The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(93)

“We really didn’t need a fucking complication with this,” he grumbled, rubbing the back of his thick neck as he shot her an accusing glare like this was somehow her fault.

Sam licked her lips nervously. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re here tearing apart my storm cellar, but I think there’s been a mistake. You have the wrong house,” she said, using the same calm, reassuring tone she used when she worked in the emergency room.

He looked around the basement and shook his head. “No, this is the right basement,” he said as he gestured to a large flat grey stone just above the small hole in the wall they’d created. Sam looked at the initials carved into the stone and frowned. She’d never noticed them before. He reached over and ran his fingers over the R first and then the T.

He tapped the spot. “I carved my marker in this rock the day we finished building this cellar.”

“Um,” she cleared her throat, trying to figure out a way to say this tactfully, “this cellar is over three hundred years old,” she pointed out.

“Three hundred and fifty-two to be exact,” the man said with an amused smile.

Okay...

“What I meant to say is that clearly you didn’t build this cellar. So, you’ve got the wrong house,” she rushed to explain when black spots started to dance around her vision. Passing out right now was not a good idea, she told herself, fighting it with everything she had as she looked him over.

He didn’t look a day over thirty, and she already knew that her grandmother had never hired anyone to work on the cellar because there had never been a need. So clearly this man had either just carved his initials into the rock before she’d spotted them, or he was insane.

She was gonna go with insane, she decided, slowly exhaling as the black dots multiplied and threatened to drop her on her ass.

He sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t have time for this. My mate’s being a bitch and won’t get off my ass until I check on something. Unfortunately, you walked in on something that you shouldn’t have seen. Granted, we would have taken care of you before we left,” he said with a careless shrug of his shoulders as she fought to process what he said.

She tried to take a step back only to have her arms yanked roughly behind her back and her hands tied together. Someone kicked out her legs, causing her to drop to her knees on the stone floor, sending sharp pain through her knees and legs.

“I’m sorry about this, little human,” the man said as he pulled back a large fist.

“No!” she cried out seconds before she was struck in the temple. She fell backward, slamming her head against the stone floor with a sickening crack as her world went black.