Iris’s POV

A sound pulls me out of sleep. I lie in the dark with my eyes open, trying to figure out what woke me.

I'm a light sleeper. Always have been. The kind of woman who keeps pepper spray in three locations and a baseball bat behind the bedroom door because I live alone in a city where a serial killer the media calls ‘The Phantom; has murdered six women in two months.

I check my locks three times before bed, and I took a self-defense class in January that taught me to go for the eyes and the throat.

All of that almost means nothing when I hear...