Page 11 of The Enslaved Duet

Just as he was about to reach the unsuspecting man from the car, I caught up to him and took a firm grip on his shoulder. I waited for the hesitation in his stride, when one leg was locked straight, and the other remained hovering in the air, remembering one of the defensive moves Sebastian had drilled me and my sisters on for hours as young girls. I held my breath for that instant and brought down my foot hard against the outside junction of his leg, where the kneecap connects the leg muscles. There was a sickening crunch followed by a gurgled scream as he fell to the ground. I looked up from where he lay, deeply disorientated, my heart pounding brutally against my chest, into grey eyes as varied and intense as a mid-summer stormy sky. For a moment, less than a second, those eyes were the center of my swirling world and gave me the confidence to take one deep, trembling breath.

In the span of that breath the two men from the car burst into motion, the driver practically diving out of the car to detain the would-be-attacker on the ground, a knee pressed into his spine as he wrenched the assailant’s hands painfully behind his back. I watched as he produced a pair of zip ties from the inside of his expensive blazer and secured him.

Not a second later, the man with the grey eyes was on me.

My breath escaped my body in one hard whoosh as his colossal build slammed unforgivingly into mine, and my spine cracked then compressed against the brick wall behind me. I tried to inhale and choked on the shock as his thick forearm came up to press against my neck in a punishing hold.

His eyes were all I could see. Those huge irises like brushed steel framed by dark brown lashes under a heavy, furrowed brow. I could read the threat in each stroke of those pewter eyes, in every inch they scored over my face like a scalpel through soft flesh.

He was threatening me not because I was the original threat, but because he didn’t know me. Even more, he didn’t understand my motivation.

Why would a stranger compromise herself for some unknown man unless she had an agenda?

I tried to convey with my eyes—metallic too, but gold, warm where his were cold—that I had no agenda but to escape his clasp and flee the scene of a crime I hadn’t even committed.

Still, I didn’t struggle against him. Something base that lived in the pit of my gut like a primordial creature stuck forever in a dark cave told me that if I resisted him, he would put me down.

And not gently.

Because this threat was about even more than my circumstance or the suspicious question mark I posed. This man simplywasdangerous. It radiated from him like a gravitational field, an added pressure against my already bruised body.

There was death in his dark eyes the same way it was in the eyes of the many Made Men that had been vultures circling the carrion of my life since its inception.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The crisp edge of his British voice cut through the fog of my receding adrenaline, strong and clean like the snap of a whip.

He spoke in English, and I wondered if he couldn’t speak Italian or if he’d momentarily forgotten where we were.

“The woman who just saved your life,signore,” I replied breathily because his arm was still belted across my throat. “I think that should earn me the right to breathe?”

“I will repeat myself once,” he clipped out. “Who the fuck are you?”

Constellations of white stars were bursting at the edge of my vision as I struggled to breathe so I gave the bastard what he wanted.

“Cosima Lombardi.”

Commotion from the other side of the car drew my attention, the brassy shouts of Italian police arriving on the scene and the low British accent of the driver who’d incapacitated the assaulter.

“Cosima.” He tasted my name, rolling the vowels together the way Italians did. “What did you just do?”

“I saved your life,” I repeated, my hands going up to grip his suit clad forearms.

His soft scoff blew his minty breath over my lips. “That may be a bit overdramatic. Riddick was standing by, there was security in the building, and I know how to defend myself.”

“I saw the gun,” I gritted out between my clenched teeth, irritated that I was on the defensive when I’d acted the good Samaritan. “It seemed like the only thing to do.”

“Next time, beauty,” he said, leaning in even closer so his firm, full lips tickled my cheek. “Consider this. If someone is under attack, maybe it’s for a good reason. Maybe, they even deserve it.”

“Deserve to be murdered? Are you kidding me?”

He leaned back enough so that his eyes caught mine in a hold as fierce as the one he had against my neck. “I am not a man who kids. I am a man whom, unlike yourself, understands the causality of nature. There is no effect without cause, no act without provocation.”

“So… you deserved to be killed?”

A grin sliced through his left cheek like a weapon. “All animals, deserving or not, die eventually, but some are powerful enough to warrant a hunt. And you just interfered in such a hunt,bella. Do you know what happens when a predator is under attack?”

“He turns into astronzo?” I asked, insulting him and struggling against his tight hold yet again to no avail.