“Alright, this is a couple trips,” he said, rolling his neck. “You hang tight, and I’ll be right back.”
“Okey doke,” I agreed, making my way back over toward the view that suddenly looked a lot brighter and prettier now that I knew it wasn’t the only thing I was going to get to see, day in and day out.
Hearing the beep of the keycard and the turn of the handle, I started to turn back.
“Did you forget som—“ I started before the words got caught, strangled, in my throat.
Because it wasn’t Cary.
No.
It was my worst nightmare come to life.
It was Raúl.
Coming into my hotel room.
With a gun aimed at me.
And I was trapped with no way to escape.
Sure, Cary would be coming back. But he had to load the bags into the SUV, if the SUV was even here yet. And, knowing the guys, he was going to stop to talk to them for a minute or two.
Not long. But long enough. Long enough for Raúl to grab me. Or simply kill me.
I was pretty sure I would pick the latter of the two if given a choice.
It was funny, though, how different Raúl looked when I was seeing him through my free, much more worldly eyes.
He wasn’t as handsome as I’d once thought he was. He wasn’t as big or strong or intimidating either. You know, if it wasn’t for the gun.
I guess that was a perk to being around these biker guys. The kind of men you knew could rip you limb from limb when you caught sight of them from across the street.
If you stood a Raúl next to a Cary or a Dezi or a Voss, or any of the others I’d seen, and you were asked who would win in a fight, you wouldn’t even hesitate in picking any of them over him.
I guess when stripped of his fortress and his crew of bodyguards that were willing to do his bidding at any time, he was just an average man.
“You think you can leave me?” he hissed, and I wasn’t so immune to him that the coldness in his voice didn’t send a shiver through my system.
But I didn’t shrink.
The me I’d been just a few weeks ago, she would have curled into herself at the sound of his voice when he was angry.
This me, though, she just felt the shiver and lifted her chin in defiance.
“I did leave you,” I said, proud that my voice didn’t sound shaky.
I didn’t want to talk to him, but I had a feeling that I needed to bide my time, to have a chance of Cary coming back before anything terrible happened.
“Where did that mouth come from?” he hissed. “I thought I beat that out of you.”
“You thought a lot of things about me that were wrong,” I told him, digging my fingernails into my palms because the pain seemed to distract me enough to keep me from freaking out.
“You always believed you had a lot more power than you did. Did you get the gift I sent to you?” I asked, even though my stomach turned over at the memory of actually killing someone.
Raúl’s face went red at that, at realizing he didn’t have the power over me that he used to.
The hand holding the gun was shaking in his fury as he took a step forward.
“A minor inconvenience,” he insisted, trying to calm himself down, wanting to come across as cool and collected, but I knew him too well at this point. I could see right through him. “It has not stopped me,” he added.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
“You mean because of those dirty bikers stationed here to look for me?” he scoffed. “You’d be amazed how easy it is to sneak in the employee entrance. And to charm some information out of the maids, even sneak one of their room cards off their carts. You thought you’d be safe here. But there is nowhere in the world you can be safe from me.
“I wanted to bring you home,” he went on. “I wanted a few weeks to punish you for what you’ve done to me,” he said, taking another step forward. “To make an example of you to my men. I don’t think I will have enough time for that, regrettably,” he said, inching closer still, and his arm holding the gun had gotten a lot more steady, a lot less likely to miss if he decided to take a shot. “I’m afraid I will just have to kill you here. Maybe I will take a souvenir back home to show my people.”
“You always did like the sound of your own voice,” I said, mainly to enrage him, to distract him, because he’d somehow managed to miss the beep of the door lock disengaging, but I didn’t want him to hear the handle turning.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Raúl snapped, taking a threatening step forward, face and neck going red again. “You stupid fucking bitch, I—“
“Care to call me a stupid fucking bitch too?” Hope asked, pressing the muzzle of her gun into the back of Raúl’s head.
Hope.
How was it Hope?
I hadn’t seen her since the night the princesses had hung out with me at the apartment.
“Or are you not feeling so tough now that you’re not the only one with a gun?” she asked, and I maybe had a little girl crush on her right then. She was so cool, calm, collected, and badass.
“You could try,” she said when Raúl’s hand slipped to the trigger. “But you will miss. And I sure as shit won’t.”
“You won’t shoot me,” Raúl said, but he didn’t sound as confident as he usually did.
“Oh, you have no idea what I am willing to do right now,” Hope said, though it was clear to me she was stalling for time. Why, I didn’t know. She had the upper hand. But maybe she just wasn’t willing to kill someone? I had no idea. “I’m pretty sick of your entire fucking gender right now and I’m three hours late on my Midol, so you could say I’m feeling pretty fucking murderous. Alas,” she said, clearly hearing something that I couldn’t as she suddenly moved to the side as Cary charged into the room with Dezi.
The latter rushed forward to grab Raúl’s wrist, twisting it savagely. Even across the room, I could hear the crunch of bones breaking as he grabbed Raúl’s gun just before Cary grabbed a hold of Raúl and shoved him into the bathroom.
Dezi slammed the door shut, but kept himself on the bedroom side of it, acting as a sentry, as if one of us might try to rush in there.
“Took you long enough,” Hope grumbled, waving her gun at Dezi. “I didn’t have a silencer,” she explained.
That was why she hadn’t just handled it herself. Not because she had any actual reservations about doing it. She just didn’t want to create a panic among the other hotel guests, and possibly get herself caught.
“You okay?” Hope asked, moving over toward me with her cool, confident, unaffected gate. Like she wasn’t hearing the slamming noises I was hearing coming from the bathroom.
“I… ah… yes. Cary—“
“Can handle himself,” Hope said, shrugging.
“How did you…”
“I’m still on suspension,” she explained, rolling her eyes. “And I’m going a little fucking stir crazy. So I decided to think of your situation as a case. I had a hunch that he maybe never left.”
“You should—“ I started.
“I did. I did tell everyone.”
But they hadn’t told me.