Page 65 of How To Catch A Killer … And Date His Best Friend

LYRA

Pissed doesn’t even begin to explain how I’m feeling right now.

The entire street outside my apartment complex looks like a scene out of a disaster movie. The sirens, the fire alarm blaring, and my neighbors with terror-filled faces huddled on the sidewalk under blankets. Both ends of the street are closed off by fire trucks, and the police are taping off the block like a crime scene.

And standing right in the middle of it, red in the face, is my landlord, demanding an explanation. He’s waving his arms around, while two firemen attempt to push him back. They don’t have answers for him yet, but when they do, all eyes are going to turn to me and the very illegal dark room I’d built into my apartment.

It’s chaos. Pure, unfiltered chaos.

One could argue that it’s technically not my fault. I mean, sure, I built the dark room and brought in all the chemicals to the building without my landlord’s permission, but after realizing there was an empty space behind the pantry and all I had to do was knock out one simple wall, what’s a girl to do? The dark room was all but begging to be built, and I’m not one who likes to say no.

I’ve had it there for years, and if it weren’t for Maddox and his inability to keep his hands off of what isn’t his, we wouldn’t be in this mess, and I would be happily in my apartment, developing my pictures.

As for whose fault it is, I would very shamefully argue it’s the landlord’s. I pay my rent every month, and in return, he leaves me alone. He hasn’t done an inspection since the day I moved in at eighteen. Surely he has an obligation to ensure my home meets safety codes, whatever they might be.

Who am I kidding? I’m going to get my ass handed to me for this. But this is why I pay insurance, right? Though it likely doesn’t cover an illegal dark room. I might very well be up shit creek without a paddle on this one.

Either way, I have Black Velvet to fall back on. Now if I were to lose that, I’m not sure that’s something I could come back from.

I stand behind the police tape with ash covering my clothes and soot smeared across my skin, watching smoke continue to pour from the corner unit that used to be my home.

My home.

Jesus.

It’s all gone.

My life. My dark room. Every tray. Every shelf. Every late night developing my memories into a physical photograph just disintegrated into flames. That’s years of work. Years of memories. Years of peace. All of it destroyed because Maddox Blake has the impulse control of a golden retriever with access to fireworks.

And to think I was starting to see a future with him. All I see now is my fists pummeling his dick over and over again with the perfect scrotum sandwich, and just as his testicles start to descend back into his balls, I’ll hit him again.

That stupidly loveable asshole. If he wasn’t such a wild flirt with a grin that could bring me to my knees, I would have already ended him.

Watching as more first responders fly into the building, the knot in my chest tightens.

I shouldn’t think about it. Shouldn’t think about the lost negatives, or the questions I’m about to be faced with.

I can’t handle it. Not tonight.

My gaze shifts from the building, to my neighbors, then to the policemen lining the street, and finally back to Maddox and Hunter, who are sitting on the hood of Hunter’s Challenger, staring up at the wreckage.

I wasn’t the only one who lost my home today. Hunter’s is gone too. Not to the same disastrous extent as mine. With a few months of contractors working their asses off, his apartment could see the light of day again. Mine is currently just an empty hole in the wall.

God, I can’t handle this. I don’t have the emotional capacity to hold myself together right now. I need to crumble, and I need to do it somewhere I feel safe, and after that, I need to lose myself in work. It’s the only thing that’s going to get me through today.

As my landlord starts up another screaming match with the fire chief, I quietly slip into the chaos, sinking backward and disappearing into the gathered crowd so silently that nobody notices, not even the two morons who haven’t stopped gaping at the wreckage we just escaped.

I start walking, block after block, until the sound of the fire trucks fades into a distant hum, and before I know it, I’m standing at the back door of Black Velvet just as two Harley Davidsons pull into the alley, the engines so loud my brain rattles inside my head.

Stepping away from the door, I walk up to Dean and Marcus, hoping like fuck they remembered to bring a set of keys, seeing as though mine are likely melted into scrap metal.

Marcus is the first to get off his bike, his gaze snapping to me and scanning over me from head to toe, and I almost cringe, knowing what he must see.

Soot clumped in my unbrushed hair, ash covering my skin, no shoes or pants. Hell, I don’t even recall if I remembered to put underwear on under Maddox’s massive shirt. All that mattered was leaving that place.

“Jesus Christ,” Marcus grunts, freezing as he watches me. “The fuck happened to you?”

Dean’s head snaps up at Marcus’ tone, and my shoulders slump. “I had a rough morning.”