Chapter Eleven
Arianna
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I TOOK A DEEP BREATH and did my best to work out what I was going to do next. As the man glowered at me from the other side of the door, I did my best to contain myself. Freaking out wasn’t going to help. I needed to stay in control.
Okay. What kind of character could I put on to scare these guys away? They were clearly armed, and I doubted they were exactly nervous if they had stalked in here without a second’s warning, but perhaps I could convince them they had fucked it up and they needed to get gone.
“There’s someone in there,” the man barked to his companion, and I winced in fear. Grabbing a towel, I wrapped it around myself and hoped I could sell this. I delved deep inside of me, searching for the fortitude I could use to get out of this – or at least get to the gun in my purse.
“Excuse me, what’s going on?” I called back through the door, trying to sound as irritated as possible. “I told housekeeping I don’t need anything until the—”
“Get out here!” The man yelled back to me, cutting me off.
“I’m not dressed,” I protested. “If you think you can get a look at me while I’m—”
“I don’t care,” The man growled, and I tightened the towel around me and made sure it wouldn’t slip. I wasn’t going to give these guys a show, not for free, at least.
I pushed open the bathroom door, trying my best to keep up my air of annoyance rather than fear. They needed to believe I was just any other guest at this hotel, and any other guest at this hotel would assume they were security from the building come to the wrong room.
“Excuse me, please could you explain what you’re doing here?” I demanded. “I have a meeting first thing in the morning, and I don’t need some security guards crashing around in the middle of the—”
Before I could get another word out, one of them turned and struck me hard in the face with the back of his hand – I crashed into the bed, pain jolting through my head, and tried to catch my breath.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he ordered, and I felt my heart thrumming in my chest. Shit. Okay. So they weren’t exactly averse to causing some serious damage if they wanted to. I couldn’t let them see how scared I was. I had to pretend that this had come out of nowhere for me, even though I was sure they were there looking for Dean.
What if they recognized me from the hotel? They might, but our interaction had been so brief I was sure I would be able to get away with it. My purse was just over the edge of the bed, and I doubted they had spotted it – if I could just get to it, I might be able to get to my gun. I had no idea how long they would give me to use it, if they would take me out the first chance they got, but I needed to have something in between us right now. There was no way I was going to allow them to just take what they wanted. They couldn’t storm into my room, assault me, and act like they were going to get away with it.
“Any sign of him?” one of them asked the other, and he shook his head curtly.
“Nothing.”
“Who exactly are you looking for?” I demanded, exasperated, doing my best to keep up the pretense that they were getting in the way of my beauty sleep. I was terrified, but terror was usually what helped me make my sharpest calls. It was easy to play the part you needed to when not doing so would get you killed.
“I will call your manager and make sure he knows what you did to me,” I continued, speaking quickly, covering for the slow movement I was making on the bed towards the gun. If I could just get to it, I could at least have something to protect myself – I wasn’t sure exactly how good a chance I would have at getting the shots off before they did, but at least I would have something I could use to deflect their attack.
“Shut the fuck up,” one of them growled to me again. It was clear I was pissing them off. Sometimes being as irritating as humanly possible was the best weapon against this sort of chaos.
My eyes were pinned to my purse. Just a few feet away. If I could lean down without them noticing, I would be able to grab the gun, aim it at them, and then...
All at once, the man rounded on me once more, his hand raised. I wasn’t sure if it was the way I had been talking to him, or rather the fact that I just wasn’t who they were looking for and that caused him no end of irritation.
But his companion grabbed his arm before he laid another strike on me. Okay, that was a good sign – not just because it saved me getting another black eye, but because it meant they thought I didn’t have anything to do with this. They would have been beating the ever-living shit out of me if they thought I had something they could use, and the fact they weren’t told me everything I needed to know.
“Leave it,” he told his partner, and I pulled my knees up to my chest, playing at the terrified innocent. If I could just get them to leave this room, I would be safe. I hoped this would be the end of it, that whatever fleeting involvement I’d had with Dean wouldn’t be enough reason for them to come looking for me in the future. I just needed them to leave me the fuck alone. I had nothing to do with the mess he was in, no matter what they seemed to think.
“The intel must have been wrong,” he continued, shaking his head. “He’s not here. We can check other rooms, but...”
He glanced over at me, clearly concerned I was about to leap up and call the cops the first chance I got.
“I don’t think we have much time.”
He turned his back on me, and I slowly, slowly reached down to my purse. No way was I going to risk not having my weapon in hand right now. I needed to be able to do what needed to be done – I was going to shoot them both, right then and there, if I had to. It wasn’t exactly how I wanted to play things, but sometimes you had to adapt your plans when something unpredictable happened. If I’d known fucking Dean would have gotten me here, I would have thought twice about it...well, probably. Maybe not.
I managed to ease my gun out of the bag and stuff it beneath the pillow, where I could easily grab it if the need came. Hopefully, they would be out of here soon and leave me to it – this would just be some fucked-up story I told over a few drinks, a one-night-stand gone about as horribly wrong as it was possible to go – but until I saw the back of them, I wouldn’t be able to relax. The strike he had landed on my cheek was still smarting painfully, and I had no doubt he would give me another if he thought I was trying to backtalk to him. It might be even worse now, since they hadn’t found who they were looking for.
My mind raced as I tried to listen in to what they were saying. They were here for Dean, I was sure of that, but what exactly had he done to draw this kind of attention to himself? What exactly was he into? I wished I had gotten more out of him, but he was gone now, and it was way better for me to let it stay that way. I needed to put as much space between myself and that guy as I could, no matter how good the sex had been. No fuck was worth this.