Jess
After Thorn had caught me with Emmanuel in the lobby, I knew I should stay put in the room. In fact, I was lucky that Thorn had left me alone again, despite the fact that I'd called Emmanuel the previous day. I might have expected him to tie me up or otherwise ensure that I didn't go anywhere while he was gone this time. But he was surprisingly courteous about it.
I suppose he knew I didn't really have much of a chance to escape. I had no way to get home now, not without Emmanuel's car to drive me, and anyway, I knew Thorn would just find a way to track me down if I tried to run. As much as the thought of that thrilled me, in some ways, I knew better than to try.
But I was going stir-crazy stuck up in the room. Finally, around mid-afternoon, I decided there couldn't be too much risk in my going out to lunch.
There was a dingy little diner not too far away from the hotel, and I chose that as my destination. It was kind of nice to be on my own for the first time in days, relaxing, even. The food wasn't great, but I didn't even really care at that point.
I finished up and glanced at my watch. About time to be getting back to the hotel so I could make sure and beat Thorn back there. I had left a note for him on the bedside table so that he would know I had just gone out for food, but I also sort of wanted to beat him back there and maybe not tell him that I'd gone out at all. I didn't think he'd be too happy with me, regardless of how innocent it was for me to go out to eat lunch on my own.
There were a couple people standing around the lobby when I returned to the hotel, but I thought nothing of it. They were probably just waiting to check in. I glanced over and it didn't look like there was anyone at the desk at the moment. I rolled my eyes, hardly able to believe the lack of service at the place. Thorn really knew how to pick them…
I was most of the way across the lobby when the gunshot rang out. I didn't really know how I recognized the sound as a gunshot. It could have been a car backfiring or ... well, I didn't really know, but I wasn't the type to watch crime shows or anything like that. (Funny, that that should be what was going through my mind, when there was clearly so much more that I should be thinking about.) Then again, it made sense that my nerves would be on a hair trigger given everything that Thorn had told me lately.
Instinctively, I dropped to my belly on the linoleum floor, hands up over my head as though that would do anything. There was nowhere to really duck for cover, though. I didn't even know where the bullet had come from. But when I glanced to the right, I saw where it had landed. One of the security guards was slumped there against the wall, bleeding from a hole in his chest. He was clearly dead.
The clear, clicking sound of someone walking in high heels reverberated throughout the lobby. I rolled over and stared up at the woman striding towards me, a gun held in her outstretched hand, the barrel pointed straight at my heart.
“Jessica Harper,” the woman said, rolling my name around in her mouth. She grinned a little, cocking her head to the side. “You definitely don't look like the type of woman who would get involved in all of this, but I suppose that's why they're worried about you running to the authorities, isn't it?”
I wanted to respond but found that I couldn't; I could only stare dumbly as the woman crouched down next to me, reaching out to stroke the barrel of her gun down my jawline.
“You seem to have gotten in over your head, my dear, as has Thorn, if we're being honest.” She shook her head. “But if Thorn doesn't uphold his end of the bargain? Well.” Her eyes flicked over towards the security guard; the meaning of her words was clear.
I shook my head, though. “I can't make Thorn deliver the packages,” I said, my voice barely audible. My throat felt dry; my tongue thick and unwieldy.
The other woman laughed. “Well, you'd better see what you can do about that,” she said. “After all, I wouldn't want to have to come after you. You're too pretty for me to kill, and I hate killing innocents.” She paused. “Not that you really qualify as that anymore.” The woman stood up and finally put her gun away. “Make sure Thorn delivers the package on the schedule that he agreed to,” she said, her final, unspoken warning hanging in the air between us.
Then, the woman turned and tapped her way out of the lobby.
I took one last look at the security guard before fleeing to the room I was sharing with Thorn. I knew I needed to call the police and report what had happened. Someone was bound to find the security guard lying there in the middle of the lobby, and there was bound to be some sort of video surveillance showing what had happened.
Even though I hadn't really been involved in that shooting, I knew there would be questions to answer: why hadn't the woman killed me as well? What was the woman talking about, when she said that Thorn had to deliver the packages?
I was honestly a little surprised that the woman, whoever she was, had been so bold—even I could tell that she had just jeopardized the whole package delivery, just for the sake of scaring me.
Unless… Suddenly, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut that there must be more to the story than what I'd seen. The Sigma Saints were smart, and there was a reason it had been so difficult for the authorities to put Katia Sin behind bars in the first place. Either the woman gunman herself or someone she was working with must have compromised whatever video evidence there might have been. They must have dealt with the receptionist. The only living witness to what had happened was the gunman herself and...me.
I swallowed hard, sitting on the edge of the bed as suddenly the world began to get fuzzy around the edges. The thing was, I had known that I was involved in something dangerous, but I had kind of refused to realize just how dangerous things were. But I had become another pawn for the Sigma Saints; they were using me to get to Thorn.
And suddenly, I realized that there were other pawns involved in this too. There were ways that they could force me to act, other than by threatening my own life.
They could go after Brent.
For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick. I had my phone out and was dialing his number before I remembered that my phone was dead at the moment. Frustrated tears sprang to my eyes, and I moved over across the room to use the hotel phone, praying that he would still pick up a phone call from an unrecognized number.
The phone rang twice before Brent's voice came on the line. “Hello?”
I practically sobbed with relief. “Brent,” I said, pressing the receiver tightly against my ear. “Brent, listen to me. You have to get out of town, okay? Just for a little while, just until I can make sure everything's okay for you. I just—I've made a big mistake. I wanted to be more adventurous, but this...”
“What's going on?” Brent asked sharply. “Are you okay?”
“I'm okay,” I said, although my voice shook, and I was sure he could guess that I was in tears. “I'm not hurt,” I amended. That was a bit more believable. “But there are some people ... I've got tangled up in this thing with the ... with the Sigma Saints. With Katia Sin. You need to leave town for a little bit, so I can make sure—”
Brent interrupted me swearing loudly on the other end of the phone. “You did what?” he asked, his voice incredulous. “Jess, the Sigma Saints are—” He cut off, swearing more. “It's this guy Thorn, isn't it?” he growled. “I knew he was bad news. I didn't want to say anything because you know I was happy to see you with someone other than Emmanuel, but—”
“Forget about that all for now,” I interrupted. I sobbed, unable to help it. “Brent, you just have to get out of there, okay? I'm afraid they might come after you, and it would kill me if you got hurt because I let myself get mixed up in all of this.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “You need to go to the police, Jess. You know that, right? Just go to the police and—”
“I have to go,” I interrupted as someone swiped a room key. I held my breath as I hung up the hotel phone, staring with wide eyes at the door. What if it was that woman back again? What if they had made the decision to just kill me, because I was too much of a liability? What if...
But it was Thorn who stuck his head in the room and then entered slowly. “Jess?” he asked, coming inside and shutting the door behind him. “What the hell happened down in the lobby?”
I got to my feet and flung myself into the man's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. I knew he was the last person I should be turning to for safety, but he was my best option at the moment. I clung to him, shaking in fear.