And now he had me at another disadvantage—when I walked into the apartment, my hands were full. My purse was on one shoulder, my hand clasped the suitcase handle, and the other arm held the delivery bag. I stood frozen, unmoving, waiting for his next order.
Theo shut the door behind me and locked it, not bothering with the deadbolt. The sound the lock made was a simple click, but in my ears, it clanged like the closing of a cell. He flipped on a couple of lights, then scanned the interior of my apartment, looking at my things. At my life. At pieces of me he had no right to look at.
How had this happened? How had he gotten past my doorman?
The overwhelming scent of curry coming from the bag I held gave a clue. "Is this how you got in here?" I asked.
"Yeah." He was visibly proud of himself. "I hung around until someone else was walking in. Then slipped in with them. No one shuts the door on food delivery."
He’d planned this. It wasn't just a whim. He'd carefully planned this.
Theo took the bag from my arms and laid it on the ground. "Drop the suitcase. Where's your phone?"
I blinked. The question was easy, thinking was not. "My purse. It's in my purse." My phone was in my purse! I was so close to a way of communication. It felt like I was handcuffed, having it so near and not being able to use it.
"Hand it over." He held his palm out, waiting.
Slowly, I dragged the strap from my shoulder and looked inside. I was still shaking, but I made more of the production, going slower than I needed to. If I could find it, if I could call Donovan with a swipe of my thumb…
"What's taking so long?" He was too smart. He pointed the knife at me like a gun.
I stayed focused on my goal, peering into my bag, doing my best to ignore the weapon aimed at me. "I have a lot of stuff in here. I'm looking." I already had it in my grasp. Just couldn't get it unlocked.
"Give it to me." He yanked the purse from me and the phone dropped into the belly of the bag. He found it easily and swiped at the screen. "What's the code?"
I hung my head, defeated. My defeat was in losing the phone, not in surrendering the code to get into it. I didn’t really have anything in there that I was afraid of Theo finding. What I feared was already standing right in front of me. "1123."
He punched the numbers in and smiled when he got access. "Sit on the couch," he said without looking at me, distracted by the contents of my cell.
I shuffled to do his bidding, but was this my chance while he was distracted? I looked around the room for an opportunity, for something that could be used as a weapon against his knife. The lamp next to the couch—was it too heavy? The fire poker—was it too far?
A rustling of paper caught my attention. Theo had reached into the delivery bag and pulled out a bottle of beer. He snapped off the bottle top and took a swig as he came around the couch.
The beer was in one hand, my phone in his other. Then where was the knife?
I quickly searched down his body, my eyes landing on the sheath fastened at his hip.
"Don't even think about it, Bri." He caught me looking. "I'm a fast draw. And I'm not too bad at improvising, either."
His expression said he wouldn't mind if I tested him. I had a feeling he enjoyed the idea of improvising. I was sure I wouldn't.
So I wouldn't cause trouble right now. Not until I was sure it was trouble I could get away with, or at least trouble that had a chance.
"When did you get out of jail?" I didn't want to talk to him, but just like the delivery question, I wanted to know. I needed to know how all of the things that had been set up to keep me safe had failed. It was a less terrible form of torture than imagining the things he was about to do to me, and anytime I stopped thinking about the how’s, my mind immediately went to the what’s next’s.
"So you knew about that? I wondered." He paced a couple steps in front of me. "Was that your idea? Sending me away in the first place."
He said it casually, but the subtext was undeniably filled with vengeance.
Oh shit.
Was that why he was here? Revenge?
"I didn't know anything about that until just recently. I promise." I sounded desperate for him to believe me. I was desperate.
I pulled my coat tighter around me. It was warm in the apartment, and I didn't need it, but it was a barrier between him and me. Small, but I’d take any barrier I could get.
"Doesn't really matter.” He shrugged. "See, I know it was Kincaid who put me in a jail cell."
"No. It was you. You put yourself in that jail cell when you raped that woman." I regretted the words as soon as I said them, true as they were. It wasn't a good idea to provoke him.
Yet, here he was provoked. He slid my phone into his back pocket, and stared at me hard with greedy eyes. "What's with the coat? Hiding something?"
"Just…” myself. “Cold.”
"I don't like it. Take it off. Make yourself comfortable. We're going to be together a while.” He set his beer bottle on the coffee table.
I trembled so much it was hard to slip the buttons through the holes as I removed my coat like he’d asked. I kept my focus on my task, but I knew he watched me the whole time. I could feel the weight of his disgusting, captivated gaze. When it was off and bunched up around me where I sat, I felt naked, even though I was still completely dressed in my leggings and the thin nylon sweater I'd been wearing all day. I suddenly wished I'd worn something heavier. Something not so light. Something that didn't show my form or the line of my breasts. Something much more difficult to remove.
I forced myself to look at him, and my vulnerable feelings only intensified. His expression, though still dark, was now also terrifyingly excited.
"Much better." His smile was gleeful as he pulled out his knife and came around the coffee table to bend down in front of me.
I cowered back involuntarily.
He grabbed my sweater and fisted the material in his hand. Then pressed the knife down at the V of my neckline.
There was nowhere to go, but I tried, I really tried to press myself into that couch, to make myself smaller as he cut down the center of my sweater with his knife. To make myself not exist. To make myself nothing because if I was nothing I couldn’t feel this or know this or ever remember what it was like to feel a madman breathing over me, sawing through my clothing with the blade. It was a really sharp blade I discovered. He nicked me a couple of times with the tip.
Because he wasn't careful.
Because he didn't care.
Because he wanted me to know just how sharp the blade was.
When the entire front of my sweater hung open, he leaned back to look at his work. "I think I'd like it better if you didn't have the bra." He looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to do something.
I was already trying to be someplace else. Where did I want to be? Anywhere was better than here. But if I could find the perfect place, I could lose myself completely, and not be here at all.
After I didn't move, he said, "Are you going to take it off, or am I?"
I shook myself from the daze. He wanted me to do something. Something gross and terrible and I couldn’t do it, but I couldn’t let him do it more. “Just take off the bra?" I asked.