AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then who the fuck are you?”
“Arnie,” he says, approaching me slowly. “Arnie Knight. This is my home.”
I glance back up at the paintings of the Novas suspiciously.
“That,” Arnie continues, pointing up at the hardy-looking man, “was my uncle, Tony Nova. I inherited this place from him when he died.”
I suppose there are some similarities between the man in the painting and the one before me. But I’m not about to give it to him easily. “Give me one good reason I should trust anything that comes out of your mouth?”
The man simply shrugs. “I mean, you’re alive, aren’t you?”
My blood turns to ice.
“I could have very easily killed you back there,” he continues as casually as if he were discussing the weather. “But I didn’t. I could have dumped your unconscious body somewhere to freeze over. But I didn’t. Begs the question ‘why?’, doesn’t it?”
“You… you said it was because you knew my brother,” I stammer out, suddenly, very aware that I’m alone here with a murderer. A skilled one, from what he’d done to Douglas.
Arnie flashes a smile at me. “Ah, so you do trust me then. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have believed me when I told you that.”
My head begins to throb painfully and I wince. “God, you’re insufferable!”
“No, I’m just right,” he refutes easily. “Now, let me take you back to your room.”
He holds out a hand, but I swipe it away. “You can’t keep me here.”
Arnie lets out a deep sigh. “Fine. The door is over there,” he says, pointing back the way I came. “Leave.”
With that, he turns on his heel and begins striding away in the opposite direction. Calling my bluff entirely.
A second goes by, then another.
“Fine!” I call after him, but he merely smirks at me as he rounds the corner down the next hall.
I curse him out under my breath as I break into a light jog to keep up. Hating the way my brain seems to rattle in my skull with every stride. “Wait, you asshole!”
When I turn the corner, it’s to find him leaning casually against my bedroom door frame.
“You look exhausted,” he comments.
But I’m already storming toward him. “You owe me some goddamn answers.”
“I’m sure I do,” Arnie concedes, not backing away an inch. “But not right now.”
“Like hell,” I say, stepping closer still.
Arnie makes a show of glancing down at what I’m sure is an overly-priced watch. “Unfortunately, you wasted all my time for questions by being stubborn.”
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“I have to go to work now,” he clarifies, backing away with his hands in his pockets.
I stare after him. “You can’t just leave me here.”
Arnie shrugs. “I can, in fact, do exactly that.”
“I’ll run away.”
“By all means.”
