“Get in the elevator, Angel, before I show you what I like to do to my restrainees down here,” he called after me.
It wasn’t until the elevator doors had closed, shutting his face out of my vision, that I realized my heart was racing, and it wasn’t from running away from him.
It was the thought of what he’d do if I stayed.
* * *
The day passed quickly, and I was fortunate not to see him again. Mid-afternoon, I gave in and called the police, even though it was unlikely that they would have anything to tell me. I didn’t think they had called Onyx yet, so I called not only to check in with them but to dissuade them from calling him at all.
I spoke to the female officer, and she told me what I’d suspected. There was little to go on, but they were going to keeplooking at it. When I mentioned Onyx, she asked me if I was scared of him. I wasn’t expecting her to be so blunt, and her forthright question stunned me for a moment.
“If you fear him—”
“No!” I blurted out louder than I should have. “I don’t. No, we have a difficult working relationship sometimes, but no, he wouldn’t do this,” I said as I thought about the Devils’justiceto Dave and his friends. Then I thought of his reference to his playroom, and I had no difficulty imagining Onyx Santo as a billionaire with a control kink. If he did have ared room of painin the basement, well, it wasn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination.
Disappointed that the police were leaning toward Onyx, I realized that meant that once they eliminated him, there were no leads.
No clues.
I needed to change my locks. Why was I only thinking about this now? A deadbolt was only secure when I wasinside.
Cursing myself for being so stupid, I found a locksmith and, willing to pay his call-out fee, I packed up my desk to meet him at my house.
“You’re leaving?” his voice drifted out of his office, and I realized he had left the door open. He never left the door open, was that for me?
“Um. Yeah, I have an appointment.”
Onyx was sitting at his desk, his arms on the surface, his shirt sleeves rolled up, a pen behind his ear. He looked like he was hard at work.
“They haven’t called me.” He must have seen my confusion. “The police,” he clarified.
He was volunteering information, that was new. “Oh, good.” I moved back a step.
“The feed has been wiped,” he said as he sat back. “I don’t appreciate someone messing with my security.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I defended myself.
Onyx dismissed my outburst with a wave of his hand. “I have improved the system.”
Of course, he had. Control freak.
“You may go,” he said as he turned back to whatever he had been reading on his desk.
Dismissed, I headed to the elevator while biting my tongue on the response I wanted to give him. It started withfuand ended inoff.
I approached my car with nervous anticipation, but to my relief, there were no petals and no slashed tires. Getting in and starting the engine, I remembered what Onyx had said to me about the brakes, and I wasn’t proud of myself when I tested them before I drove out of the parking lot.
As I cleared the underground parking, I yelled when a bucket of liquid was flung at my car. Red covered my windshield, and I screeched to a halt. I heard car horns, and I got out of my car, fury coursing through me.
Looking around me wildly, I saw too many people all staring at my car in either shock or humor. No one stood out to me, and when an older man informed me it was red paint, I nodded.
Who in the hell is doing this to me?
Several people offered to help me, and my faith in humanity was restored slightly. Reversing back into the parking garage, some Good Samaritans and I cleaned the paint off my car as best as we could, enough to enable me to drive home.
When I got there, the locksmith raised his eyebrows at the state of my car but wisely said nothing. As my locks were changed and he fixed my deadbolt, which I knew wasn’t my best work, I called the police again.
With the promise that they would look into it, I was on my second beer when the tow truck turned up to take my car away for cleaning. I didn’t trust my vehicle anymore. I doubted I ever would again.
