Chapter 20 Angel
After using the gym at the hotel and swimming a few lengths in the pool, I had dinner in the restaurant and then headed up to my room.
I took a glass of wine with me, and as I curled up on the couch, I put some music on, relaxed, and watched some training tapes.
When I had had enough of routes and passes, I ended the evening with my Kindle and my wine.
Thoughts of the letter and the pictures were never far from my mind, but I’d be damned if the bastard was going to scare me anymore. So, I exercised, maintained my appetite, and tried to relax. Keeping my sense of normality was key.
As I got ready for bed, I couldn’t push the fear away completely. Lying in the dark, I stared sightlessly at the ceiling as I listened to the muted sound of downtown and the other hotel patrons moving to and from their rooms, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.
Feeling exhaustion creep up, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then, slowing my breathing down, I forced my mind and body to relax in order to allow me to sleep.
It was the cold that woke me. The unknown hardness that pressed against me, cold, unrelenting metal pressed against my throat. I jerked and hissed as I heard something rip.
“Quiet.” The whispered growl sounded too close to me, and I froze as I realized I was not alone.
The bathroom light was on, but the door was open only a little, illuminating some of the room but not me — and not the person crouched by my bed.
“Don’t speak, and don’t scream.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, and what had felt wide against my throat was suddenly sharp and pressed against my skin.
“I’ll slit your throat. Shut the fuck up.”
My body stiffened, and I lay still with fear.
“You can’t run from me, Angel,” he told me. “I’ll always find you, and when I’m ready, I’m going to ruin you.”
Tears spilled from my eyes and ran down the side of my face into my hair. I felt the blade press against me, and I whimpered as I felt it dig in slightly.
“Why?” I whispered past my fear. “Why are you doing this?”
“You deserve to suffer before you die.”
Quickly, the knife was removed, and I cried out as he struck me.
Light flared in the room as they opened the door and exited into the hotel, while I lay curled on the bed holding my cheek.
The strike hadn’t hurt, but the fear of what else this could have been kept me immobile.
Not sure how much time had passed, I was able to sit up, and as my senses came flooding back, I reached out for my phone.
With trembling fingers, I punched in 911 and then hesitated. Was this different from my tires? From lingerie? Slowly, I erased the three digits.
At recent calls, I pressed dial.
“Are you okay?” he answered on the second ring.
His familiar, demanding tone settled me. “Onyx?” I burst into tears.
Which is how he found me, who knows how much later, but it didn’t feel long. He strode into the room, finding me where I was still sitting on the bed, sniffling, and when he bent and pulled me into his hold, I went, and the tears flowed again.
I knew there was someone else with him, and I heard them talk quietly over me as I cried and cried.
Sane, sensible me wouldn’t be this vulnerable in front of him.
Them. But scared, terrified me clung to his hoodie, with my fingers curled into the material and my forehead pressed against his chest. Onyx had one arm around my waist loosely as he ran a hand over my hair.
“Hey,” Onyx said quietly to me. I felt a finger under my chin, and I kept my head down. “Balan, look at me,” he growled, and I automatically looked up.
His concern morphed to anger as he caught my chin in his hand and tilted my head to the side. “He cut you?” he demanded, and I heard the other person move closer.
“Not deep.” I recognized Cooper’s voice. “It’s dry but deep enough that she’s wearing it.”
“Tell me what happened, now,” Onyx commanded as he led me to the couch. He helped me sit down, and when he went to move away, I clutched at his hand, and with a sigh, he sat down beside me.
Cooper took the opposite end, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at either of them. My fingers pressed against my neck, but Onyx pulled my hand away and tugged on it forcibly.
“I hate waiting, Balan,” he reminded me sharply.
I actually laughed. “Fuck me, Devil, I’ve just been fucking threatened in my bed. Could you maybe just once make an exception?”
This time, it was Cooper who snorted with amusement. “I told you she’d be fine,” Cooper drawled to Onyx.
I stuck my tongue out at him, and his eyes widened a fraction before he stuck his tongue out at me. The stupidity and lightness of the moment centered me. Running my hands through my hair, I looked at them both before I fixed my gaze on a joint in the hardwood floor.
“I came back to my room after being downstairs, I watched some tape, and then I read my book. I finished my wine from dinner, and then I went to bed.” Sitting back against the couch, I drew my legs up to my chest, grateful that my shorts and T-shirt were modest, if not a little worn.
“I woke up with something cold against my throat.” I looked away from the join and glanced at Onyx, who was expressionless in front of me. “I was disoriented, and then he spoke.”
