34. Sienna
34
SIENNA
I cock the gun and look into Ryker’s surprised eyes. His chin drops to the ground. I close his mouth with the cold piece of metal in my hand, then motion for him to go back down.
“We’re not done here,” I say.
It takes a moment for him to comply. When he does, I step into the basement myself and pull the door shut behind us.
At the bottom of the stairs, one of the most bizarre sights I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing reveals itself.
“What the fu—” Before I can finish my question, all five of my friends start jabbering at the same time, making it impossible to understand a single word.
“Silence!” I shout and am surprised when that actually works. Everyone, even Robyn, pipes down, so I continue. “You,” I say to Ryker, “in the chair.”
Reluctantly, he does as he’s told.
“Spiderman,” I order Earnest over to our abductee. “Tie him up, but this time make sure he can’t escape.”
“Paul did the first tie,” he defends himself quietly.
“Don’t care. Just get it done.” I turn towards the rest of the avenging seniors. “What the fuck were you thinking? I thought I told you: no kidnapping.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Guy, who apparently just stepped out of a cheap heist movie, begins.
Santa Paul nods decidedly, his fake nose almost falling off his face. “I could have sworn he was ATF, or another one of those building inspectors that are up to no good.” Then he looks over to Ryker, who is still getting tied up again. “Sorry about that handsome little head of yours. It wasn’t personal.”
“Looks like what we observed wasn’t a hallucination though,” Paige interrupts and hands me a small stack of stapled papers. “This was in his briefcase. It’s the contract saying he is the new owner of Haven.”
Instead of looking at the documents, I walk over to Ryker and check his head. There’s a minor cut where his hair swirls in a little circle.
“Guy, could you please get the first aid kit from the reception?” I ask and watch as he runs off (as fast as someone his age can run) the legs of the pantyhose gently swaying through the air.
For a moment there is silence, only the leaky faucet in the corner emitting a faint drip.
This is a mess. How the hell did we end up like this?
“We should make him sign the building over to us,” Robyn concludes as she looks over the papers with Paige.
“Why not add half my fortune along with it?” Ryker’s smug voice echoes from behind us.
“And add three-fourths of his fortune,” Robyn hisses. “And then shoot him with that thing,” she points at the gun, “for betraying us.”
“Ha!” Ryker exclaims loudly as Guy returns and hands me the kit. “I didn’t betray anyone. I am not Sienna de la fucking Vega, after all.”
I put the gun in the waistband of my jeans, take the disinfectant, and liberally spray it onto his wound. “What the fuck are you on about?”
“Cut the crap, Sienna. I know.”
I dab the wound with a gauze, and once I see his condescending eyes, decide to add some more disinfectant. “Seriously, what are you talking about?” I ask as I get the bandage ready.
“I am talking about what you did…”
I am stumped..
What the hell is he saying? What did I do?
“I know, Sienna! I know!”
“Oh, yeah? You know what?” I raise my voice. “That I was the one who stole your pants at the airport? You’re a real life Sherlock Holmes. You know that I only came and worked for you to save Robyn from eviction? Genius! You know that I watched you meet Dicky to buy our home? You know that I am friends with a bunch of crazy people who would kidnap our new slumlord? You know that I was dumb enough to actually fall in love with someone like you?” I take a step back, breathing heavily, tears in my eyes. Then I pull the gun from my waistband.
Ryker watches with his mouth open as I let the barrel wander from in-between his eyes, down to his dick. He doesn’t flinch when I pull the trigger.
Drops of water rain down on his crotch, making him look like he peed himself. A second later, a worried sigh escapes his lips as the tears start running down my cheeks.
“I don’t care if you kick me out, you bastard, but you can’t evict those idiots.” I shoot some water in the direction of everyone else. “They don’t deserve to suffer. I mean, they might deserve to suffer a little, but they don’t deserve homelessness.”
Ryker looks down on himself, then starts to giggle. A second later, the giggle morphs into a full-blown laugh that echoes through the basement. Guy is the first to join in. The rest of the bunch, for whatever reason, start laughing as well. Everyone but me.
A moment later, they’re all silent again. Ryker has escaped his ties and eagerly embraces my face, holding me in place.
“I am sorry,” he says with the biggest smile. “I am so sorry, Sienna. Can you forgive me?”
“No.” I try to shake my head but can’t.
His hands are much too strong, so all I can do is stare. His scent lingers in the air, and if I wasn’t entirely spellbound by his damned eyes, I’d probably try to knee him where it hurts the most. Instead, I let him smush my face, forcing my lips to purse.
He presses his mouth against mine, causing my body to lose its anger-induced tension for just a moment.
“Yes, you can,” he says with unreasonable confidence. “You have to forgive me. You don’t have a choice. I’m putting my foot down.”
“You better start explaining what’s happening or I’m putting my foot somewhere you’re not going to enjoy it.” The words come out mumbled. After another smooch, Ryker finally loosens his grip.
“I am not entirely sure yet. All I know is that you didn’t do it. I thought you did. I thought you had betrayed me, but now I suspect someone is trying to set you up.” He lets out a relieved sigh. “Yesterday, when I returned to the office, you were out… doing whatever.”
“Secret mission,” Guy whispers from behind us. “With her family…”
“And so, I went to check your calendar for where you might be. And when I woke up your computer, it was showing Ryker’s Rumors. Not just showing, you were logged in as the admin. There was a whole new article about me, written but not published yet.”
“You thought I was the one behind the blog?” I ask, with sudden pangs of anger shooting through my belly.
“I didn’t know what to think! My immediate reaction was: no way, she would never. But then, the longer I thought about it, things started to… point your way… more than they already did. I mean, what are the chances we meet at the airport and you just randomly decide to sleep with me?”
“I decided to punish you and there was nothing random about it.”
