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He’s insane.

Not clinically. Just worse than usual.

She took a moment to suck in a few breaths and wait for her heart to quit hammering.

She pried wooden fingers off the railing.

She blew out another breath and it pulled her lip. Her fingers came away red.

Move.

One, two. She counted the steps as she went and they shimmered under her feet.

When she started on-call at the precinct, everyone said how brave she was. All the shit with Andrew, she was so strong.

Four, five.

Like it was some sort of accomplishment. Her lip curled, the blood salty.

It wasn’t.

Riley just didn’t feel. Dissociation had been a coping strategy.

But she felt this. The hammering of her heart hurt.

The door above banged open. Six, seven.

“There you are.”

Eight.

Riley dragged her eyes up the stairs—paint worn right through to the concrete—to the bright black shoes.

Gio’s eyes were slits, red and hungry.

She glanced down the next flight to the concrete landing below. Eight more steps.

Go.

“Don’t you fucking move,” Gio snarled. His suit jacket flapped as he lurched forward. She stepped back, making room for him to run past her, to get the space he clearly needed.

But he didn’t continue down the stairs.

He stopped in front of her and shoved his hair off his forehead, chest heaving. The acid tang of sweat filled the air and burned her tongue.

She backed into the wall.

His alligator eyes bulged.

“I’m leaving.” She turned to walk past him, and his hand snapped out, a vise around her arm. His rings glinted, and she felt the bruises forming on someone else’s skin.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

She’d forgotten about that. The dead-eyed stare he got when he stood too close.

“How’s this for ‘coward’?”

In slow motion, his huge tattooed hand reached towards her neck as he held her still with the other. The rings glinted, and she couldn’t move. She didn’t breathe.