I gulped, my heart palpitating as his pair of almond green eyes fell on me. He radiated nothing but cold ruthlessness, sending me into distress. I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but I couldn't.
From the luxurious speaking room, I knew he wasn't an ordinary person. Just from the bedroom of the hotel was speaking richness in loud volumes: two sets of largely sized beds, a golden chandelier dangling from the ceiling.
Everything was dazzling in wealth.
I snapped myself back to reality. I couldn't just let him ruin the second chance I was given. I had to get away from him alive, I closed my eyes thinking of any possible distraction. And when I couldn't, I surrendered.
"Let go of me first, and I will tell you." I didn't know when I started to negotiate with him. "Violence isn't the best answer you know. We could settle it like the matured, responsible human you are."
"Excuse me?" His eyes narrowed, lifting my jaw with his index finger. "You are not so good looking to seduce me either, I don't trust you. You came here for something else." He scoffed, leaning into me.
I rolled my eyes, wishing to shove a mirror at him and yell to his face that he was nothing near my type of man. I ignored the itchy feeling of retorting his statement.
I'm not beautiful?
He must be kidding!
I laughed out loud and he stared, his mind pondering on the reason for my laughter. His muscles pressed against me, his hot breath on my forehead. "Do you think I am playing with you?"
"No, not at all, I just remembered something funny."
"So you have a brain to remember something? So use that same brain and tell me why you are in my room. I will give you just two minutes." To prove he was serious, he brought a golden watch from his robe pocket and set the timer.
I peeked into the watch to see the Rodriguez Group signature logo on it, and I was drawn back.
"So I was truly taken back to eight months ago?" I said internally, analyzing the frame of the watch.
The Rodriguez Group was a company at its peak eight months ago. A jewel company competing with other companies, and still topping bars against them. Precisely a month from now, a new jewel watch made from premium gold was released, and seeing it on his hands confirmed it.
She was really eight months back in the past.
"Let me take a good look at it, can I?"
"Are you even worthy to look at such expensive items?" He retorted in a mocking tone. I sighed, wondering if I should tell him I was the one who made that watch.
Yes, I was the one. This was my very first project when I was elected as the acting chairman of the company. In fact, it was a project that would determine who would stay in the company as the chairman and the person who'd be demoted.
Everything that happened in the future all depended on this watch! Had I known Melissa's trick, I would have never given her the blueprint to make the watch.
"Enough of diverting from the situation, why are you here?" I shivered under his touch; his fingers were icy. As soon as he was about to grip me by the collar of the shirt, someone knocked on the door.
He loosened his grip on me and I used that as a chance to run from him.
"Open the door, Mr. Vale! We just want a friendly discussion." The voice echoed throughout the room. I smiled, thinking he was already in trouble. Unfortunately, his face didn't change. It was even cloudier than before.
I looked at him and he held my mouth from speaking. I could sense something odd from the chilly ambiance. He walked to the wardrobe room and came out, wearing his shirt and trousers and grabbed his tuxedo jacket from the bed making way to the closet room, which was on the opposite side of the room.
Everything was wrong about his change of mood and then the person who kept on knocking non-stop. "What's going on? Who are they?" I asked, fearing something was happening without my knowledge.
"Keep your fucking mouth shut if you still want to live! Those are serial killers. I don't know how or when they figured out I lodged here, but all I know is that, no one is living this room alive as long as they are able to barge in"
Serial killers?
My eyes widened as my guess was confirmed. Those men at the door did not have good intentions.
"What do we do? How do we get out of here?" I panicked, walking quietly to his side. He pushed me away from him and said,
"You are on your own crazy lady! I have no business with you."
"Come on, they are after you! And you put my life in danger and you say you are not responsible. You are truly something!" I raised my hands at him about to slap the shit out of him and he laughed softly, gazing unfazed at my hands in the air.
"You have some guts, young woman. Tell you what, I get you out of here and you stop whatever game you are playing there, got it?"
