After taking a blow to the chin that he barely registered, he retaliated with a hard knee to his combatant’s groin, bending the other man double. A punch finished him off and his sunglasses hit the pavement, too.

Two guns and two pairs of sunglasses now littered the ground around them.

The third man launched himself onto Trace’s back, attempting to choke him from behind. He found himself flipped onto his back, and his head made solid contact with the parking lot.

To Priss’s amazement, Trace wasn’t done. He went to one knee, caught the man by the shirt front and, after flipping those sunglasses away, pounded his face with heavy fists. When Trace finished, the hapless fool was bloody, battered and out for the count.

The brutality of it didn’t faze her. Given their initial hostility—both in tone and manner—she understood what those men had intended, just as she understood why Trace reacted as he did.

It was the effortless way Trace handled them all that blew her away. The brutes got their asses handed to them, and then some.

Only fallen, groaning bodies remained of what could have been a serious threat.

Systematically, Trace went from man to man, disabling and further disarming each of them. When he finished, he stood back to survey his handiwork.

As if he’d only just then remembered Priss, he glanced back and found her standing at the rail.

She swallowed down her guilt for disobeying an order and gave him a thumbs-up signal for his success.

Now he looked furious. He pointed a finger at her. “Inside.”

Lord have mercy.

On a gulp, Priss nodded and, backing up, pretended to do as ordered. When Trace returned his attention to the men, she moved back to her vantage point at the railing and watched as he opened the back door of the sedan. Showing no signs of strain, he hefted up the first heavy thug and shoved him into the backseat without worry for any additional injury he might cause. The second brute got piled in on top.

Trace closed the door on them.

Going back to the first man that he’d knocked out, Trace kicked him a few times, not hard enough to cause more damage, but enough to bring him around and get his attention.

Jolted, the guy tried to jerk upright but crumpled on what must’ve been a bad leg.

Trace smiled as he hauled him to his feet. Leaning close, he said something low, something that Priss couldn’t hear, but it sent the man into panicked struggles.

That’s when Priss caught the glint of Trace’s knife.

Oh, wow. She squeezed the railing tighter, refusing to blink.

As the man tried to fend off Trace, a brief struggle occurred, ending with a loud howl of pain. Trace withdrew his knife, sheathed it, and shoved the cursing man behind the wheel of the car.

He slammed the door and waited. Finally, after some fumbles, the man started the car and, a little haphazardly, drove out of the lot. He hit the main road with a screech of his tires.

After the car was completely out of sight, Trace gathered up the thugs’ discarded weapons, went to his car and locked them in the trunk.

His attitude floored Priss. He behaved as if nothing out of the norm had happened.

She rushed back down the stairs and toward him. “Wow.” When he glanced at her with a frown, she said again, “Just…wow. That was amazing.”

His left eye flinched. “I told you to go inside.”

Priss drew up short at his deadly calm and eerily quiet tone. “Yeah, you did.” She tried to sound reasonable. “But if you hadn’t handled things so handily, I needed to be where I could call out to others, or make a run for it, or—”

Trace took her arm. “You and I need to talk.”

She did not like this overly controlled mood of his. “So…you have time to talk? I mean, don’t you need to get going?”

“Stop dragging your feet.”

She wasn’t…was she? Straightening her spine, Priss took the lead. Or she tried to. But Trace kept her right at his side, without a word, without even paying much attention to her. Only half under her breath, she said, “You’re being a bully.”

At the top of the stairs, he stopped to stare at her open door. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“There’s no one around.” Now she sounded defensive. Yeah, she knew better than to run off and leave the door standing wide open. “You have to admit it, Trace, I had reason to be distracted.”

He started marching her forward again. “Left to your own devices, you’ll end up dead.”

“That’s not true.” Hadn’t she already survived twenty-four years with an unpredictable madman as a father? “I’m good at survival.”

He pulled her into the apartment, closed the door and locked it.

Priss gulped. Yeah, okay, so now nervousness took over. Not really fear, because she felt certain that Trace wouldn’t hurt her. But he was just so…dangerous. In every sense of the word. His mood, his ability, his speed and strength, had all combined to annihilate three overgrown, trained thugs.

Thugs who were sent to attack him—or maybe her. Instead they’d limped away, their tails tucked between their legs, their weapons confiscated. If Trace weren’t being so unpredictable, she could almost laugh about it.

Instead, with him standing there staring at her in a fulminating rage, she squirmed uneasily.

“You showed them, huh?”

His eyes narrowed.

She clamped her lips together. God, she’d sounded like a sap. Trying for a cavalier attitude, Priss leaned back against the door. “Now what?”