So even without the day job, I was still busy.

But my nights were at Knight’s. In fact, the last two weeks since my last day at work, my apartment felt like my workplace since I’d go there to work and come home to Knight. We had dinner together then he left for work. I rambled around for a few hours, reading, watching television, talking on the phone, doing my coursework at his computer in his study and I went to bed in satin sheets. I woke up in them too. And without having to be at work at eight, I woke up later and got to sleep longer with Knight.

It was the bomb.

Life was good.

And now it seemed it was good for Vivica too.

“Hun… nee,” she whispered as an answer to my question and said no more.

Surprising both Viv and me, Rhashan had started things out with only dating and this had lasted three weeks. He was feeling Vivica out. She was my age, he was thirty-six. A nine year gap which concerned him, because as he told Viv, when he first saw her, he saw her clubbing. He was in settling in mode and looking for The One. And he wasn’t f**king around, not even literally. It wasn’t about getting off. It was about finding a partner for more than spanking.

Viv was impatient, she liked to get herself some and, like me before Knight, had hit a dry spell even for normal sex. But she was understanding as well as intrigued. As date wore into date, that understanding deepened and she got smitten and she was smitten with more than the fact he was seriously hot.

Last week, Viv reported, he broke the seal. “Vanilla sex” she said that was “out of this world”.

The night after Rhashan broke the seal, he started breaking her in. Or, in Rhashan lingo, bringing her to heel.

Viv was on top of the world.

“After you were bad, was he good to you?” I asked.

“A powerhouse, six foot, seven inch brother doling out punishment?” she whispered. “Yes, Anya, my guy was good to me. He can wield a crop and I mean that in more ways than one. At one point, I think I was in a different galaxy.”

I put the spaghetti in water, thinking vaguely I should ask Knight to take us shopping and find some way to be naughty while smiling and murmuring, “Great honey.”

“He ties me to him while we sleep.”

I blinked.

“What?”

“He ties our wrists together while we sleep so I won’t go very far. He likes his woman close while he sleeps.”

My belly melted.

I loved that for her.

I just hoped she did.

“You like that?”

“Cuddling a warm, hard mountain of muscle who wants me close? Girl,” she drew it out softly. “Abso-fucking-lutely. Living the dream.”

“Oh Viv,” I whispered.

“Anya.”

I jumped and turned to see Knight, who’d been in his study, standing at the edge of the bar, eyes on me, face weirdly unreadable.

“Hang on, Viv,” I said into the phone and put it to my shoulder. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Let Viv go,” he ordered and his tone was as weird as his expressionless face.

I knew he could do impassive but he didn’t do that very often anymore. Not with me.

And his tone…

I held his eyes as I put the phone to my ear. “Viv, Knight needs to speak with me. Gotta go, honey.”

“Right, babe. Been bad?”

I smiled a small smile still looking at Knight. “Not lately.”

“Get on that. Report back. Later.”

“Later.”

I disconnected and the minute I did, Knight said, “Turn off the stove.”

“But the spagh –”

“Baby, stove. Off.”

I drew in breath.

Then I turned, set my cell aside and switched off the burners on the stove.

Then I turned back to Knight. “Everything okay?”

“You might or might not get a visit from the cops. I’m tellin’ you now so you’ll be prepared in case you do. And I’m tellin’ you ‘cause you got the right to know.”

My body locked but my lips whispered, “What?”

“David Watson was shanked today. Bled out before they got him to the infirmary.”

My hand flew out, found counter and held tight.

David Watson killed my parents.

I stared at Knight.

Then I whispered, “How do you know?”

“I know because I looked into shit, found out who he was and where he was. Then I talked to some people who talked to some people and I made it clear I’d look on it favorably if David Watson wasn’t enjoyin’ his state-funded, lifetime vacation.”

Oh my God.

Knight wasn’t done.

“I did not call the hit. That said, I do not give a f**k that dirtbag is dead. Though, I would have preferred they played with him a while longer before he hit the yard in a pool of his own blood.”

Oh my God.

“Why did you do that?” I asked quietly.

“Because he set my woman up for eleven years of misery. And I did it before I even knew the fullness of what that bitch of an aunt of yours took from you. I knew to carve a decent life for yourself you worked or went to school sixty hours a week. I also knew you had a cell phone that didn’t work which meant you were unsafe and a woman with a father who gives a f**k about her, no matter her age, would not be unsafe. Not like that. And I knew you had no real family to speak of. He made that happen. I’m not down with that. Payback was not him not being here. Payback was making him pay. That’s no longer an option. He’s dead.”

I didn’t know what to do with this. I didn’t know what to think about this. I didn’t know what to think about Knight doing this.

Therefore I didn’t speak.

Knight did, eyes pinned to me.

“It’s time you learn something about me, Anya,” he said gently. “I don’t live in your world. I live in another world. It’s my world. I took it over. I rebuilt it. I own it. I control it. I have a code. Anyone in my world lives by my code. And in my world, a man who shot a husband and father on the way to work then put a bullet in that man’s wife’s brain, my woman’s mother’s brain, does not breathe easy. I can see you strugglin’ with this and I’ll give you time. But you need to come to terms with it. The understanding of retribution is essential in my world. You do not f**k with what’s mine.”

“That was twenty years ago, Knight,” I whispered.