Mister Black: A Billionaire SEAL Story, Part 1 (In the Shadows) by P.T. Michelle Page B

that’d been delivered to our door, his dark eyes watched me with a predatory gleam as he sat there in the leather arm chair, rubbing his right ankle crossed over his left knee. I always kept my distance, and even now I stay as far back as I can and hold the beer can out for him, saying impatiently, “Here.”
    But he doesn’t just grab the beer. He grabs my hand around it too, yanking me into his lap. The armchair swivels with my thrashing as he wraps his arms tight around my waist and laughs.
    “Damn, you remind me of my old lady before she got preggo and fat,” he rumbles. “That crazy bat went downhill after she whelped out my scrawny excuse for a son.”
    When he slides his hand up my shirt, I squeal my outrage and kick at the floor, trying to push off him and free myself. “Let me go! Walt’s going to kill you!”
    Jimmy’s chuckling, his eyes are glassy as he watches and takes a sip of his beer.
    “He won’t do jack shit,” Hayes says, then clamps a hand on my breast at the same time he fists his other hand in my hair. “All this long, fiery hair is such a cock-tease. Just like Brenna’s used to be.”
    Bile gags my throat as he leans in and sniffs, grinding something hard against my butt. Is that his…oh, God! I kick his shin with the back of my foot, then his ankle at the same time I scratch his arm. Anything to get away from him.
    “Fucking bitch!” He yells and yanks my hair hard, making me cry out. “Hold still, you little tease. I just want a taste.”
    Tears explode from my eyes, and I scream as he unsnaps my bra and grabs my breast with rough fingers. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
    Walt bursts through the door, his normally impassive face a mask of fury as he quickly yanks me from Hayes’ grasp. “What the fuck, Hayes! She’s just a kid.”
    Hayes readjusts himself in his pants, then grabs up his fallen beer from the carpet. Popping it open, he shrugs as he wipes the foam on his jeans. “She got me hot, standing there all defiant-like.”
    Shoving me through the doorway into our apartment, Walt murmurs, “Go get Amelia…and never come in here again. Ever.”
    Amelia’s crying for her bottle. I stumble while trying to re-hook my bra before I get to her room.
    “She’s fucking twelve-years-old, you perverted son of a bitch,” Walt yells.
    “Watch it. Don’t forget who owns you,” Hayes snaps back, his tone menacing.
    Grabbing up Amelia’s tense body, I carry her to my room and hold her close, crooning to comfort her. I quake all over as I stare out my window. My gaze locks on the fire escape and I breathe deeply, willing it to comfort me like it has in the past. When my heart continues to pound, my attention slides to the ladder. Hayes and Walt’s voices have lowered, but I can still hear them. The door must not have latched when I left.
    “I’m not kidding, Hayes. Keep your goddamned hands to yourself.”
    “Then you’d better find another way to be useful to me, because right now she’s your best asset.”
    “I’ve got some ideas how to expand.”
    “Ideas don’t mean shit, Walt. We can’t expand without money. I’ve got a lead on a cash transaction. Some punk needs to be taken out.”
    “We don’t kill people,” Walt hisses.
    Hayes snorts. “We do what needs to be done to survive, asshole. Now shut-up and watch the game.”
    “Stop thinking about it,” Cass speaks right next to my ear, rescuing me from reliving the horrible memory on a continual loop.
    I haven’t dreamed about that slimy bastard Hayes in a while. I guess my talk with Mina brought all those awful memories back. I lived in fear he would walk through that door and come after me while I slept. Every night after that, when I went to bed, I shoved a chair under the door handle, not trusting the puny lock would keep him out.
    I sigh and blink in the darkness. “I’m not.”
    “I can tell you are, because you’re still tense. Why don’t you tell me what happens this afternoon at