Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

“No?” the guy behind me asks, his voice rising with the kind of interest that makes me
immediately sure he is an asshole. Just an absolute asshole. This isn’t some tweaker looking for a fix,
he’s not some sloppy half-assed criminal. There’s a cockiness to him.
Lance avoids my gaze and shakes his head.
“Mind if I take her, then?” the guy asks.
“What?” I shriek, but my voice is muffled beneath his hand.
That’s when it hits me. I see ink on his fingers covering my mouth, and it’s ink I’ve seen before. I
noticed it the other day when he was installing a lock on my door.
“That’s fucking sheisty,” he says.
John? He said his name was John, but maybe that wasn’t true.
“You see this, sweetheart? This little prick is ready to let me carry you off and do all sorts of
nasty shit to you? You know I’m into nasty shit, right?” he asks Lance.
Poor Lance is out of his depths here. He looks lost. He doesn’t know what this guy wants to hear.
“Tie you up,” he says, taking the gun out of my cleavage and pointing it at Lance’s kneecap.
“Make you scream.”
Thwip.
Lance shouts. I try to, too, because this fucking lunatic just shot him in the knee.
“Oh my god!” I try to scream, fighting like hell to get away from him, but it’s like trying to break
apart stone. This guy is solid and completely unshakable as he starts to drag me backward.
“Now, you quiet down and let me take your pretty little ass to the car or I’ll take the other one,
too.”
“Please,” I cry frantically against his hand, tears springing to my eyes.
My heart is hammering so wildly, I’m afraid it will burst out of my chest. I can’t think fast
enough to formulate words, but even if I could, I’m not sure I could get them out.
I hear Lance wailing and swearing so I try to look back at him as the dark figure hauls me away.
“Don’t know why you bother,” he says casually, as if he didn’t just shoot someone. “Fucker was
fine to let me rape you, so I don’t see why you’d care if I fired one measly bullet into his leg.
Could’ve been a lot worse. I could’ve shot him dead.”
“Why are you doing this?” I cry out against his hand.
“Keep walking or I go back and finish the job. Don’t fucking test me on this, Hallie. I don’t have
patience for bullshit.”
My blood freezes when he says my name. I realize of course he knows my name, he’s the man