"Well like I said, we can eat." Mark turned and headed back towards the kitchen. "And while we do, you can tell me what’s really going on."
"I told you. Nothing is. I knew Stan, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with me. Just a bad coincidence."
"And how did you know Stan?"
"I bought weed off him, how'd you think?" she said evasively.
"And that's it?" Dallas prompted, as he reached for the knife.
"That's it."
Dallas watched her from where he stood. He had been trained to tell when people were lying to him. And right then, it could have not been clearer that she was lying through her teeth. But he didn't care. He had a simple job to do, keep her in the apartment. It wasn't one he relished, but one he was going to do nonetheless.
Regardless of how much of a pain Cleo clearly was and how much of a hell she was going to make the next few days.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cleo could not believe the situation she had gotten herself into.
She had actually heard about the death of Stan before her brother had. When she first heard about it, she hoped beyond hope that Stan had gone and gotten himself killed via his usual drug dealings. But then she heard about the gruesomeness of his death, and knew it had to be the boss that Stan had been so afraid of. And Cleo still had the bag.
After Brian had picked her up and taken her home, she had every intention of taking the bag of cocaine back to Stan. She just ran out of time.
It had already been getting late when Brian dropped her off and she was not going to go to that part of town in the dark. She thought that the next day would be good enough. Stan could just lay low tonight, right? Take an evening off from selling. He had to know that she would find him the next day.
But the next day, she looked for Stan - couldn’t find him. She started asking around – ladies on street corners, or the occasional loiterer who looked like they may be permanent fixtures leaning up against light poles. No one had seen Stan since the night before.
Then Cleo started to feel watched. The back of her neck had prickled and she was pretty sure a car was following her. She had been lucky – a bus had pulled into the bus stop right in front of her and she had jumped on, paid her money, and then slouched in a seat three quarters of the way to the back. She could see the car still following the bus. She stayed low and changed sides of the bus. As the bus got fuller, she continued to watch surreptitiously out the windows. The bus became standing room only and as people got on, then got off, she knew it would be almost impossible for whoever was following her to know if she was still on the bus or not.
Eventually, when she looked for the car, it was gone. She stayed on the bus for another half hour; part of her too scared to get off, and part of her wanting to be sure she had lost the car. Or rather, that the car had lost her.
She so badly wanted to call her brother to save her, but she didn’t want to put him danger. The situation seemed much more deadly than she had originally thought. If her brother got hurt because of something stupid she had done, Cleo would never forgive herself. She already seemed to be responsible for one death – thinking of Stan made her shudder and a tear dropped from her eyelash. She had made such a mess of things! Now her brother was going to try to fix this. She absolutely refused to let him get involved in this dangerous situation! She had to take care of this before anyone else got hurt.
She didn't know Drax, but she was pretty sure that if she took the bag back to him, with all the drugs untouched and whole, she could smooth the whole thing out. There was no reason for anyone else to get hurt, right? It seemed very logical when she played out the plan in her head.
But, before she got the chance to go find Drax, her brother had turned up at her apartment and quite literally dragged her from her home. The whole ride to Dallas' place, he quizzed and berated her, trying to deduce what was going on. She kept her mouth shut tight though, there was no way she was telling him the truth. She would sort this out herself and everything would be okay.
But good luck doing that, she thought to herself as she watched Dallas chop potatoes. Mark had essentially given her a temporary prison sentence by taking her to Dallas' apartment. She hadn't seen Dallas in years, but she was more than aware of what he was capable of.
When Dallas had joined the SEAL's, Mark would sometimes tell her about the missions that Dallas went on, and the things he did in the field. And even when Dallas came back and joined the protection/security company, her brother was still in awe of some of the stories that Dallas told him. Saving this person and rescuing that. You would think the guy was a superhero?
But even Cleo had to admit that despite how much of a jerk Dallas clearly was, he definitely looked the part. He was gorgeous, that was undeniable, and had a great body too. Chiseled and hard. He had picked her up like she weighed nothing, as if she were a doll. She shuddered to think what he would do to someone he was actually trying to harm.
She watched him for a while longer, chopping the potatoes. The more she watched, the more she appreciated just how good looking he was. It was his jawline that impressed her the most. This was what men were meant to look like. And that was all well and good, except for the fact that Cleo wasn't used to dealing with this type of guy. Gorgeous guys, yes, but guys that were disciplined and dominant, no. She was used to using her powers of persuasion on weaker men. Men that she could control. Men like Stan.
But as she continued to watch, she realized that if she was going to escape, it wouldn’t be by overpowering him, or using her speed to quickly dart past him. He was too skilled for that – one arm alone could overpower her. No, she would have to try delving into her usual bag of tricks. It worked on most men she had met. Despite his looks, Dallas was still a man. Surely she could manipulate him?
"Is that really what you're feeding me?" she asked as she slowly got to her feet and strolled toward the kitchen.
"It is," Dallas answered simply, keeping his eyes on the potatoes.
"And what are we having with it?" Cleo continued. As she reached the kitchen bench, standing across from Dallas, she gave her hair a little flick. It was a simple move, and one that she had used to disarm dozens of men in the past. But Dallas didn't as much as glance at her.
