Chapter 3 #2
Her grateful but still very leery eyes meet his but she doesn’t say anything and neither does he.
He just grabs the bag of ice and holds it to her shoulder.
After a few seconds, he grabs the towel, drapes it over the ice bag and her arm, then creates a sling by tying the ends of the towel together over her other shoulder.
Their eyes lock again and she tries to figure out this conundrum of a man.
He obviously drugged me and took me from the apartment. He tied me up in this damn basement but he’s doing this. He’s tending to my wound, taking care of me, but why?
Everything about this moment is contradictory. He’s doing the total opposite of what she first thought when she opened her eyes, confusing the hell out of her. A myriad of questions run through her mind. However, only one makes it off her lips.
“What are you gonna do to me?” she asks.
“Make a call so you can go back to Miami,” he reveals.
“Miami? Back? I’ve never been to Miami,” she says adamantly.
“Alright. Bet,” he says dismissively. “We can pretend like that’s true but you’re going back. I was hired to do a job, find you and notify him, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“And you clearly have the wrong fucking person. I live in Atlanta, Georgia and just flew in this morning. The last time I was in Florida was over ten years ago and I was nowhere near Miami then. Either you’re lying or the person that so-called hired you is,” she spits.
“Let’s see,” is all he offers before turning and walking toward the small, wooden, carved table in front of the sofa.
“Just untie me and let me go. I promise I don’t even remember what you look like,” she says, lying.
Of course, she knows what he looks like.
He’s handsome as hell. When he was caring for her shoulder, as much as she hated it, she couldn’t help but take him all in.
She quickly dismissed his rich chocolate skin and the inked art on his neck visible under his hoodie, his chiseled chin and perfectly trimmed beard, thick, jet-black eyebrows covering his beautiful eyes that slightly droop on the corners.
He’s gorgeous but she pushes that fact out of her mind because she encountered many handsome monsters in her past. Outside beauty often masked cold, blackened hearts and souls.
After grabbing the folder from Marcelin off the table, Akeem steps back toward her. Instead of standing or kneeling in front of her, he drags one of the dining chairs closer and sits next to her.
“Did you hear me? This is a mistake. Just let me go,” she repeats.
While shaking his head, Akeem opens the envelope and pulls out the photographs.
He places all three in front of her. Closely, he examines her face for any reaction or flickers of recognition in her eyes but she doesn’t give him anything, nothing.
Stone-faced, she briefly glances down then back up to him.
“That’s not me,” she proclaims with so much confidence that for a split second, he’s inclined to believe her.
The face and eyes don’t lie. This is her.
“So, this isn’t you?” he asks condescendingly as he taps the photograph of her at a restaurant. She’s dressed in a body-hugging black dress and standing in front of a rose wall with neon lights.
“No,” she says adamantly.
Pointing to the middle picture of her on a yacht, hair and dress blowing in the wind, he asks with the same condescending tone, “And this isn’t either?”
“No, that’s not me. It’s my sister,” she proclaims and she instantly notices a deep furrowing of his thick eyebrows.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know I have a twin,” she says with a smirk.
His face reveals it all; he didn’t have a clue.
“I’m Sunjiya Daniels and that person with my same face is my twin sister, Tanjaya Willis,” she says.
His furrowed eyebrows relax but that doesn’t last long. They peak then the sides of his lips curl down. He’s heard some wild shit before but this is almost laughable.
“You expect me to believe that,” he says smugly.
“Yes, because it’s the truth. That’s Tanjaya. My sister, not me.”
“Then where is she?” he asks, and this time, her lips dip into a frown.
That’s the million-dollar question.
“I don’t know,” she admits.
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s the fucking truth. I just got here this morning. She paid for my plane ticket and even left her apartment key. I was waiting for her to get off work and come home,” she stresses.
“Where does she work?” he asks, still not buying her obviously fabricated story.
“I don’t know,” she admits, then sighs.
“But she’s your twin sister?”
“Yes. It’s complicated.”
“I think grabbing you to take you back to Miami is complicated. This sounds like some bullshit, but amuse me. Shit. We’ve got time. Neither of us is going anywhere,” he says and her bound hand itches to slap the smug look off his face.
“Bastard,” she utters.
“I’ll be that until you tell me the truth.”
“I’m telling you the fucking truth,” she snaps. Her emotions and free arm have her moving too much as she speaks and she instantly regrets it. “Shit,” she hisses from the quick reminder of her recent dislocation. “I can prove it,” she says through the pain.
“I’d like to hear this.”
“I just need my ID and phone. I have the texts from her and the ticket info on the phone and my license proves who I am.”
“I can make that shit myself,” he says.
“It’s legit but there’s more stuff in my purse. Did you kidnap that too?” she huffs, then rolls her eyes—frustrated, slightly frantic, and pissed.
“No,” he scoffs then leans back into his chair.
