Shit.

It sounded like…

Carefully, I twisted, put my laptop on the coffee table and a foot to the floor. Using my foot to brace my weight, I leaned even deeper, keeping my body behind the wall between the living room and dining room, and peeking around the double-wide opening toward the back of my apartment.

There was a back door to my kitchen. I never used it. I didn’t because it led to a little deck under which were all the garbage pails for each unit. Beyond that were five parking spaces that were unassigned, and even though there were only four units in the house, they were always taken so I had long since stopped bothering trying to park back there because it was an exercise in futility.

The door had a knob lock, a deadbolt, and a chain as well as a kitchen cart in front of it since I never used it, but my kitchen was so tiny, I could use the extra surface and storage space.

There was a window in the door.

And through that window, clear as day, I could see a shadowy figure through the semi-opaque roman blind I had pulled down over that window.

I snatched up my phone, and on bare feet, hightailed my ass to my bedroom (importantly, where my Taser was) all while phoning Boone.

I was standing in my bedroom, still hearing the scratching at the back door, Taser in hand, when, after two rings, Boone answered.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted.

“There’s someone at my back door trying to break in,” I hissed.

No moment of silence.

No hesitation.

He clipped, “Is there a room in your house that locks?”

“Yeah. The bathroom.”

“Go there. Lock yourself in. Someone will be there soon.”

I headed that way, telling him, “I have a Taser. I grabbed it—”

“Whoever they are, I don’t want them close enough for you to use that Taser. Lock yourself in the bathroom, Kathryn. Someone is on their way. Gotta go now, honey. Get to the bathroom.”

“Okay, Boone,” I whispered.

“Got your back, baby,” he whispered in return and then he disconnected.

I locked myself in the bathroom wondering why he didn’t want me to escape out the front.

I wanted to go out front.

Did he think there’d be someone there too?

I couldn’t hear the scratching at the back door anymore. I also didn’t hear someone crashing into the kitchen cart upon entering, a cart you couldn’t see from the shaded window.

I didn’t hear anything.

Until I did.

Gunshots.

Close.

Three of them.

I jerked with the noise, visions of being in a mall parking lot with bullets flying and just how incredibly unfun that was racing through my brain.

My hands were a whole lot shakier when I hit the button to redial Boone.

The first ring interrupted itself when he picked up, and I didn’t wait for his greeting.

I squeaked, “Gunshots!”

“I’ll call the cops. Stay put. Get low. Axl’s almost there, Kathryn. Keep your shit.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I breathed, staring at the door.

“And I’ll be there soon.”

With that, he was again gone.

I got low and listened…hard.

No more gunshots.

No more anything.

Okay, shit, a break-in in the middle of the day?

And gunplay in the alley?

I lived in a city. There were nefarious people who lived in cities who did bad things. Nefarious people that other nefarious people shot at. There were also messed-up people who lived in cities who needed the means to mess themselves up further, and they might have people who wanted to shoot at them. Further, there were itinerant people who lived in cities who maybe weren’t in their right minds but did need food, or clothes, or just were acting not in their right minds, and they might shoot at people willy-nilly.

But I could not believe after the last few days I’d had that whatever was happening that included an attempted break-in and gunshots had anything to do with those kinds of things.

Except, maybe, nefarious people.

My phone rang in my hand and I bobbled it, freaked at the sudden noise.

I also saw the screen said BRETT (yeah, I’d programmed him in).

Shit, I forgot.

He was probably calling to set up the meeting.

I took the call, starting to say, “Brett, this isn’t a real grea—”

“The threat has been neutralized, Ryn.”

I blinked at the pedestal of my sink.

Brett disconnected.

“Ryn!” I heard Axl shout.

I also heard sirens outside.

Boy, it seemed like Axl was a whole lot better with breaking and entering than whoever that guy was outside.

“Bathroom!” I yelled, straightening from the crouch I’d hunkered into and moving to the door.

“Unlock, honey,” Axl said from the hall. “It’s safe.”

I unlocked and opened the door.

Axl was standing smack in the frame.

He did a body scan which ended in a quick but intense face scan before he asked, “You good?”

There was a lot happening in that moment, so I’ll quickly break it down.

Not sure this was priority, but I’ll start with the fact Axl was amazing-looking.

The kind of amazing-looking that, no matter how often you saw him, or, say, someone might just have been shot outside your back door, you had to take a second to process how amazing-looking he was.

He was young, probably in his early thirties, like all of Boone’s friends, but he had a thick head of hair that was kind of a creamy silver, a pair of piercing, steel-blue eyes, knockout bone structure, and as was de rigueur with these dudes, a killer bod.

Second, I had a feeling Brett just called me to share he, or more accurately one of his men, shot someone who was trying to break into my house.

To communicate this last part to Axl, I began, “I’m okay. Uh—”

That was as far as I got.

Axl started issuing orders.

“I gotta go out and meet the cops. Go to your living room. Stay in your living room. Don’t go to the kitchen. You with me?”

Don’t go to my kitchen?

“Just—”

He gently twisted the Taser out of the death grip I had on it and put it on the bathroom sink.

He then took my hand in both of his and stated, “A lot is going to happen fast right about now, Ryn. Before it does, take a second, get your shit together, yeah?”

I nodded.

He squeezed my hand just as a loud knock came from the direction of the front door and a deep voice shouted, “Police!”

“Be back,” he said on another squeeze and then he took off.

Okay, shit.

Okay, shit.

Threat neutralized.

Was there a dead guy on my back deck?

I went to my living room, eyeing Axl in my front hall who was talking to the cops at the door, but I didn’t take a second to get my shit together.

I didn’t because I didn’t have a second.

The cops were in, Axl with them, crowding me like he was a bodyguard and I was a celebrity unsuspectingly caught in a sea of rabid fans.

More sirens could be heard.

More cops came in and there was shit happening at the back of the house I couldn’t see that was making a lot of noise and taking the attention of all the police who’d entered the house.

My kitchen cart was moved unceremoniously, which included the canister I had on it that was filled with flour falling to the floor (I knew this because of the poof I saw rising from it over the counter from where I stood in my living room).