Treachery

She nods her head. “One you’re paying for now?”

I laugh, the sound lacking humor. “Yeah, you can say that.”

“So you never loved him?”

The elevator crawls to a stop, the doors opening slowly on my floor as I realize the only honest answer I have to that question.

“I hate to admit it, but I never did. I tried to convince myself I could, but it didn’t happen.”

It hurts to realize the truth of it. Clayton and I had a loveless marriage from the begi

After that I moved away from Georgia, but by that time, he was cheating on me constantly. In our entire marriage, we had sex one time. And even that was awkward and horrible.

Glancing at her, I give her a shaky grin. “Try being married to a man you don’t have sex with. That’s how bad our marriage was.”

Her eyes widen and light laughter shakes her shoulders as we walk down the hall. I glare at her for it, but she just shrugs.

“Sorry, it’s just fu

Smiling at that, I nudge her shoulder with mine.

“They should make cake toppers specifically for our situations.”

“Would mine have me standing behind them, hitting the bride over the head with her own bouquet?”

I laugh. “Yeah, and mine would be me shoving the groom’s face into the cake while a demon waits in the background happy to make my life hell.”

Grabbing my arm, Ava stops me before we reach my door. “It’ll get better for both of us eventually. It has to.”

I’m not so sure about that, but I go along with the lie.

“Of course, it will. I’m sure our luck will turn around any minute now. All we need to do is be-“

When my hand touches the knob to my apartment, the door swings open with an irritating squeak.

All I can see is a mess of overturned furniture, scattered papers, broken dishes and cheap, framed photographs ripped from the walls.

“-patient.” I mutter, finishing a thought that had no hope of being true no matter how much I wish it was.

“Nice place,” Ava jokes, but when she sees the look on my face, her expression falls. “I take it you didn’t leave it this way?”

“No,” I answer as I walk inside, my heart shattering to pieces because this was the last of everything I had to my name, the tiny amount I’d been able to scrounge for myself in a world that is intent on kicking my ass.

Everything is destroyed. The cheap furniture slashed open so that the stuffing is bleeding out. Every cabinet open with a few listing sadly on their broken hinges.

The drawers have been ransacked and what little I had left from my life back in Georgia is now a pile of shattered glass and twisted metal, every picture frame busted and the photos scattered.

I spin in place and look toward my bedroom, fear crawling up my throat to think the boxes in my closet have been destroyed as well.

Ru

He moves quickly down the small hallway just as Ava turns the corner. They collide into each other, his forearm going up to her throat as he slams her against a wall.

Lowering his face to the side of her head, his hand slides up her body to pin her chest against the wall.

Terror bleeds out of her expression as a tear runs down her cheek.

Oh, hell no. I am not going to let this asshole hurt her. I flat out refuse to stand here and do nothing.

A scream tears from my throat, and I do the one thing you’re never supposed to do when facing an opponent twice your size. I run straight for him, jumping up to wrap my arms over his shoulders and around his throat, the adrenaline in me causing me to act without thought.

He slams me back, and I’m lodged between his big body and the wall as Ava screams in her quest to rescue the person who tried to rescue her.

But just as she lunges forward with a growl erupting from her throat, the asshole pulls away from me, easily dislodging my hold as he turns to run out of the apartment and down the hall.

We both follow and watch when he dodges right into the stairwell, his heavy steps a retreating beat as the door slams closed behind him.

“Holy shit,” Ava breathes out. “Are you okay?”

Half in shock, I shake my head, but then look at her and nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

She nods. “Do you have any idea who that guy was?”

She’s obviously panicked, her cheeks bright red and her throat pink where the man had jammed his arm against her.

I shake my head again, still too much in shock to process what the hell just happened.

“We should call the cops,” she says, “or the guys. Or both. Holy shit, what just happened?”

Obviously, someone was searching my apartment. And judging by the fact he was still here, he hadn’t found what he wanted.

Knowing there’s nothing of value in my place that he could have wanted, I run back into the apartment and back to my room to see what he was doing when we interrupted him.

My entire bedroom is destroyed. The mattress cut like the furniture, the drawers of the side table pulled out and dumped. I turn to look in my closet to see all my clothes pulled from the hangers and the boxes from the top shelf disturbed.

“What do you want me to do?” Ava asks when she walks into the room to follow me.

I hate to admit I have no idea what to tell her. The cops will be useless. The guy was wearing gloves and had a mask covering his face.

There won’t be any evidence, and the most they’ll be able to accomplish is file a report that will mean nothing. It’s not like I live in a nice place with cameras that might have caught his image.

There’s no doubt Ava needs Mason after what she just went through. Her hands are shaking as she crosses her arms over her body.

“Call the guys,” I suggest, hoping like hell one of them might know what to do.

Stumbling over the scattered debris, I step into my closet and bite my lip to keep from crying.

Everything I have left in the world is in this apartment. And now, there’s nothing left for me.