I do have a gun in the car, though.
I move slowly down the middle of the parking aisle, doing my best to keep Psyche in sight. She’s on the phone, her face a mask of drunken concentration, so I hope there will be reinforcements soon. I can’t exactly trust the security in this building, not with her safety, but I can trust that Helen will skin them all alive if something happens to me. They know it and they won’t risk any overt moves against me and mine.
But they might take their sweet time getting up here if my mother’s gotten to them.
The parking garage is as well lit as a parking garage is capable of, which means it’s got plenty of shadows. Every car I pass is exceedingly expensive and shines in the low light. The only sound is the scuff of my shoes against the concrete.
It’s so tempting to assume I’m being paranoid. It’s possible the security guard ran to the bathroom or something, but in all the years I’ve been visiting Helen, I’ve never seen that booth unmanned. I can’t take the risk with Psyche’s life.
I reach my car. It doesn’t appear to be fucked with, but I glance around and then duck down to turn on my phone light and check the undercarriage. I don’t honestly believe my mother is so angry she’ll hurt me, but she’s volatile enough that I can’t take anything for granted. Five minutes later, I’m satisfied that no one has messed with my car.
Which is when I hear the first shot. It’s barely a whisper of sound, a little whistle of a bullet passing through a silencer. A crack of glass. Psyche screams.
I’m up and moving in an instant. Sprinting down the main space is so fucking tempting, but it would paint a giant target on me. If I were the shooter, I’d wing me and use that to draw Psyche out of the booth. My mother might not want me dead, but I doubt she’d be furious over a flesh wound if it removed my wife from the picture.
I duck between the cars, moving as quickly as possible and keeping low to avoid being seen. Another shot. A third. Psyche’s stopped screaming, but the glass hasn’t shattered. She’s still safe.
The shooter comes into view as I reach the end of the row. He’s a short white guy wearing a nondescript pair of black jeans, black T-shirt, and black baseball hat. He glances around, obviously knowing I’m in the area, and I jerk back into the shadows between two cars. The man sweeps a slow circle as he reloads the gun before turning back to point it at the booth. He pulls the trigger, enlarging the spiderwebbed glass directly in front of Psyche’s face.
Rage and fear short out my brain. I stop thinking, stop worrying about next steps. I charge him. He starts to turn, but I’m too fast. I take him down in a flying tackle that sends the gun skittering over the floor. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need it.
I don’t give him a chance to flip me. I simply slam his face into the ground once, twice, a third time, and then once more for good measure. He goes limp. My hands are shaking. Why the fuck are my hands shaking? I kneel on his back, torn between ensuring he never gets up again and not wanting to show exactly how monstrous I am while I can feel Psyche watching me. Knowing what I’m capable of is one thing. Seeing it is entirely another.
“Eros!” Her voice is a little muffled by the glass, but there’s no mistaking the fear there. I don’t want to look, don’t want to ever see that fear directed at me again. No matter how much I deserve it—and I do. I’m a fucking mess.
The sound of the booth door opening does what nothing else can; it gets me moving. I shove off the man and move to stand between him and Psyche.
But she’s not looking at him. She stumbles into my arms and clings to me with a strength that takes my breath away. “You idiot. What were you thinking? He could have killed you.”
Shock has my feet growing roots. “He was shooting at you.”
She fists the front of my shirt and looks up at me with shining eyes. “Never do that again. If he shot you, I—”
The elevator doors open, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. Security personnel spill out into the area. Things happen quickly after that. Once they realize this is a Thirteen-on-Thirteen incident, they take the assassin into custody to await the arrival of Ares’s people to sort things out. I leave my information and hustle Psyche into my car.
She slumps back against the seat, huddling in my coat. She’s sobering up fast, and I hate how scared she looks, but I don’t reach out for fear that she’ll flinch away from me. I turn onto the street and head for my building. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”