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.

“I don’t give a f**k, Anya.”

“You didn’t even know me then, not even close.”

“I don’t give a f**k about that either.”

“He was paying for his crime,” I reminded him.

“Not hard enough,” he stated firmly.

This, I could not deny, was absolutely true.

I held his eyes.

Then I said quietly and cautiously, “Don’t you think that’s a little crazy?”

“Not… even… close.”

I held my breath.

Knight held my eyes.

I let out my breath and looked away.

“Eyes to me.”

“I need time,” I told the floor.

“Look… at… your… man,” he growled and, my heart beating wild in my chest, my eyes went to him. “You do not f**k with what’s mine.”

I was silent.

Knight was not.

“Carl Sebring came in my life when I was seven and that was the beginning of the end of a life that was pure shit. David Watson came into your life when you were seven and that motherfucker made your life shit. Only when I came into it twenty years later did it stop bein’ shit. It is not lost on me we share that age when our lives rocked but I lived seven of bad and I got twenty-eight years of good. You lived seven years of good and got twenty of shit. That is absolutely not acceptable to me. And when something is unacceptable, I do something about it.”

I loved it that he felt that way.

I still could not process what he’d done for me.

So I remained silent.

Knight did not.

“He harmed you, irrevocably. He changed the path of your life. You mentioned my smoking once and then didn’t say dick about it. Women bitch about shit like that. You do not. And it’s not because you were used to it with your aunt. It’s because it reminds you of your father. You loved him, you miss him. So you don’t say dick. You dream more than any f**kin’ person I know. You say they’re all not good. You don’t sleep all night by me but you sleep by me, babe, and if you think for a second I don’t feel you jerk awake at least once every f**kin’ week because you had a bad dream, you’re wrong. I feel it. Every f**kin’ time. You said that started when you were seven. They died when you were seven. He gave you that. He did all that. And he paid. That’s what happens in my world to someone who f**ks with what’s mine. Like I said, you need to find a way to come to terms with that. You want me to help guide the way, I’m here. You can find that path on your own, good. But you need to find that path, Anya. Because I own you. You live in my world. You need to find a way to live with that, baby. There’s no other option.”

I pressed my lips together. Then I ran them back and forth.

Then I nodded.

Knight studied me.

Then he asked quietly, “When’s the spaghetti gonna be ready?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes. I’ll call you,” I answered softly.

“Right, baby,” he whispered then he turned and walked away.

I watched him go. Then I stayed frozen in place watching where I last saw him.

Then I turned and finished the spaghetti.

* * * * *

I was awake when Knight opened the front door.

I rolled and looked through the dark at his alarm clock to see he was really early. It wasn’t even two in the morning yet.

I rolled back.

My guess, he was worried about me. Or where my head was at. I barely spoke through spaghetti. As he was changing into his suit, I sat on his plush, gray suede couch in front of the TV, mindlessly watching it to the point where, when he came in and his fingers sifted in my hair and gave it a gentle tug back so he could lean in and kiss me, my kiss and farewell were distracted. I knew he felt it, noted it because Knight noted everything. I also knew because his hand in my hair held my head back seconds longer than usual and his eyes roamed my face.