"Chicken" he spoke again.
"No, silly," she said with a giggle. "What are we having with it? For vegetables?"
"I have broccoli," Dallas said. As he did his eyes flicked up to meet hers. But only for a second.
"Hmmm, nothing else?" she said with a prolonged sigh. She let out a long breath too, batting her eyes and emphasizing her breathing.
"I'm afraid not," Dallas said again. He wasn't going for it, Cleo thought. It was time to elevate the situation.
Cleo reached across the bench, placing her hand on Dallas', the one without the knife. As she did, she felt his skin bristle and his muscles tense. "I can't eat chicken." It was said in a high-pitched tone, one designed to make her seem weak and in need of protection. "Do you think maybe you can run down to the store and buy me some tofu? Pretty please?"
Dallas stopped what he was doing. He slowly looked up at Cleo, meeting her eyes. When they met, she battered her lashes again, doing her best to pout. She had him. She knew that she had him –
"What are you doing?" he said without a hint of emotion in his voice.
"What do you mean?" she asked innocently.
"You can cut that out," he said. "I'm not going to keel over for you and I'm not going to go out and get tofu just because you’re pouting."
Cleo let out a sigh. But it wasn't a slow and sexy one. It was one of frustration. She realized that she wasn't going to flirt her way out of this one. "Fine! But I'm not eating the chicken or the broccoli that’s floating in cheese sauce. Didn’t you know that I’m a vegan?!"
"Tough." Dallas had had no idea that Cleo had become vegan, but he couldn’t let her win this battle. She could eat potatoes.
"Look, I saw a store just down the road. I'll be like five
minutes. Do you really think that Drax is waiting in the produce section, hoping that I --" she turned quickly and began to make her way for the door, only to have Dallas step in front of her again.
"You're not leaving this apartment."
"Well what then?" She was through being flirty or polite. Dallas was as cold and stuck up as she had assumed when she first saw him. "I'm not eating potatoes and salt. And how long do you expect me to subsist on that? What if I’m stuck here for three days?! I doubt very much with your lifestyle and schedule that you have a fridge stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables. Aren’t you meant to be keeping me safe? How will Mark react if I starve to de --"
"Alright!" he exploded. "I’ll go to the store and buy some stuff. And you will stay here. Do you understand?" He realized he would definitely have to leave the apartment eventually to get food for them. It might as well be now. And after that, they would be staying in his five hundred square feet of space until Mark came to tell him that he was a free man again. That moment was looking better and better to Dallas, already more aggravated than he had been earlier that day dealing with Beatrice.
"Perfect!" Cleo beamed, batting her eyelashes as she did. She then fell onto the couch, spreading herself out comfortably. "And can you buy some avocados too? And make sure you get the sprouted tofu."
The glare he offered her couldn't have been colder. But she didn't care, her plan had worked perfectly... or at least it kind of had. But to her dismay, before Dallas left, he stalked to his bed, fell to his knees and pulled from under it a power drill and what looked to be a large lock. He then opened the front door and literally drilled the lock into the doorframe.
"What are you doing?"
"Locking the door from the outside," he said as he attached the lock. "You didn't think I was going to trust you to sit here and wait, did you?"
"No, but I..."
"Sit tight. I'll be back in ten minutes." Finished, he threw the power drill inside the apartment and closed the door. If there was any doubt to what he was doing, it was dashed the moment Cleo heard the distinct sound of the lock clicking shut on the other side of the door. She was trapped.
Cleo though, always the optimist, still tried to give the door a quick pull anyway, just in case it was all a ruse. But of course it wasn't and the door was locked tight.
Dammit!
But she couldn’t let that stop her, she thought. She had the apartment to herself and was determined to find a way out. Once she did she could go to her apartment, get the backpack and give it back to Drax. This whole thing could be over before the night was done.
Cleo looked around to find an alternate escape route. Only one window and it was tiny, and of course it had bars on it, so that was a no go. Frustrated, she looked down, as if hoping the floor would magically open up and give her access to the sidewalk two stories below.
Then her eyes lit up. Yes!
A few minutes later, she was squeezing through the apartment's only window. It sat over the bed, had bars on it and was so small that even Cleo could barely pull herself through. But she got there in the end. The bars had come off pretty easily – especially with the help of the power drill that Dallas had been so kind as to show her. And once she was out the window, she simply scurried down the two stories using the drain pipe and landed safely on the sidewalk. Simple.
--
Cleo couldn't have lived further away from Dallas if she had tried. By car it was a simple ten minute drive, traffic dependent. But on foot it was a solid thirty minute power walk. She would have taken the bus, but she literally had zero dollars on her; her brother hadn't been kind enough to let her grab her wallet when he yanked her from her apartment. As such, by the time Cleo reached her place half an hour after leaving Dallas', she was puffing and covered in sweat.
Her apartment building was a far more modern one than Dallas'. It was the type where one actually needed a key to open the lobby door. And even when you had that, one needed the key to start the elevator and go to a specific floor. Luckily for her, a neighbor who lived just down the hall was walking up to the building at the same time as Cleo so she was able to walk right in with her.