His eyes travel to hers and he sees the same thing in them as he did in her pictures, vacancy.
No life, happiness, or even sparks of joy, but there’s something, maybe fight.
After taking a deep breath, he rubs his beard then offers her an olive branch, another alternative besides this blatant and outlandish lie.
“If you’re running from him for whatever reason, tell me. I can and will help you.”
“Him who?” she yells.
“We both know who, Marcelin. Just tell me. I promise I can help you if you just tell me what’s really going on and why he wants you back,” he says sincerely.
Besides women and children, Akeem has no issues with executing a kill contract.
The hunt, planning the perfect location for the cleanest shot, and pulling trigger are a rush, a high no drug can match.
But when the person on the other end of his bullet is a piece of shit like Marcelin, the feeling is superb.
The truth from her can end this shit right now.
No call to Marcelin would be made. This ending would be different, which might cause Marcelin to get a hot one to his heart.
“For the last time, I’m not Tanjaya. I’m Sunjiya Daniels and I do…not…know no fucking Marcelin. I’m not her!” she says and her loud voice echoes through the wood.
Her words are loud, clear, and finite. She’s standing on this twin story.
And fuck, I’m starting to believe her, Akeem thinks as he stands.
The fact that he’s even entertaining this obvious ruse to get him to free her has him livid and aggravated.
According to Marcelin and the contents of the envelope, Tanjaya didn’t have a sibling, definitely not a twin.
She grew up in the foster system and was an only child.
Nothing she’s alleging can be found in the information he has.
“Fuck,” he grits under his breath. “Where’s your ID?” he asks, giving in and hoping at the same damn time he won’t regret entertaining her.
“At the apartment,” she mumbles.
“Where at the apartment?” he asks sternly.
“Considering you obviously drugged me, my memory is a little hazy,” she says while rolling her eyes.
When her eyes are forward, she studies his.
There’s no reaction to her drug allegation.
He clearly did it. “I don’t know. I can find it though,” she adds, praying he frees her other wrist and ankles and takes her with him.
“I’ll find it,” he huffs.
“And leave me here like this? What if I have to pee?” she screams and he sighs.
Fuck!
She has his mind and thoughts so scrambled that he’s not even thinking straight. He’s anxious to get to the bottom of this shit and plan his next move but leaving her here doesn’t make sense. Round trip from here to Crescent Falls is at least three hours.
I can’t leave her here. Fuck!
“We’ll leave in a few when it starts to get dark.
If you try anything, any-fucking-thing, I will kill you,” he proclaims. There’s no truth in his final words but he prays she doesn’t pick up on that.
She doesn’t. His threat feels real credible considering she hadn’t missed the gun tucked into his back when he stood and turned this time. “You understand?” he asks.
“I do,” she says. At her words, he heads back up the stairs but she stops him. “I still have to use the bathroom,” she admits.
Fuck. I really didn’t think this shit through.
He treks toward the small kitchen, opens and slams a few cabinets, then finds a silver stock pot. When he brings it over to her, she stares at it for a moment then shifts her eyes to his, glaring.
“You’re kidding right?” she scoffs. “What do you expect me to do with a damn pot? I have one arm in a makeshift sling, the other tied to this chair, and my damn legs are tied. How is this shit supposed to work?”
His dark eyebrows knit and the two lines on his forehead wrinkle.
After inhaling and exhaling loudly as hell, he drops the pot on the table, pulls his knife from his pocket, and cuts the ties on her ankles then her hand.
She visibly and audibly relaxes, shifting her body slightly and sighing loudly.
Instead of thanking him, she sarcastically rolls her eyes, then uses her free hand and arm to brace on the table and push herself up.
Either the residuals of the drug he gave her or the effects of being tied up have her woozy and unbalanced.
When she stumbles a little, Akeem slides his hands into his pockets to curb his natural instinct to assist her.
They remain in his pockets as she stumbles to the bathroom, leaning on every piece of furniture she passes for support.
“Fuck,” he utters lowly again. This shit is not going how he planned at all.
This was supposed to be simple: she wakes up, looks at the pictures and folds, then he hits Marcelin.
Dislocating her shoulder, claiming she has a damn twin, and now, taking her back to the apartment is a thousand fucking miles from simple.
This is complicated as shit and he doesn’t like complication at all.
Bullets are faster and don’t require all this back and forth with the mark. “Shit!”
When the bathroom door closes, he pulls his cell out of his pocket and shoots Axton a text.
Akeem: I might have a fucking problem.
Axton: What’s up?
Akeem: I need everything you can find on a Sunjiya Daniels. I’m not sure of the spelling.
Axton: Who is she?
Akeem: Tanjaya’s twin
Axton: ???
Akeem: Yeah. Checking on it now but I need what you can find. I’m not really buying it but I can’t contact him if I got the wrong girl.
Axton: Finishing dinner. Give me an hour.
Akeem: Take your time.