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He was maybe in his forties, and as I looked down at the ring on his left hand, I realized I was the one who had checked him in last night. He seemed relaxed, coming to Velvet City to escape the busy life he had in Washington. Or so he said.
An escape from reality, he laughed when I asked him what the purpose of his visit was. He escaped, alright. Escaped into hell.
“They’re on their way,” Karina huffed as she rushed toward me, trying not to look at the corpse. “Are you okay? You were here first, right? Did you see who did it?”
I did, but I would never share that kind of information with her.
Her mouth was larger than the Gibraltar passage in Europe, and I was sure that in a matter of hours, the entire hotel and their mothers would know what had happened here. So I kept my words to myself, guarding the secret, keeping it close to my heart, with every nerve ending in my body screaming at me to get the fuck out of here.
Get out of Velvet City, out of this part of the country, and go somewhere else.
We all heard the rumors surrounding this area. We all knew to keep our heads down, because we were nothing more than ordinary citizens, pawns in a much bigger game that we couldn’t understand, and I let myself get entangled right into it. I knew whotheywere dammit. I grew up in the town wheretheyheld all the reins, and I was taught from a very young age to keep my head down and ignore everything happening around me.
I got caught in the spider’s web, and I had no idea how I would get out.
That man… He fucking knew my name now, because of fucking course I fully introduced myself, smiling, thinking he was just a regular guest that might need some help. He knew where I worked, and while I had no idea how these people operated, I was pretty sure that my name was all they needed to find out where I lived, who my parents were, who my friends were, and they would come after me.
Months ago, there was a dancer in the Velvet Room, the Club we had, getting involved with one of the guys we all knew worked for a man that frequently visited The Penthouse, and she disappeared. No goodbyes, no letters, she was just gone. I wasn’t one to entertain the rumors floating through the hotel, spreading between staff members. But even I knew that she apparently saw something, something bad, and you didn’t have to be a genius to know that she didn’t just go to Hawaii to start a new life.
No, that girl was gone for good, and I was going to be next.
A knock on the door had me jumping away from the body, while Karina rushed toward the Loss Prevention officer that slowly entered, his eyes taking in the scene as his face paled.
“Pablo!” she screeched. “This is so messed up,” she whined, like the little bitch she was. God, out of all the people that worked in this hotel, she had to be the one delivering amenities to a couple on this floor, and she had to be the one to come here as I stood above the body, trying to figure out my next step. “Evelyn found him, but I have no idea—”
“Karina!” I barked, looking at her, too tired to deal with her shit, or her voice. If I had to look at her for one more second, I would be joining the man on the ground. “Go down to reception and keep your mouth shut about this. The police are on their way and I don’t want people panicking if they hear what has happened.”
But I knew my request entered through one ear and exited through the other, because I was pretty sure that at least her best friends already knew about this mess. And I fucking knew that the moment I stepped down into reception, every single person would know what happened in suite 5007.
“Are you sure? I can stay and—”
“No, Karina,” Pablo said, looking at me, a million questions flashing through his dark eyes. “We got this. You should go down and wait for the police to come.”
It was obvious that she wanted to protest, that she wanted to stay and hear what we would talk about. But one look from me had her scattering from the room, her heels echoing through the room as she exited, and then through the hallway, and I finally felt like I could breathe.
Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, breathing in and out, trying to make sense of this entire situation.
“What happened, Ev?” Pablo asked, his footsteps sounding closer, and before long I sensed his body not too far away from me. I squinted at him, keeping only one eye open, holding my panic at bay. “Did you see who did this?”
My head started nodding of its own volition. “Yes,” I murmured, my head bending backwards, my eyes zeroing in on a crack in the ceiling. “I unfortunately did.”
“Why unfortunately?” he asked, but as I looked down at him, communicating with my eyes, the realization slowly dawned on him. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh shit is accurate, Pablo,” I breathed out. “It wasthem. I’m pretty sure it wasthem.”
“Fuck, Ev.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
What was I supposed to do? Run? Hide? It didn’t matter that I was a little nobody, or that I wouldn’t tell a soul what that guy really looked like. They didn’t care about any of that, and we all knew what they were capable of.
Because Cillian Nightingale never left any witnesses.
That much we knew.
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