“What the hell is going on out here?” Lena ran toward me across the parking lot, followed fast by Zane.

“Oh my God.” His eyes went wide at the sight of the man lying on the ground.

Guess the asshole took his failure to stab me pretty hard since he’d started crying. Or maybe it was due to his broken nose and busted balls. Hard to say.

Zane pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully picked up the bloody knife. “I’m guessing this will be needed for evidence. Goodness gracious. Wish I’d seen the bodyguard take him down. Bet that was exciting.”

“He’s the one who sent you those boxes?” asked Lena.

“Probably,” I said. “It seems likely, doesn’t it?”

Lena just blinked. “Oh, boy. Check out his cap…”

“Yeah, I saw. Guess he’s a fanatic who thinks I broke the ex’s heart or something. Hence all of the symbolism of sending me the lumps of dead bloody meat.”

“Your ex sure does have some dedicated fans,” said Zane. “I wonder if you can sue him over this for emotional distress or something. You probably can, you know? Or at least, sell your story and give a really dramatic interview. I could coach you, it’d be great. What do you think?”

I sighed. What a day. “Dude…no.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

By the time Detective Ortega arrived with a couple of uniformed officers to take our statements and drag our attacker away, a couple of hours had gone by. Sam, Adelaide, and Bon arrived to help deal with the press then Bon took Ziggy to the hospital to get his arm looked at while Sam and Adelaide escorted me home. It all happened with military-like precision. These people knew their business.

Not that I didn’t want to go to the hospital with Ziggy, but I wasn’t really given the option. Sam firmly told me that my presence there would not be a good idea. Understandable. Calls and text messages were blowing up my phone all evening and well into the night. (Apart from letting Mom know I was okay, I ignored them.) If I’d gone with him to the hospital then there’d have been a media storm there which would not have been cool. The man needed his arm stitched up, not to have the spotlight thrust on him yet again.

So I’d gone home, taken off my make-up, and changed into some sweat pants and a battered “The Cure” T-shirt that hadn’t seen better days since the previous century. It was my comfort clothing.

By this time, I felt reasonably mentally fortified enough to check out the situation on my cell. And what a clusterfuck it was. Video of the attack and Ziggy taking down the asshole had already gone viral. The thought of how close he’d come to being seriously injured kind of made me want to hurl.