Free One Wrong Move by Shannon McKenna

phone, was wet. Sweat pooled on her forehead, dripped down her back. She felt faint. So small. No one here. So quiet.
    The inner directive seemed to come from so far away. Barely perceptible over the roaring of her ears, the thudding of her heart. Footsteps clumped around her room. Closet doors were flung open. A needle of light from the knothole pierced her darkness.
    She leaned as close as she dared to the hole. Saw a man’s sil-houette, then his face when he used the barrel of a big pistol to sweep her hanging clothes aside. Tall, dark, fortyish. Pouches under his eyes, cruel lines carved around his mouth, pockmarks from acne scarring. A ponytail, like Shira had described. He barked out orders, in what sounded like Russian. Heavy footsteps clomped out. She heard someone in the bathroom behind her. Crash, the shower box met its end. Muffled thuds sounded from the master bedroom, on the other side. At least three guys.
    Ping. A message arrived on the phone in her hand. Oh fuck!
    She muted the thing with a trembling thumb. It glowed in the dark.
    From Lily. The pockmarked guy had heard it. His head turned, his eyes slitted as he scanned for the origin of the sound.
    You didn’t hear anything, she told him silently. Random beeps and clicks and squeaks. Clocks, phones, appliances. Every house is full of them. She pulled in even tighter, smaller, and thumbed open Lily’s text. The part of her that read it was a tiny speck, miles deep, inside herself.
    Sorry about Aaro. We’ll work on him. With thumbscrews.
    She hit “reply,” texted feverishly.
    Thugsinmyhouse. Inclosetnow. 3+guys?
    Spk russian? Callcopsnowpls!!
    Send. Twenty hammer-blow heartbeats later, another message appeared, blessedly silent this time.
    On the way. Hang in there.
    She stuffed the relief down deep, kept herself tucked up. Tight and small. Tiny gray thing. She peered through the knothole. He stood in the middle of her room, eyes closed, nostrils wide. Feeling for her.
    With his mind. God. That guy was feeling for her with his mind.
    She clamped down on panic. Not here. Nothing to see. Small gray thing. Pebble, dry leaf, gum wrapper, bottle cap.
    But the pockmarked man persisted, his mind prodding for her like a rough, lascivious hand between her legs.

Chapter 6
    “Look, I’m just saying,” Miles wheedled. “It’s not that much to ask. Listen to it while you’re driving to the hospice! You won’t miss a beat!”
    “Get off my back,” Aaro growled. “I have enough to deal with, fending off Bruno.”
    “Oh, come on. Just show them you care. Throw them a bone.”
    “Like Bruno would be happy with a bone? He won’t be happy until I spill a couple buckets of my heart’s blood.”
    “You could have said what’s going on with your aunt,” Miles scolded. “It’s like you want them to think you’re an icy-hearted asshole.”
    Aaro hung up, without comment. He’d never meant for Miles to know about Tonya at all, but he’d been in the room with Aaro when he got the call, and the guy was a goddamn walking antenna. He hadn’t stopped nagging until Aaro had spilled it. Out of sheer exhaustion.
    That was the price he paid for having a collaborator. Things had been simpler when it was just him, in sweet solitude. And the three-car accident that had hung him up for well over an hour on the Belt Parkway was divine punishment. Chastising him for not helping the sobbing social worker. Not that she’d been sobbing when she talked to him. Spitting, was more like it. Tough chick. Like boot leather.
    After the accident finally cleared, he’d been hanging out in the long line of cars bottlenecked for the exit onto Flatbush, contemplating his sins. The cars were finally starting to move. He’d been spending the dead time staring at his phone. The multi -
    media message from Nina Christie glowed reproachfully on the screen. He was bored stiff. Might as well amuse himself by listening to the recording. Then he could call her back, let her spit at him