and scans the entirety of Karma’s, then lands on the fading bruises around her eye.

When he returns his gaze back to me, the face of the watch dog I have carried around in my nightmares returns.

It’s all in his dead ass eyes.

“What the fuck have you done to her?”

“There you are,” I say under my breath.

He pulls a large piece from the back of his waistband, complete with a silencer, and shakily points it straight at me.

“Lev?” Karma sounds confused. “What are you doing with that?

“Did he do that to your eye?” He sounds weak, but his words are still laced with venom. “Did he hurt you, Karma?”

“No, Lev, it wasn’t him.” She pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket. “I’m calling 911. You need a doctor.”

He drops his arm, still holding the gun in his hand.

“What am I missing?” she says to the both of us as she waits for someone to answer the line.

I remain silent. Probably because I know that at this moment, with her brother bleeding all over the floor, that she isn’t going to be able to hear anything I have to say in defense of myself.