Glancing back toward the dirty window, I gulped. “I didn’t see anything. You can put it back on. We’ll pretend that never happened.”
“Kinda hard to breathe with it on,” he said. I heard his heavy footsteps as he lumbered back into the room. The metal scrapping on the floor drew my attention back toward him, although I kept my eyes on the floor.
The metal chair from the kitchen appeared next to me, and then the man threw himself down into it with a heavy sigh. His legs were spread wide, and he had the beer bottle resting on the inside of his thigh. I struggled against the duct tape holding my hands as I felt his breath on my cheek. I refused to look at him.
“You sure are pretty. My name’s Bill, by the way. I don’t usually get this close to girls like you. All fancy and prissy. You smell nice. Like vanilla ice cream or somethin’. Nah, girls like you don’t even look twice at guys like me.”
I wondered why he was surprised. Based on the way he smelled, I didn’t think the man had showered in several days. I didn’t say anything, though, and that was when I felt the tip of something sharp against the side of my ribcage. “Didn’t your prissy mother or fancy ass education tell you it was impolite not to speak when spoken to?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Bill.” I felt the bile rise in the back of my throat even as I said the words.
“That’s better. How long have you have fucking that cocksucking bastard?” Bill’s voice was light and teasing. “You see those holds when he wraps the other fighter’s head up between his legs? That’s because he likes having a man’s mouth that close to his dick.”
The man was revolting. Again I didn’t say anything, but I felt the tip of the knife dig in a little deeper. “Six weeks,” I sputtered. “I met him right before his last fight here.”
“Ah, young love. That’s sweet.” Bill took a long swig on his beer. “See, carrying on a conversation isn’t so hard. We all want the same thing at the end.”
I heard the chirp of a phone and sighed in relief when Bill stood up to take the call. “Yeah. Yeah. Content as a kitten,” he said to the person on the other end. “Okay.” There were a few more moments of silence, and then Bill replied again, “Yeah, I got it. It’ll be done.”
Daring to glance back in his direction, I saw him grimace at the phone. Then he swigged the remainder of his beer. “Sorry for the interruption, but I guess I gotta run out and see what goodies your boyfriend has for us. I’ll be back soon, though.”
“How long as you going to keep me here?” I felt a slight ray of hope. Maybe this would all be over soon.
Bill was already next to the door with his hand on the doorknob. He looked back over his shoulder at me, and the twisted grimace of a smile held something else in it now. Menace. Hatred. Evil. “You might want to settle in, darlin’. Now that you’ve seen my pretty face, we might need to change the plan a bit. That’s the part I didn’t tell my associate by the way. We’ll keep that just between you and me.”
Then he was out the door, and I felt the pit of fear growing in my stomach again. I knew that whatever Bill said, I was in serious trouble now whether Shayne paid the money or not. Bill wanted to hurt me. I was pretty sure he wanted to kill me. I didn’t have any doubt about that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - SHAYNE
There was more jockeying at the bank that I anticipated. I had to jump through several hoops to get access to my safe deposit box. I had eighty grand stashed there that I hadn’t told Lex about. At first, it had been just because I was annoyed that there seemed to be a perception that I was a complete fuck-up when it came to my money. After I started to figure out that Lex truly wanted to help me, I just hadn’t figured out a way to tell her about it yet.
In all reality, I knew that MMA fighters had a shelf life of about six years before there were real physical issues that could begin to manifest. So I had been sticking away a few thousand here and there. It was my rainy day cushion, and now I needed every penny of it. There was another twenty grand in the safe at my apartment. It was what I affectionately called my walking around money. In all reality, it was the allowance from my UFC contract. My father was a bit of an ass in how he chose to disperse that to me.
After leaving the bank, I saw that I had a text message from Lex’s number.
The corner of Montrose and Ashland. Hotel Casablanca. Leave the package at the front desk under the name Bob Smith. Leave and don’t come back. If I see you sniffing anywhere around the hotel or trying to pull a fast one, the deal is off, and your girl is dead. Don’t be a hero.
The message was followed up by a new picture of Lex. This time, I could see her face. I was relieved to see her eyes open and that she looked relatively unharmed. But there was a blossoming bruise on the side of her temple that told me they had likely taken her by knocking her out.