I caught her hand as it swung toward my face and grasped her thin wrist. I used the leverage I had to pull her closer to me and bent down so that I was right in her pretty face. She was flushed and breathing hard in her fury and her eyes were pits of hatred. If looks could kill, they would need more than one grave for me because she was murdering me over and over again with her gaze.

“I don’t know where you’re from or where you’ve been, but I’m from the Point, and I assure you that means I know how to fight for what I want. I’m anything but easy, honey. Don’t let the high heels and the short skirts fool you.”

She pulled her hand free and took a stumbling step back from me. I think the fact that I was ready to go toe-to-toe with her for the man we both wanted surprised her.

“He deserves more.” To her it was that simple. Even though Nassir wasn’t necessarily a good man, even though he had killed, had caused destruction and mayhem from the moment he came into the world, he deserved more because he had saved her and offered her a shot at a better life. To her I wasn’t enough and I never would be.

“You shouldn’t be here anyways. It’s well past regular housekeeping hours and anything Nassir needs after dark I take care of.” It was the last nail in the coffin to remind her that she was here to take care of the house and I was here to take care of the devil.

She flipped her fall of ebony hair over her shoulder and smirked at me. “He called me and told me to come pick up one of his suits. He said something happened at the club and it needs to go to the cleaners.”

“And you couldn’t wait until tomorrow to come get it? You had to come all the way up here tonight?” Her devotion and adoration was starting to seem a little more intense than that of a woman who was grateful to the man that had thrown her a lifeline. It made my already tight skin tense up even more and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“When he asks me for something, I do it. I don’t make him wait.” The implication was crystal clear. I had made Nassir wait for years and years and in her eyes that was simply unacceptable. I didn’t feel the need to tell her both of us needed that wait time for me to grow up. That I needed space to be able to understand that being with him wasn’t a choice I could make with my brain. It was a decision my heart was going to be responsible for making, and until now my heart hadn’t been in a place where it was strong enough to hold him.

I gave a little sniff and turned to head back up the stairs, calling to her over my shoulder, “Wait down there and I’ll get it for you.”

I was an idiot. I knew better than to turn my back on an enemy and this young woman was possibly the most dedicated enemy I had ever had in my life. I knew she hated me, hated that I had usurped her place and her role in this palatial mountain home. What I didn’t know was that she must’ve had a death wish on top of it because when I felt her hands at my back, twisting in the fabric of my shirt, I knew she was going to pull me backward, which meant I was going to land right on top of her and neither one of us was going to bounce.

She screeched some kind of war cry into my ear as we both went pinwheeling through the air. I saw the ceiling sail by over my head as I started to go backward and I tried to make a desperate grab for the railing, but she was just too strong in her need to punish me for taking what she considered her own. I couldn’t get a grip and I knew it was going to be hard landing when my feet kicked out in front of me and we both fell through the air.

I shouted in surprise and was cut short as we both hit the ground and I landed on top of the smaller woman. She didn’t offer much of a cushion as both my elbows hit the hard wooden floor and the back of my head cracked solidly into her face. I heard her scream in pain and I rolled to the side so I could heft myself up to my hands and knees. I shook my head to try to clear the fuzz but her anger seemed to give her superhuman strength, because as she rolled in my direction she lifted her leg and slammed her foot into my ribs. The blow took me by surprise, and since I was already winded, it knocked me to the side, which had my head thudding heavily into the wall.

I was seeing stars and struggling to catch my breath. When I blinked so I could look at her I noticed she was staggering to her feet and that her face was covered in blood. Her nose looked a little bit askew but that didn’t seem to be slowing her down at all. Her eyes were wild and she was focused on me.

I moved so that my back was against the wall and used the solid surface to lever myself into an upright position. Both of my arms burned all the way to my fingertips and I had a headache that was thundering and banging against my skull so hard it was almost impossible to find my balance. The other woman wiped her face with the back of her hand and I cringed when I saw blood smear from one side to the other. She looked crazed and ferocious.

“I will not stand by and let you ruin him.” Her words were slurred and suddenly her accent got thicker. “I’ve had him. I’ve touched him in ways you and your ignorance will never understand. I came first.” There was vehemence in her words that went beyond that of a lover scorned. Nassir, regardless of his intentions, had had an impact on this woman. This was more than a simple infatuation and it was going to blow up. Partly because there was no way I could resist slipping in one last snide comment.

“You may have come first, but I come last, and I keep coming last over and over again because we both know he can’t keep his hands off of me. He’s been reaching for me from the beginning, and now he won’t let go. You he had no problem tossing away.” Sure, I just called her trash, but she had called me worse. I figured it was a fair trade-off. Hanging out with a bunch of foulmouthed strippers meant I knew just how to come up with a dig guaranteed to hit where it hurt most.

I shook my head again and braced myself as she launched herself at me. She went right for my face and caught my hair in one of her hands. Someone needed to tell this chick that fighting like a girl wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Hair pulling and face scratching were amateur hour, though my scalp did start to burn as handfuls of my hair got yanked in a bunch of different directions.

It was a dirty move, but I took the heel of my palm and crammed it right into her already swollen and deformed nose. That sucker was sure as hell broken if the way she screamed was any indication. She was so loud I thought my eardrums were going to burst. While she was bent over clutching her face I pushed off the wall and walked over to her. It was my turn to grab a handful of hair so I could jerk her head up and have her looking at me through pain-filled eyes that were wet with a sheen of defeat and tears, but I could see that the battle was far from over on her end.