How’s your day going?
Katherine:
As can be expected when your psycho ex is after you.
A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. I typed out a response about her not having to worry about any psycho exes from me but thought better of it, not wanting to undermine her situation, or, at least, that’s what my sister would tell me I was doing.
I knew this was hard for Katherine. As much as she kept everyone at a distance, I saw through her mask of indifference. I knew it was all a defense.
But she didn’t need to be on the defensive with me. She could be herself, free of the worry that was so evident on her face. She could lean on me, burden me with everything she had bottled up inside her.
I wanted so desperately to be that for her ever since she walked into my self-defense class.
I had taught the class for some extra cash on the side, but once I saw some of the women who would come in skittish but would leave with a new sense of confidence and security, I realized how important self-defense was.
Every now and then, I saw glimpses of my baby sister, even my mother, in some of those women.
Only after teaching a few classes did I decide to become one of the regular instructors and had been doing so for three years now.
I glanced at my phone again and smiled to myself as my thoughts drifted to Katherine.
I hoped none of my brothers on the force saw me because they would surely tease my ass endlessly.
After last night, something between Katherine and me had shifted for the better. And I couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread through my chest at that fact.
Either way, texting her wasn’t enough. I needed to see her, hold her in my arms, to know she was truly safe.
I counted down the minutes until I could do just that.
CHAPTER TEN
KATHERINE
Ihad astalker.
And he’d been watching me forweeks.
It’d been a little more than an hour since I had received those texts.
While I had calmed my fiercely beating heart, and my hands had stopped shaking, a bundle of panic was still tangled deep inside my chest. It was dormant, but there nonetheless, ready to bounce up between my ribs again at any moment.
I sat at a small, square wooden table in a secluded corner on the third floor of the campus library to conduct my research.
Distraction was my only solution, so as not to go screaming and crying to Drew. I didn’t want to be that weak. I didn’t want anyone to know I was that weak.
Two seven-foot-tall bookshelves towered over both sides of my sitting area against the brick wall. Directly ahead was a small walkway through the stacks that led to the main sittingarea on this level.
The musty aroma from the multitude of books was a welcomed comfort. I shuffled my sneakers on the thin, gray carpet and glanced toward the window on the other side of the right bookshelf.
After an hour of research, I’d only uncovered a few things, including a newspaper article written two days after that night about a local businessman named Henry Miller.
When I saw his picture, I gasped. It was the man who Adrian shot and killed that night.
Henry Miller.
The article said he went missing and was found dead a few days later. His death was presumed to be related to gang violence.
A freak accident.
