9. Tino
CHAPTER 9
Tino
I crack my knuckles and flex my neck then announce, “I’ll get it.”
Kenzie’s hand shoots out and grabs my forearm. Her blue eyes are round and wide. “No, you can’t! They could be dangerous.”
“Then why would they bother to knock?”
I’m not hiding in here like a fucking coward, but I’m also not stupid enough to go unarmed. Damn, we should have remembered to bring our weapons but we didn’t, we fucked up. Instead, I pick up the biggest knife from the kitchen and go to the door.
I throw it open, the knife brandished, fully prepared to stab a motherfucker, but I find myself blinking in surprise.
Fucking Santa Claus is standing on the porch. “Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”
“What the hell is this?”
For a second, I think it’s the old guy from the market, the same one Mackenzie sat on, but at a closer glance I realize it isn’t. It’s impossible to tell much about the man. His face is obscured by the fake white beard, and a Santa hat is pulled down low over his brow. His eyes look young, though. They’re definitely not the eyes of an old man.
The man frowns, his gaze flicking down to the knife in my hand. “Sorry to bother you, buddy, but my sleigh broke down on the mountain road, and my cell phone is out of juice. Any chance you’ve got a phone?”
“Your sleigh broke down? Aren’t you supposed to have reindeer?”
“It was their day off. Seriously, though, it’s my car. I need to call for roadside assistance, though if they’ll come out to me in this is anyone’s guess.” He glances up at the sky and the heavy snow falling.
I risk taking my eye off Santa for a second to glance back at the others. Mackenzie is behind Kirill and Dom. They look like her bodyguards standing there.
I nod. “Yeah, we’ve got cell phones, but you’re not coming in.”
Santa stamps his feet and rubs his gloved hands together. “Seriously? It’s freezing out here.”
“Yeah. I’m deadly serious.”
“People die in this weather,” Fake Santa insists.
He’s being dramatic, which makes me suspicious. “You look like you’ve got plenty of padding to keep you warm.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s still not enough.”
“You can wait on the porch,” I tell him.
I’m not going to let a complete stranger into the cabin. I don’t give a shit that he’s dressed like Santa.
But a feminine voice comes from behind me. “We can’t just leave him out there to die, Tino.”
I glance over my shoulder at Kenzie. “Yeah, we can. If this is the same asshole who was peeping in at us a minute ago, we can definitely leave him to die.” Not that he’s going to die; he can sit in his damn car if needed.
The fake Santa stamps his feet again. “I wasn’t peeping in at anyone. I just walked up to the door. Look, you can see my footsteps in the snow. I came straight from the road.” He holds up both gloved hands in defense. “No silly business, I swear.”
I glance past him, and, sure enough, there’s a clear trail of his footsteps leading from the mountain road to the front door of the cabin. If he’d walked around the place to see inside, we’d be able to tell. Mackenzie has been kind of spooked about being at this place, but I can hardly blame her. She’s been through a lot, and there’s still some trauma she’s working through.
“How did you even know this cabin was here?” I ask, still suspicious.
He points up. “Saw the smoke from the fireplace. Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble. I just want to make a call and have somewhere warm to wait for help, so I don’t freeze to death. I don’t really think that’s unreasonable. You seem like—” his gaze flicks over my size and tattoos, and then over to Kirill with his piercings and Dom looking like he’s about to murder someone "— nice people.”
“Let him make a call,” Mackenzie says.
I fish my cell from my pocket and check the screen. There’s no service, but we have Wi-Fi in the cabin, so we can use that to make a call. “Anyone know what the cabin’s Wi-Fi code is?”
I use the search option on my phone to try to find it, but nothing shows up.
I frown. “This place has Wi-Fi, right? We double checked when it was booked.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Dom says. “I wouldn’t have come here if we didn’t have a way of Nataniele getting in touch with us.”
“Then why the fuck is nothing coming up?” I say, unease shifting inside me.
“Where’s the box?” Dom asks. “It must be somewhere. Perhaps it’s just been unplugged or switched off?”
He leaves Kenzie’s side to look for it.
I grasp that hope. The cabin isn’t that big. It will be easy enough for us to find.
“Umm, guys.” Dom stands straight, holding the end of a lead. It looks like it’s been chewed though. “I’d say this place had a visitor when it was standing empty. Raccoon, maybe, or a rat.”
“A rat?” Mackenzie exclaims. “There are rats?”
Dom shrugs. “We are out in the middle of nowhere. There’s bound to be wildlife.”
“Okay, look, I’ll drive you down to the town,” I offer Fake Santa. “You can find someone to help you there.”
Dom takes a few steps toward us. “You’re not going out on your own. If you get in trouble on these roads, you won’t have anyone to help you.”
“Okay, we both go, and leave Mackenzie and Kirill here at the cabin.”
“No way,” she says. “We all go together.”
It’s going to be a tight squeeze in the car, but she’s right. Splitting up is never a good thing to do. We’ve all seen that movie.
“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.” Santa says.
I glance around. “Fuck, where are the car keys?”
Kirill strides over to look. “They should be on the side where I put them.”
I glance over at him. “Well, they’re not. Where the hell are they?”
He shuffles some items around. “I’m sure they were right here.”
“Did you drop them when you turned off the car alarm, Kirill?”
“No, I brought them back in…” He trails off. “At least, I thought I did. Mackenzie mentioned building a snowman, so we ended up doing that.”
“It’s not my fault,” she protests.
He pats himself down, checking his pockets. “Have they fallen on the floor?”
I glance around. “Not that I can see.”
“Fuck.”
I shake my head at him. “If you dropped them in the snow, we are well and truly screwed.”
“No, we’re not.” Kirill steps in, surprisingly level-headed for him. “We have plenty of supplies, and, as soon as Nataniele realizes he can’t get hold of us, he’ll know something’s gone wrong. He’s got the address of this place and will send someone to check on us.”
He’s right, and it’s perfectly reasonable, but it doesn’t help us right now, and we’ve got some random guy dressed as Santa standing on our porch. It’s definitely going to put a damper on our sex-filled weekend if we have to put up with this dude encroaching on our privacy.
If there are no car keys, we’re not going anywhere. And neither is the guy in the Santa suit.
“You’re going to have to wait in your car,” I tell him.
“You can’t be serious. It’s freezing. Even inside a car can freeze. You can’t expect me to spend all night out there.”
“Sorry, dude. You don’t have much choice. We’ll give you some blankets to take with you and something warm to eat and drink, but that’s the best we can do. You’re not spending the night here. End of story.”
Fake Santa shakes his head, his white beard trembling, and turns his back on us, as though he’s disappointed in the outcome. I don’t give a fuck if he’s disappointed. He won’t die if he waits in his car until morning…at least, I don’t think he will.
But then he reaches inside his red padded Santa suit, and, from its depths, pulls something out. Metal glints, and my stomach drops. He whips back around, facing us, and holding the dark length of a shotgun.
He grins, and it holds a truly nasty edge. “I suggest we rethink the plan.”