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A man laughing cruelly.

I shoved the door open and was hit first with the smell of rotting rubbish from the dumpsters lined against the brick wall.

Maria stood near the alley entrance with some prick gripping her wrist hard enough to leave marks. She twisted against him, jaw tight with irritation rather than fear. “I said let go.”

“Aw, sweetheart, you don’t gotta be a bitch about⁠—”

I marched over and hit him before he finished the sentence. My fist connected with his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. He staggered into the wall with a crack that echoed through the alley before collapsing onto the concrete.

Maria stumbled back.

“What the—” The guy groaned and tried dragging himself upright.

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him flat again. Concrete scraped beneath his skull. His hands clawed uselessly at my wrist while rage surged hot beneath my skin, sudden and ugly and far too satisfying.

“Touch her again,” I said quietly, “and they’ll identify you by dental records.”

“Riot.” Her voice cut through me instantly.

I looked over my shoulder. “What?”

Maria stared at me like I was the one making her day difficult. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Adrenaline still hammered through me hard enough to make my pulse throb behind my eyes. “He grabbed you.”

“I had it handled.”

I looked down at the guy wheezing beneath me. Blood streamed from his nose into his mouth while one of his front teeth sat crooked. “Didn’t look handled.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

Most women either went soft around me or looked nervous when I lost my temper. Maria just looked pissed off.

Christ.

There was probably something wrong with me that I liked that as much as I did.

She brushed past me and crouched beside the idiot on the ground, already pulling a penlight from her pocket. “You still conscious?”

The guy groaned. “Think . . . my tooth . . .”

“Good.” Loose strands of dark hair had fallen free around her face, catching slightly in the damp air while she checked his pupils with calm, efficient movements. Exhaustion sat beneath her eyes in faint shadows, but her hands stayed steady. “You planning on staring all day?” she asked me without looking up.

“Maybe.”

She sighed softly, like I was exhausting her on a spiritual level.

“I wanted to talk about last night,” I said.

She straightened slowly, folding her arms against the cold while studying me carefully. “If you’re worried about the police,” she said, “I didn’t tell them anything useful. I said some men came in hurt after a fight behind a bar. That’s it.”

I watched her for a second. “You could’ve said more.”

Maria shrugged one shoulder. “People around here don’t come to clinics because they trust cops.”

Most people saw the kutte first. Saw violence. Trouble. Criminals. Maria saw injuries. Patients. Human beings.

The guy on the ground groaned louder, spitting blood onto the concrete.