I exhaled, glancing at the door. From whatever they were doing to the door, it wouldn't take more than a minute to burst it open. I paced back and front, and found an open balcony. I ran outside, and looked down to see the balcony too high to jump from.
I had no choice and got ready to strike a deal with him.
"Fine, I will," I took out my hand, stretching it for a shake.
"I don't shake hands with sluts." He grinned, dragging me into the closet, he closed the door and tapped on a small hidden button on his left which opened another passage on the wall. "This way," He pointed into the unending dark room, and I cringed in terror.
I moved back slowly, rethinking striking a deal with him and before I knew it, the door burst open with a loud banging sound.
"Get him here, dead or alive!"
"Get the fuck in here!" He shouted, pulling me by my right hand into the small passage. I lost balance due to the force he pulled me with and landed on top of him, the secret passage closing up.
There was hardly any distance between the both of us. I bit my lips, staring into his green, almond eyes, my hands plastered on his broad chest.
Irritatedly, he pushed my hands off and yelled.
"Would you stop staring and get off me? You are so heavy!" He held onto a strand of my hair and lifted me off him. I scoffed in ridicule, and dusted myself off.
"What next and where are you going?" He ignored me completely and kept moving eastwards.
I stopped, admiring my surroundings. The previously dark tunnel was lit by a white dim light radiating from the bulb above. I turned my back and only then did I realize that I was the only one there and he was nowhere to be found.
I gazed back to find the tunnel completely shut, and looked in front to see a smooth trail and at its end, divided into two trails, one to the left and the other to the right.
"Hey, you can't leave me here with those hooligans there!" I yelled, my voice echoing in the tunnel.
"Can you stop screaming?" He yelled, walking backwards to come and get me. He gripped my hair and dragged me into the trail on the right, dragging me till we got to the exit.
"I have helped you escape. You are on your own from now on,"
"Just like that? Whoa, they never taught you manners!" I dusted his fingerprints off my shoulders, and straightened up the crumpled part of the shirt.
"A lecture on mannerism is coming from a stranger I met half naked on my bed. I should really look up to you more often," Sarcastically, he added.
"Behave yourself or I will bury you here."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Mr. Vale, this way..." The man waiting at the end of the tunnel said, and he gave an aid to lift him up, and then gazed at me. "Who is she?"
"Just an annoying pest! Collins, get the car. My location was spotted and they are after me. It wouldn't take three minutes for them to catch up to us."
"How is that possible? There is a spy somewhere." He gave me a stern look, and continued. "Are you sure it is not her? Should I take her in for an investigation?"
"You misunderstood my presence here! I am just a passerby!" I laughed awkwardly, retracting backwards.
As expected, his assistant did not wear much of a smile. His face was exactly the same moody shit like his boss.
"Ignore her, get me out of here," He said, as Collins collected his tuxedo suit and led him to the private parking lot. He cast me a glance and then left just like that.
"Wait…who was going to bring me out of this tunnel?" I wondered and before I knew what was going on, I heard a gunshot and angry roars of the men from the outside of the tunnel. I climbed out of the tunnel, spotting the car which they might have entered, driving out of the parking lot.
Instantly, I took to my feet, running directly to the car. I stopped in front of the car, and knocked on the window, pleading that they would be so kind as to let me in.
"Is there anything you want?" He wined down the window glass, placing the magazine on his laps. "If not, leave the road unless you want to be killed."
I rolled my eyes again. This man really had a talent for threatening people with death, I reckoned and pouted my lips acting cute.
"Can you give me a ride…?"
"No…" He declined quicker than I thought, and I coughed in embarrassment. No man has ever rejected my request faster than he just did now. I began to wonder if my beauty waned over the months.
'I truly need to up my game!' I noted mentally and continued speaking, "At least a ride! How am I supposed to fight off those bad guys on my own?"
"Don't care, I don't care…"