My Fake Kiss Saved A Stranger — And Made Me A Hunted Man
Part 2
Gravity yanked me down toward the unforgiving cobblestones of the alley.
I slammed hard into the canvas awning of the baker’s shop below.
Thick fabric groaned under my weight, tearing slightly before bouncing me off into the air.
My body tumbled wildly until I hit the ground shoulder first.
Pain exploded down my left side in a sharp, blinding wave.
A terrible pop echoed in my ears as the joint ground fiercely in its socket.
Shouts roared from the shattered window two stories above me.
I scrambled to my feet, tasting fresh copper in my mouth.
My left arm hung uselessly at my side for a terrifying second before agony flooded back into it.
I sprinted blindly down the alley.
My boots slipped dangerously on discarded cabbage leaves and freezing mud.
The heavy weight of the Duke’s ancestral diamond beat against my thigh with every frantic step.
Running through the labyrinth of the meatpacking district finally gave me cover.
The air grew thick with the scent of wet sawdust and the sharp sting of raw slaughter.
It masked the scent of my panicked sweat perfectly from the hounds trailing behind me.
I sank into a crouch behind a stack of splintered crates to catch my breath.
My life in this city was completely ruined.
Craig’s thugs had found my rented room in less than eight hours.
They knew my name, likely possessed my ledgers, and definitely wanted my head.
I reached into my pocket with my good hand.
My fingers brushed against the cold, sharp facets of the massive platinum hairpin.
She had transferred the scent of the fox directly onto the hound.
While Craig’s men tore my door off its hinges, the runaway bride was buying herself precious time.
I could have thrown the stone into the nearest storm drain.
But throwing it away wouldn’t stop the brutal men hunting it down.
There remained only one way to clear my ledger.
I had to find her, shove the diamond back into her cold hands, and point the enforcers straight at her.
Empathy was a luxury meant for men with locked doors and full stomachs.
I forced myself to my feet, binding my useless left arm to my chest with my necktie.
Tracking one woman in a sprawling industrial city seemed like a fool’s errand.
But my mind mentally unrolled the topography of the slums.
I knew exactly how water flowed and where desperate people moved through a hostile landscape.
Her silver dress had been stained with black river mud, not high-street horse manure.
She had fled south toward the industrial wharves.
Two agonizing hours of walking brought me to the edge of the coal yards.
The ground beneath my boots turned into a treacherous mush of freezing sludge.
A ragged mudlark pointed me toward a row of dilapidated, half-sunken boat houses leaning precariously over the Thames.
I stepped inside the foulest structure, striking a single match against the rusted iron wall.
A mound of filthy, mud-caked canvas tarpaulin shifted violently in the far corner.
She lunged at me with a heavy piece of splintered driftwood aimed straight at my knee.
Would you have walked away to save yourself, or would you have pulled her from the freezing mud?
