“Life.”

He looks at me like I’m crazy, but he should have looked at me like I’m the fucking Flash, because I grab the gun from him and get him on the ground in half a second. I start wailing on his face, and it feels so good. Just what I need.

From somewhere far away, conscience tells me to lighten up—I’m gonna really hurt him—but I don’t listen. I need this too badly.

I’m feeling better than I have in weeks when I hear a shriek, then feel small hands tugging at my shoulders. I aim a punch behind me and, a millisecond later, hear a woman’s scream.

Holy fuck! I turn around, adrenaline pumping so hard I can feel my heartbeat in my eyes.

It’s her. The blonde in the ass-hugging jeans.

I push Hawkins harder against the ground and search her face. Her cheek is red, like there’s a bruise forming. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to kill him!” She backs away, scrambling like I’m some kind of monster.

And it fits—because I am.

SURI

The first thing I think: There’s something wrong with him. The guy kicking ass in the tuxedo is too frenzied, too fast, too reckless.

He seems completely unafraid as he takes the big guys—obviously body guards—to the ground. The little guys has a gun, and just as I think I’m going to be witness to a murder, the guy in the tuxedo is on him, and the gun falls into the grass.

The little guy goes down like a rag doll, and Tuxedo Ass-Kicker drops on top of him and pounds his face with a gusto that’s almost scary. Scratch that: It’s definitely scary.

I press my back against the ivy-swathed brick wall that helps create the garden-like façade of the atrium. Blood is everywhere now; all over the thick green grass, coating Scrawny’s face, staining Ass-Kicker’s fists. I’ve never seen so much blood in all my life, not even the night Adam knocked my tooth out.

Finally, Scrawny’s nose starts spraying—literally, spraying blood like a faucet. That makes my stomach lurch. It wakes me up. I fist my hands and lean forward. “Stop it!”

Ass-Kicker doesn’t even flinch.

“Stop right now!”

I take a hesitant step toward them as my ears are filled with the awful sound of bone crunching. When Ass-Kicker doesn’t respond, I rush up to him, throw my arms over his broad shoulders, and shriek right in his ear.

The hand that’s punching Scrawny slings my way—lightning fast, before returning to Scrawny’s face. A few of the knuckles catch me in the cheek hard enough to knock me off his back. I land in the grass, clutching my face as tears fill my eyes.

“Oh my God,” I whisper as Ass-Kicker’s gaze finds mine. His eyes widen and his mouth drops open. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to kill him!” I scramble to my feet and run toward the door that leads back to the casino’s hallway, but I’ve only taken a few steps when sirens start to wail. Not sirens like an ambulance, but sirens like an alarm system. I’m frozen mid-step when a heavy arm locks around my waist. A deep voice purrs in my ear, “I’ll show you the party.”

The siren, accompanied by flashing red lights, is definitely of the security type. One of the cameras must have seen the fight.

Or me. I did run away from someone claiming to be a security guard, after all.

I tense, imagining scenarios as terrible as getting kidnapped or splashed across the inside pages of a tabloid, and the guy’s grip on me gentles. “I’m a good guy. Swear.”

Then he tugs me through the door, into the casino. I see a flash of light—red light, coming from chandeliers—and then I glimpse the security guard I escaped from. His dark eyes widen and his mouth pulls open into a snarl. “Ma’am—” he growls, and before he can get another word out, I am jerked in the opposite direction.

 I’m moving because Ass-Kicker is pulling me. He’s pushing me. He’s bloody and he’s gorgeous and he’s trouble. I should run the opposite way, but Ass-Kicker seems to know where he’s going—and I’m clueless.

We run through a few card parlors and down several crowded halls, up two sets of stairs and into a sleeker, quieter hall before he tugs me into a bathroom that looks more like a formal dressing room.

I’m not sure who drops whose hand, but suddenly I’m just standing there panting, in between a long, Victorian-style burgundy sofa pushed against one wall and a row of clam-shaped, white marble sinks topped with oversized King Edward mirrors on the opposite wall. The bathroom is empty, so my frantic breaths echo off the mahogany stalls.

I reach down to tug off one of my flats, which has given me a blister, and when I look back up, I find him slumped against one of the sinks, drained of that fierce animation that made him seem like a super-hero—or super-villain—just a minute ago. In fact, he looks tired enough to pass out. As I roll my gaze up and down his body, focusing for a moment on his familiar-looking face, his brown eyes rise to mine.

“You okay?” he asks, in that low, rough voice of his.

I frown, half because his voice is just so sexy; half because I’m not sure what he’s referencing. He waves at his eye and it clicks. He hit me. Right.

I step to the sink beside him and look in the mirror, surprised to find there’s not even a bruise. The area around my left cheek bone is a little puffy and a little red, but nothing to throw engagement rings about.

Still— “I must be crazy to have run in here with you.”

He frowns, looking almost insulted. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I just saw you try to beat some guy to death!”

He shrugs. “No, not to death.” His eyes bore into mine. “He started it, too.”

So he was defending himself. And enjoying it.

I should leave, because this guy is obviously, I don’t know—I guess the only obvious thing is that he’s bad news—but instead I lean my exhausted body against the sink. I’m sweaty and I’m still buzzed and still a little worried that the sirens going off were meant for me.

I don’t think I did anything wrong, but clearly, security disagrees. The guard with the fuzzy eyebrows was hunting me. Unless he’s not really a guard. What if he’s not a guard? What if he’s a kidnapper?

I take a deep breath.

Unlikely.

Just as I tell myself I’m going to make the rational decision and leave, my antihero straightens to his full, impressive height, strips his coat off, and tugs the pearly cuff links off his sleeves. He pushes them up, revealing thick forearms, and pumps some soap into one of his bloodstained palms.

I know his wrists and hands are red because he just kicked ass like a thug, but that doesn’t prevent me being mesmerized by them. They’re big and thick and slightly square, and they seem like competent hands. He’s got them washed and dried on one of the casino’s monogrammed towels within seconds, but after that his eyes flick up to the mirror, and I guess he notices at the same time I do that his crisp dress shirt is bloodstained, too.

He unbuttons it, and as I get the first peek at his deliciously ripped chest, I feel my cheeks color. I turn around to wash my hands as well. They don’t need washing, but now that he’s half undressed, I feel shy about walking past him to the door. Why have I stayed so long, anyway? Just to ogle him? How embarrassing.

I glance back over at him as I grab a towel, and I realize he really is beautiful: a living, breathing statue come to life. My eyes are drawn to his throat. It’s thick and smooth and neatly shaven, in contrast to his lightly bearded face.

His face, I notice, looks kind of tight; his eyes troubled.

“Why’d you do that to that guy? I mean…how did it get started?

His mouth presses into a solemn line, then twists into a bitter scowl. “That guy’s an ass. And he was the one who started it.”

I almost laugh, because what he said sounds so eighth grade. Then he leans over the sink and splashes water up his arms and on his chest, and suddenly he seems much more adult.