“Go call 911 and get some towels,” he orders, and I blink at him, then look down at the woman groaning at our feet and the red quickly staining my white tile floor, feeling like I’m outside the situation looking in. This cannot be real. “Baby.” He grabs my face, his fingertips feeling cold and wet against my skin. “Go upstairs, call 911, and bring down some towels.”
I nod, then on shaky legs, I stumble toward the steps and up them, having to catch myself twice on the railing so I don’t end up falling. When I reach the living room, I grab my phone from where I left it on the edge of the coffee table, then head up to the third floor as I dial the number for the police.
I give the dispatcher a quick rundown of the situation, along with my address, not sure if I’m making any real sense as I grab a stack of towels out of my linen closet. I hustle back downstairs, hanging up and tossing my cell toward my couch.
When I reach the first floor, I find that Maxim has taken off his belt and wrapped it around the woman’s upper thigh and is now kneeling on the ground next to her, holding his hands to her leg. Saliva fills my mouth, seeing the amount of blood on my floor and his hands. Dropping to my knees across from him, I shove his hands out of the way and put one of the towels over the wound on her leg, pressing down.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, twisting my head her way, and her eyes fill with hatred.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She grabs my upper bicep, digging her sharp nails into my skin. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She squeezes harder, so hard that I whimper. “He’s too good for you!” she shouts, arching up off the ground, then cries out when Maxim takes both her wrists, locking them against her chest.
I make eye contact with Maxim as the sound of police sirens gets closer, and I swallow. I thought he was angry this morning; I was wrong. The silent fury now burning in his gaze is enough to scare me. I don’t want to assume this has to do with Cohen, but there is really no one else she could be talking about, and Maxim knows it too.
Dropping my eyes to my hands, I keep the pressure on her wound while Maxim holds her in place, even when she begins to thrash around like a wounded animal.
It feels like it takes forever for the police to arrive when it’s minutes before they come into the house, take in the situation, secure the gun Maxim has been holding onto, then call the EMTs inside. They usher me and Maxim out of the way, then I watch in a daze with Maxim’s arms wrapped around me as they take over caring for her wound. They finish by placing her on a stretcher and wheeling her down my driveway to the back of the ambulance. When the ambulance drives off a few minutes later, two officers step into my house and look at the mess left behind before focusing on Maxim and me.
“Is she going to be okay?” I ask, and I don’t know what to make of the sound Maxim lets out or the look the younger of the two officers gives me.
“Hopefully, we’ll know more when she gets out of surgery,” the older officer says, then adds, “Do you know her?”
“No.” I shake my head from side to side. “I’ve never seen her before tonight.”
“You told dispatch that she showed up with flowers, then aimed a gun at you.” He pulls out a pad of paper. “Do you happen to know why she would have done something like that?”
“Because of her ex,” Maxim answers before I can, and the officer frowns.
“We don’t know for sure tha—”
“I do, and you do as well,” he rumbles, cutting me off, then looks at the officers. “Her ex is Cohen, the lead singer of The Fallen. He’s been on the radio and the news recently, promoting his latest album and claiming he wants her back.” His hand wrapped around my hip squeezes. “After his first radio appearance, she started receiving threatening phone calls and messages, so many of them that she had to change her number. This morning, he was on some TV program doing the same shit, so I don’t think it’s a leap to assume that the woman who just tried to kill her in her entryway is connected to her ex.”
“Is that all true?” the officer asks, and I nod while wrapping my arms around my middle. “All right.” He looks around once more. “I’m going to have someone come in to take some photos, and we’ll get your statements, but unfortunately, that’s really all we can do for now. Until the woman who attacked you gets out of surgery, we won’t be able to get a statement from her to find out her reason for coming here tonight. And although I agree the timing of everything is suspicious, we don’t really want to jump to conclusions right now.” He looks at the younger officer. “Call Mike and see if he can come over here.”
“On it,” the guy says, then the older officer looks between Maxim and me.
“You two are free to go get cleaned up, and I’ll let you know when we’re done down here.”
“Thanks,” Maxim replies, placing his hand against my lower back, then urges me up the stairs. When I reach the top landing, Binx comes around the corner, and I start to reach for him but stop when I see the blood on my hands. “Come on, baby. Let’s shower really quick, then I need to make some calls.”
“We need to bring Binx,” I tell him, going to the kitchen so I can wash my hands. “I don’t want him to get outside on accident if they leave the door open.” I pump a handful of soap into my palm and scrub, and then do it again and again. My throat feels funny when the blood around and under my nails doesn’t come off, and I know I’m about five seconds from breaking down completely.
“Baby.” His warm body presses against my back, then his hands move down my arms to my wrists, stilling my movements. “I put Binx in the bathroom. He’ll be okay for a few minutes while we get cleaned up.” He shuts off the water and dries my hands with a paper towel, then moves us away from the sink and toward the stairs.
When we get to my bedroom, he walks me right to the bathroom, flips on the shower, then helps me get undressed before he takes off his clothes. He doesn’t spend much time in the shower with me. He washes up and gets out, then leaves the bathroom only to come back dressed in jeans and a T-shirt a few minutes later. “Come on.” He reaches in and turns off the water, then holds out a towel for me. I step into him, letting out a breath as his arms wrap around me and he holds me against his chest. “It’s going to be okay.”
As much as I want to believe him, I don’t. Some woman who I don’t even know came to my house and tried to kill me. And the more I replay the way the two of them were fighting over the gun, the more I realize she could have killed him instead. I don’t even want to imagine what I would do if something were to happen to him, especially when it would have been because of me.
“You could have died because of me.”
“No.” He wraps his hand around my jaw, forcing my head back so I have no choice but to meet his eye. “What happened is not on you.”
“But it is.” Unshed tears cause my vision to become blurry. “That woman showed up here because of me.”
“That woman showed up here, because she is mentally ill. That is not on you.” His arms around me get tighter—so tight that it feels almost impossible to take a breath. Then he presses his mouth against mine and holds it there.