Swinging his gaze, Judgment frowned. The tall man leaned against the bar, his attention—like Judgment’s brothers—focused on Dahlia. The russet, reddish-brown of his skin glowed under the lights from overhead. His eyes were almost tawny, and his lips parted as the barest hint of a smile curved them.
He looked almost pleased.
Almost.
Judgment pivoted.
Dahlia was gone.
His brothers?
They lifted a drink to each other as if in a defeated toast, then knocked it back, but they looked far from happy.
Punishment even stole a glance toward the door.
That decided him, and he moved. They couldn’t have gone far.
Whoever Dahlia was, Judgment had to know more.
Now.
Humid, sticky air assaulted him when he stepped out of Sinner’s. The sidewalk was mostly deserted, just a few passersby here and there. He easily caught sight of the couple crossing the street at the next intersection. Even from a distance, Alex was nearly dragging Dahlia behind him, seemingly unaware or uncaring as she struggled to keep up with his fast pace.
Judgment jogged to catch up, careful to not alert them to his presence. It wasn’t hard for someone like him. Humans saw what they wanted to see, and if he put even the smallest amount of effort into it, they couldn’t see him at all.
He followed them for two blocks before they entered a moderately upscale apartment building. As if Dahlia sensed the night was only going to get worse, she tried to extract herself from his punishing grip. Just like in Sinner’s, she wasn’t strong enough to be a match for Alex as he pulled her to the stairwell instead of the elevator bay. The lobby was deserted, and chances were, no one would take the stairs at this time of night.
Where was the night guard? The front desk was empty, but a steaming cup of coffee sat on the counter. Dahlia must have been on the bad side of Luck tonight.
“I have to stop by my mother’s, Alex. Let me go, she has a package for me, and she’ll worry if I don’t show up to get it.” Her voice was strained, her face scrunched up in a pained grimace.
Alex shoved the door open and yanked her inside, distracted enough for Judgment to slip through undetected. He might be able to hide his presence, but he couldn’t walk through walls or doors.
“What the fuck ever. Your mother hates me, and if she thinks she can keep you away from me, she will.”
“Let go of me, Alex!” Some sense of self-preservation kicked in, and she slammed one of her palms into his shoulder, but it only enraged him further. He did let go of her arm, only to grab a fistful of her beautiful hair.
A foreign feeling beat at Judgment as he watched the horribly sad scene unfold in front of him. He didn’t need any of his grace to know how tonight was going to end. He’d seen it too many times over the long history of humans. Still, he didn’t want to see anything bad happen to this beautiful woman because she had the misfortune to hook her star to a piece of human filth like Alex.
“Bitch, you think you’re so much better than me. You’ve always thought it. I’m fucking tired of trying to impress you, and give you the world when you don’t fucking appreciate it.” They were roughly the same in height, if you counted the fact she had on rather high heels, but Alex had a good fifty or sixty pounds on Dahlia. He easily hauled her up several flights of stairs.
There was no reason for Judgment to follow after them, he simply shifted at the foot of the stairs so part of their bodies came into view. Were Justice and Punishment interested in her because they knew what was coming?
He knew, but it didn’t increase his interest in her. Humans acted on their baser instincts all the time, spreading evil into the world. She was just one more human who would experience injustice at the hands of a loved one.
“I’m sorry!” Dahlia cried as she fought to loosen his grip on her hair. “I didn’t mean it. I never wanted you to feel like I don’t appreciate you. Please! Just stop, and we’ll talk about this!”
He stopped on a random platform and rammed her into the wall, the sound of her head cracking against the concrete reverberated around the enclosed stairwell.
“No more, Dahlia! I’m done.” He repeatedly slammed her into the unforgiving concrete, then scoffed in disgust right before he tossed her down the stairs.
The world stilled. More to the point, Judgment did. Grace afforded him many talents, and in this, he looked for some possible solution before she continued pitching down the rough stairs. Each outcome cycled through the same.
No one deserved the fate awaiting Dahlia. Every blow of her soft body against the unforgiving concrete did damage. The human excrement watched her tumble down that flight. Not moving, Judgment waited. The sound of her breathing flowed to him along with the soft thud of her anxious heart.
Alive.
A look came over the male’s face, and Judgment’s hackles raised. Until this moment, the filth had been fueled by pure, unreasonable fury. A madness that afflicted their kind. While deplorable, it often led to impulsive, if unforgivable, actions. The universe paused and Judgment with it, until the male took the first step, then the next.
She had survived that first fall. Though hurt, she was alive.
When his foot connected with her and sent her tumbling down the next flight, her head struck another step and the distinct crunch of bone reverberated through Judgment. Malice aforethought.
Alex wanted her dead.
Bastard.
Murderer.
The fleeting thought slipped through his reserve a split second before the garbage turned on his heel and fled up the stairs, leaving Dahlia’s broken body alone in the cold, empty stairwell.
No.
Not alone.
He climbed to where she lay and knelt down. Blood spilled onto the stone around her. The lighting washed her out, leaving her skin seemingly sallow and stripping the color even from her lips. They’d been a softer pink earlier.
A strange sensation wavered through him. This woman had done the impossible. She’d disturbed the malaise around his brothers. Now, as the result of one hateful, premeditated act, following a litany of violence, she would die.
Cold and alone.
Judgment glanced upward to where the culprit had fled. There remained a miniscule chance he would call for help. A sliver of baseless hope he might regret his haste and temper.
Not soon enough.
The stutter of her breath pulled him, and her eyes fluttered open. The fierceness in them demanded acknowledgement. Broken, battered, and twisted, Dahlia continued to fight.
Her heart, beating for all its worth, could not sustain against the damage she’d taken. A single tear slid down her cheek, and a raspy breath cut the silence as she whispered, “Help.”
Judgment tilted his head.
Dahlia’s gaze fixed on him.
Still crouched, he studied her.
“Please,” she whispered, then stretched out her fingers to him.
A foreign emotion flooded him. The injustice here was his brothers’ failure to act. They’d seen something, and now this beautiful light suffered for it. To show them how they erred, he could do…
Judgment hesitated, and then flexed his grace. Time slowed as her heart joined her breath in its agonized stumble. At a simple touch of his fingers to her temples, all of her desires and motives pummeled into him as an abstract knowing only he, as Judgment, could read.
“Make it stop?” The question revealed more of the asker than she might have realized.