“Exactly, punish me. And then you kept going on and on about how I am the bad guy who ‘deserves exactly what’s coming to him’ . Your words, not mine.”
“Well, I can be a little impulsive and tend to exaggerate from time to time.”
“Yes, and then there was that time you threatened to make me disappear when we were at dinner with Roman.”
“Seems like a bit of a stretch, but alright, I get your point. I understand how you could maybe, possibly think that I might have had a motive.”
“And the means,” Earnest comments quietly from behind us.
Ryker chuckles and nods. “Oh, and maybe the most damning of all evidence is the fact that the article I found on your computer had a picture attached that you took.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a picture of me at the TV station in my underwear. I still remember finding your eyes in the crowd that day.”
“Where is that picture?” Paige whispers. “For journalistic reasons,” she adds.
“No way,” I say when things click in my head.
“So you can see why I would suspect you,” Ryker explains.
“I know who did it. I think I know who’s behind the blog.”
“What? How?”
“I wasn’t the only one there that day.”
“Yes, there were lots of people there, but I doubt the cable guy or Jess would do such a thing, despite her somewhat suggestive messages.”
“Wait, she sent you suggestive messages, and you didn’t tell me? Do you want me to be mad at you?”
“This was when you still hated me, besides I deleted the messages and blocked her number because I was already smitten with someone else.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Robyn says, throws her black scarf over her shoulder, and sighs. “But I’m not interested.”
“Barbara. She was there, too. Told me not to tell you because you’d be mad at her for working overtime on the weekend. Plus, she had access to my computer.”
It has to be her, doesn’t it? But why would she do this? She seemed to truly care about him.
Ryker’s gears are working overtime too, trying to make sense of the new information. “But she’s been with me from the very beginning. She’s my best employee and lots of people have access to an empty office. Why would she do all of this?”
“Yeah, well, I know this doesn’t really make sense, unless… maybe her taste in men is as questionable as mine.”
Ryker smiles, gives me a hug and places a kiss on my cheek. “You’re still angry at me, aren’t you?”
“You thought I was an insane stalker. Of course I am still angry at you.”
He swipes the hair out of my face, presses another kiss on my temple and walks over to the dusty old couch on the opposite side of the basement. Then he throws me one of the pillows that is lying on top. “Come on. Let’s settle this like adults then. Because I’m mad at you too!”
His pillow hits me on my butt and makes dust fly everywhere.
“Oh, yeah? What the hell did I do?”
Ryker points at the fresh wound on his head. “You knocked me out and then tied me up in your basement.”
I defend myself with a swing to his arm. He doesn’t move an inch, more dust swirling all around us.
“That was an accident. Paul thought you were a secret agent or something, trying to bust him for his secret booze operation down here.” I motion towards the table with his equipment.
“ATF!” I hear Paul claim from behind me. “ATF!”
“I didn’t even know about it until Earnest texted me to come to the basement… armed.”
“So no one’s making any drugs here?” Ryker’s pillow aims for my head, but I duck quickly enough and counter with a hit to his pecks.
“Depends on how you define drugs. Vodka, gin, nothing above 42 ABV, I believe. Paul was a distiller for almost 50 years, so he knows what he’s doing.”
My pillow hits Ryker square in the chest and makes him cough from all the dust coming out. I use the moment to land two more hits that make him stumble backwards. His legs catch on the edge of the couch and cause him to fall over right onto it. Without hesitation, I jump on top of him and raise my pillow for the final blow.
Predictably, Ryker has already deployed his best defense tactic. The back of his hand wipes over his face, revealing his immaculate smile.
Not this time.
I clutch the edge of my pillow, flex my muscles for the final blow and?—
“You know I love you too, right?”
For a moment, I stare at the tiny particles around us. A single beam of light shines down from the tiny window in the wall, illuminating Ryker’s face on one side only.
I do know that. I have been feeling it for a while now.
“I’m sorry I thought you were a weird stalking kidnapper. It’s just that… It’s…”
“You were expecting me to use you for a story, for your connections, like your ex?”
Ryker nods and lets his hands glide over my thighs and onto my back, carefully pulling me closer. “Can you forgive me?”
“Depends,” I say, let the pillow drop behind me, and place my hands on his chest as my face hovers over his. “Are you going to kick my friends…” I look over to where I expect the O-Team to be but only see an empty basement.
“They left when we started fighting,” Ryker explains, gently grabs my chin and pulls it towards himself. “Or making up. But no, of course not. I won’t kick them out. I wasn’t going to do that either way. You know, I had that meeting with Dicky set up almost two weeks ago when you found out about the eviction of all the residents. I was going to buy the building in case my lawyers couldn’t figure out a solution. So I’m thinking, as their new slumlord, your friends probably deserve a rent decrease. How does free sound? For all the trouble they had to go through.”
“Like kidnapping you?”
Ryker smiles. “Only fair, isn’t it? Now stop talking about the geriatric gangsters and fucking kiss me already.”
When our lips finally meet, it’s like all my worry, all my anxiety is blown away once again. I want to stay mad at him at least a little longer, but I don’t think I have it in me.
The heavy hand in my neck makes me feel secure, protected, and the hips that grind against mine cause me to get wet in an instant. Or maybe that’s the water I sprayed onto his crotch earlier, it’s hard to tell.
Ryker struggles to kick the pillow-weapon that’s wedged between his thighs off. So I grab it, hit him square in the face, and throw it away.
“Sorry, had to make sure you can’t claim you didn’t lose this fight either.”
My Ryker smiles and relaxes underneath me. “If this is what losing to you is like, then I’ll be the happiest loser there ever was.”
It takes us no time at all to get undressed. The making up part, however, takes a while. We make up on the sofa, we make up on the floor in front of it, we even make up against a barrel filled with illegal contraband.