“Who is it?” Onyx asked.
“I don’t know. His voice was low. I didn’t recognize it.”
“What did he say?” Cooper asked me.
“He told me to be quiet, not to speak, not to scream.” I felt another tear slip over, and I didn’t bother brushing it away.
“I told him to fuck off,” I said, and heard Cooper grunt.
“I felt the blade move. I knew it was a knife now, and he told me he would slit my throat.” Looking over my shoulder toward the bedroom, I bit my lip.
“I think he tore the pillowcase,” I said as I turned back to them.
“I’m sure they’ve had worse,” Onyx drawled. “What else?”
“He told me that I couldn’t run from him, that I couldn’t hide, that he would ruin me.”
“Ruin you?” Cooper asked as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Not kill?”
“Um.” I thought about it. “No, ruin.”
Cooper’s attention flicked to Onyx. “Interesting?”
“Maybe.” Onyx looked at me. “What else?”
“I asked him why, and he said I deserved to suffer before I die.” Another tear spilled over, and this one I wiped away angrily.
“Why?” Onyx asked me. “Why do you deserve to die?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered as he held my stare. I didn’t jerk when his hand reached out and his thumb brushed away a tear.
“He hit you?” he asked me as his thumb pressed into my cheek slightly.
“It wasn’t hard. I think it was so he could leave,” I said honestly. With a sigh, I moved out of his touch.
“Did he touch you anywhere else?” Cooper asked gruffly, and I quickly shook my head. “Do you need a doctor?” he pressed.
“No, just my throat with the knife and his hand when he hit me,” I assured him. “I don’t even know how he got in,” I admitted. And then I looked at them both. “How did you get in?”
“I told you,” Onyx snapped. “Hotels are the fucking easiest to get into. I told you that you weren’t safe here.”
“I’m safer with you?” I scoffed.
“Obviously,” he snapped as he stood and turned to Cooper. “I told you to put a fucking camera on her door.”
He did what?
“And I did, and it got disconnected, and I was already on my way here when you called me.”
“He knows we’re watching,” Onyx mused. “I hate when people think they’re smarter than me.”
“Anything else?” Cooper asked me, and he rolled his eyes when I glanced at Onyx. “Just spit it out, at this point you’re fucked anyway.”
He ignored my glare, and I looked up at the towering man above me. “I—”
“There’s more?” he demanded.
“I got a letter in the mail,” I began, but Onyx looked so furious I stopped speaking.
He turned to Cooper, who was watching him with a knowing smirk. “I’m going to kill her myself,” he told him. “Details, Balan, now.”
I jumped at his barked command and then raced to tell him. “It was a letter and three pictures of me sleeping in my bed at home.”
“What did the letter say?” Cooper asked. “Where was it posted from?”
“Um . . .” My mind was blank. “Um . . . it had no postmark. It said . . .” I paused. “It said . . .”
“You forgot what your stalker wrote to you?” Onyx asked me with a flat tone.
“I did,” I admitted. “Running!” I exclaimed loudly. “It said the weak ran, and I was weak and I hadn’t run far enough. Or something like that.”
“Where is it?” Onyx asked through clenched teeth.
“In the drawer of my desk.”
His mobile was in his hand. “Where are you?” He turned his back on me. “No, detour.” He paused. “My office. The vampire has evidence in her desk drawer. Cooper needs it.” He hung up and turned to Cooper. “Explain.”
“The feed was fine. I have it on constantly, nothing but housekeeping and one maintenance guy, but he’s banging the maid that was here this afternoon,” his eye flicked to mine, “before she changed your sheets. Don’t worry, she brought them out afterward,” he added with a wink.
“Vampire was back in her room around nine, nothing else happened, the alarm went off at one-seventeen, which it would as soon as someone touched the camera, and then the feed went dark.”
“How long before you noticed and we were here?” Onyx said as he moved to stand at the window.
“Twenty-four minutes.”
“Too long,” Onyx muttered as he checked his phone. “You called me at one thirty-four,” he said. “You were here seven minutes later; she could have already been bleeding out.”
“You were together?” I asked them both.
“I got here first,” Onyx said, but he didn’t look at me.
“How’d you get in?” I asked him.
“I used my key.”
I swallowed and looked at Cooper, whose face was blank, so I returned my attention to Onyx. “What key?”
“The key that reception duplicated for me when I asked for one to this room the first day you checked in.” His dead stare cut through me.
“You can get into my room?” I asked as I looked between them both. “Both of you?”