Page 11 of X's and O's

I was most definitely a witness, and there was a very dead body on the floor between them. There was no way they were letting me walk out of here. But I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Even if the only weapon available to me were spoons.

“Grayson!” Scythe shouted from his hiding place behind the couch.

“Scythe?” The tinny voice came through the phone’s speakers. “How do you have this number? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Aw! It’s so nice of you to ask. Men don’t do that enough these days, do they? We really should ask each other that more.”

I blinked. Was he seriously just having a casual catch-up with a friend while I was fighting for my life? I picked up a handheld mixer and hurled it in his direction, just for the disrespect.

I followed up with some long-handled tongs at X, just in case the rolling pin hadn’t given him the message.

X howled with pain when they caught him right in the forehead.

Good. Maybe he’d end up with another scar to match the one running through his eyebrow.

He probably wouldn’t care. It would only make him more attractive. Ugh. Stupid, good-looking, psychotic men. Of course he had to be gorgeous. The crazy ones always were. It was probably how he lured half his victims in. I’d probably have been stupid enough to follow his pretty brown eyes and muscled shoulders right into the back of his murder van filled with weapons and tied-up hostages.

I was a sucker for dark hair and eyes.

“Was that X?” Grayson asked. “Scythe, are you hurting him? I know he’s insanely annoying—”

“Am not!” X shouted.

Grayson continued like X hadn’t even spoken. “And childish, but if he’s pissed you off enough for you to hurt him, then let’s just talk about—”

I was running out of utensils to throw, and they knew it. X stepped out from behind the bookcase, holding up a heavy cookbook as a shield.

Fear rushed through me at the thought of that man getting any closer to me. Thatkiller. I grabbed a glass salad bowl from the drying rack and hurled it. “Stay back!”

The bowl hit his book, crashed to the floor, and shattered on the floorboards.

X howled again, “She’s trying to kill me, Gray! Help!”

I was in my underwear, cuts all over my body, throwing kitchen utensils at two men who’d just murdered a man right in front of me. And he was accusingmeof trying to killhim? That was a bit rich.

Grayson paused. “She?”

Scythe’s hand snuck up from behind the couch, and I could vaguely make out the face of a man on the screen, watching me.

A new round of rage coursed through me. I let out a primal scream and sent a pair of salad servers in both directions.

Scythe pulled the phone back down. “Some mistakes might have been made tonight.”

Grayson’s voice sounded defeated when he replied, “Send me your location. I’m on my way.”

“Will do.”

“Scythe?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you try to keep the woman alive long enough for me to get there?”

Oh hell no. I wasn’t waiting around for this guy to get here to help them “handle the situation.”

I’d watched enough mob movies to know exactly how men like them dealt with witnesses like me. They all ended with me being thrown into the ocean with weights around my feet.