I wore dark running tights, a matte-black windbreaker, and my hair was braided tight against my skull.
At precisely 9:00 PM, I raised my right hand.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three crisp, rhythmic, unhurried raps against the hollow-core wood.
From inside, heavy footsteps bounded toward the foyer with eager, clumsy speed.
The brass deadbolt turned with a loud, oily click.
The door swung wide open.
Brad stood in the threshold, leaning against the jamb, his burgundy robe parted to his navel, a broad, triumphant grin splitting his face.
“Well, well,” Brad purred, his eyes dropping straight to my chest. “Looks like you drew the short straw, sweetheart. Come on inside, the bubbles are getting warm—”
He reached out his thick right hand, his fingers extending to grip my collar to yank me over the threshold.
The clock started.
Second 0.0 to 1.0:
I didn’t pull back. As his fingers brushed my zipper, my left hand snapped upward like an iron caliper, wrapping around his right wrist while my palm drove hard against his thumb joint, hyper-extending the carpals with a sharp, sickening crack.
Second 1.1 to 2.2:
Brad’s eyes bulged in shock, his mouth opening to unleash a roar of pain. Before the sound could clear his vocal cords, my right knee drove upward with concussive, hydraulic force into his solar plexus. The air erupted from his lungs in a wet, gagging whuff.
Second 2.3 to 3.4:
As his torso buckled forward, I pivoted on my right heel, hooking my left hip beneath his center of gravity. A classic judo hip throw, executed with the physics of a lever. Brad’s two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame was launched airborne, rotating three feet off the floor before slamming flat onto his back across the living room hardwood with an impact that rattled the picture frames on the wall.
Second 3.5 to 4.2:
Before his skull rebounded off the floorboards, I dropped my full weight onto his sternum, my right shin pinning his throat while my left hand drove a pressure point beneath his jawbone, cutting off the carotid flow to his speech centers.