It was because of all of these safety measures that Cleo didn't even consider the possibility that someone might be at her apartment waiting for her. Until she saw that her door was cracked open. Her heart rate hit the roof. She tried to casually say goodbye to her neighbor, not wanting to alert anyone to the danger she may have brought into her building. God, she felt so stupid!
Her neighbor entered her own apartment and Cleo went slowly down the hall, not sure what to do. She didn’t even have her cell phone on her! For some reason, that was the moment that she realized that she didn’t even have her key to open her apartment door. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of that important little detail before. Or even why she thought of it now, when it obviously didn’t matter anymore.
She crept slowly forward, trying to be silent. When she got to her apartment door she listened carefully, with her ear pressed up to the slightly ajar door. Nothing.
So she carefully pushed the door slightly wider. Still nothing. She poked her head in and gasped at the mess. Her stuff was thrown everywhere! Every manner of drawers and cupboards had been emptied onto the floor, her sofa cushions were shredded, and pictures that had been on her walls were now on the floor. The furniture was still standing, but that was it. She vaguely wondered if the perpetrators hadn’t trashed the furniture because of the noise it would cause in the apartment.
Without even realizing she had done it, Cleo stood up and stepped into the apartment, tears lining her eyes. Her stuff! Her beautiful things. Mostly ruined. A sob escaped her, but then she froze, realizing that she may not be alone. She hadn’t heard even a creak since she had entered the apartment, but she wasn’t sure. She sucked up the tears and carefully peeked from her entranceway into the kitchen on her left. She already knew the living room was empty. She glanced in the bathroom as she passed it, sure now that she was truly alone. A deep sadness and then fear nearly overwhelmed her. What was she going to do?
No matter what, she realized she had to hurry. She knew Dallas would be there soon. She was pretty positive that he didn’t know where she lived since she had just moved into the apartment two months ago. And she knew that Dallas wouldn’t call her brother. He wouldn’t want to worry Mark without cause. She was sure he would find out her address on his own and just assume that he could come and collect her and lock her back up in his place.
Her bedroom was isolated down the end of the corridor, coming off the kitchen. She stalked down it, still doing her best to be sneaky, just in case. Her only hope was that whoever had been searching her apartment hadn’t found the backpack. If she could still be the one to return it to Drax, then maybe she could use it as a bargaining tool to get herself out of this mess.
When she reached the end of the corridor, and opened her bedroom door, she let out a sigh of relief. Although the thugs had searched her bedroom too, she could immediately see that they hadn’t found her hiding spot. Her clothes were strewn out of her closet, leaving it empty, but the rug inside the closet was still intact. She ran right to the closet, dropping to her knees, and peeling back the rug. Then she pulled up the “trapdoor” that she had found shortly after moving in. The only sign that the little hidden space was there, had been that the rug in the corner of her closet had curled back. She was going to try to fix it with glue, so she peeled it back to apply the flooring glue. That’s when she had found the hidden compartment. She wasn’t sure what the previous owner had used it for, but it was empty when Cleo had moved in.
The backpack was tucked safely inside. She pulled it out quickly, ready to run. She wasn’t sure where exactly, but she knew she had to get away before Dallas found her.
"So that's where it was," a deep voice spoke behind her.
Cleo felt the blood drain from her face. Still on her knees, she stayed where she was, quite literally frozen in fear. The voice was u
nfamiliar, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that he wasn't a friend.
"Me and Boris tried for an hour to find that thing. Couldn't for the life of us. Isn't that right, Boris."
"That's right, Sven," another, equally menacing voice spoke.
"Glad you came along though. Drax would have been more than upset if we went back empty handed."
"Listen," Cleo said as she slowly got to her feet and turned around. "This isn't what you think --"
"Sure it is," Sven said. Sven was exactly what his voice indicated him to be. He was big, burly and bald. He wasn't big in the same way that Dallas was though. Rather, he was rotund, with a huge stomach, a double chin and a round head the size and shape of a basketball.
"Seriously. I was going to --"
"Save it," Boris said from behind Sven. Boris was similar in height to Sven. The biggest difference was that he was more muscle than fat. He wore a tight shirt that showcased the thick muscle of his arms and chest. "Give us the bag."
"Yes!" Cleo blustered, handing the bag to Sven who snatched it from her hand. "But seriously, you have to understand. This whole thing is a mistake. I didn't mean to take the --"
"I said save it," Boris said again. "We didn't come here for excuses; we came here for the bag."
"So..." Cleo attempted in an off the cuff manner. "We can call it even and..."
"Drax didn't give us orders for you, except to say that we could do whatever we had to do to get the bag back," Sven said as he opened the bag to look inside. "He didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come back here though."
"Great," Cleo beamed, doing her best to turn the charm on. Of course it was hard as she was very aware of how vulnerable her situation was. "How about we call it even and --"
"How about we don't," Sven said. He tossed the bag back to Boris who caught it. "The way I see it, is Drax don't know you're here. No one does. The way I see it is you're like a tip... a reward for a job well done."
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