“Why did you fucking come here, Bridget?” he whispers angrily.
I shake my head, because all logic has escaped me. I’m wondering that myself.
“This is serious,” he snaps.
“They were going to kill you, Ben,” I whisper. “What the fuck did you want me to do?”
“Call me. Fucking call me. Don’t put yourself in danger like this.”
“I thought they were going to bug your phone, and then I would have been in danger anyway,” I sputter in a panic.
He shakes his head as he thinks for a moment. “At this point they are watching me, not you. They don’t know you are here… yet.” He frowns, deep in thought. “Unless they saw us just then.” He glances at his watch. “It’s 7:35 p.m., so they don’t know that the plan is interrupted yet. They won’t know until after 8:00 p.m.” He brushes his fingers back and forth over his two-day growth as he thinks. “We go back to the room.”
“What?” I frown.
“We go back to the room and you get your things and go to this hotel.” He flicks through his phone and brings up a hotel on the screen. “Go to Mayfair on Ridge—I have a booking in the name of Jones.” He retrieves his wallet and a credit card, and I read the name on it.
Marcus Jones
I frown. “You’re staying there?” I take out my phone and snap an image of the hotel.
“No, I always book a second hotel in case of an emergency. You’ll need this card to check in.”
The blood drains from my face. “Is this an emergency?”
He looks at me, deadpan. “Could say that.”
I nod frantically. “Yes, okay, okay. So, what then?”
“You wait there.”
My eyes widen. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay here as a decoy.”
“What?”
He opens the door in a rush and walks out.
I run to catch up to him. “No. I don’t want you staying here,” I whisper as we powerwalk in the direction of the room. “Come with me.” I grab his arm. “Ben, you have to come with me.”
He stops on the spot. “You do as you’re told and you get back to that hotel safely now,” he whispers.
“What will happen to you?”
“Nothing. I can handle myself. I will get there when I can.”
“How long will that be?” I frown.
“I’m not sure. If you see someone following your taxi, ask the driver to take you to the police station and run in the front doors and spit in an officer’s face.”
“What?”
“You’ll be arrested and safe until tomorrow. I can come get you from there.”
“Oh, my fucking God,” I whisper as my fingers go to my temples.
This is insane.
We arrive at the hotel room, and he reaches down to grab my hand. He squeezes it in a silent goodbye and I have literally no idea what the hell is going to happen.
He opens the door in a rush. “And the minibar is out, too. Can you restock it, please?” he asserts loudly.
“Of course, sir,” I reply in a fake accent.
He opens the fridge and starts to clang the bottles loudly as a distraction then walks into the bathroom and turns the shower on, soon returning to the bedroom.
I grab my suitcases as quietly as I can, and with one last look at each other I exit the room and gently close the door behind me. I start to powerwalk up the hallway toward the lifts while dragging my suitcase.
Holy fucking hell. What if they are up here? What would I do?
Kick them in the nuts. Okay, I can do that.
I get to the lift and hit the button three times as I look around guiltily. It takes forever to arrive.
Please, please. Come on, come on.
I look around at the empty hallway. I can taste bile in my mouth from my stomach churning so hard.
God, I don’t want to leave him here.
The stupid fuck. How in the hell did he get messed up in this shit?
I’m going to kill him myself when he gets to the hotel.
The lift arrives with a ding and the door opens slowly. I’m relieved to find it filled with people. Oh, thank God. Normal-looking people.
My heart is hammering hard in my chest as we ride to the ground floor in silence. Once to the bottom, I cross the foyer and head out onto the circular entrance way.
The concierge smiles. “Taxi?” he asks.
“Yes, please.”
He goes out onto the road and raises his arm. A taxi pulls in immediately. The taxi driver gets out of his car and opens the trunk to put my luggage in while I slink into the backseat.
He jumps into the front seat. “Where to?” he asks.
“Oh.” I quickly scramble through my phone and bring up the image. “Mayfair on Ridge.”
He nods, turns, and pulls out onto the road.
I sit in the dark in the backseat. I don’t know if I’m going to survive this trip. My heart is beating so damn hard. I turn in the seat and peer through the back window, and watch the hotel disappear.