Chapter 15 : Banned
1495 Words
ANA'S POV
Lohan stumbled backwards, caught off guard, his hand tracing the line of his lips.
“Have you lost your mind?” Leo snapped at him, agitation spreading over his face.
Lohan straightened slowly and wiped his mouth, “Relax...”
“Relax?” Leo cackled, his voice rising. “You hit one of my girls and you’re telling me to relax?”
“It wasn’t like that. She... she was being disrespectful..." Lohan moaned through his fingers.
"I don't give a damn if she recited the alphabet backwards to insult your mother," Leo snapped. "My girls are not to be hit. They are not to be abused. You pay for their company, you pay for their skills, but you do not pay for the right to vent your pathetic insecurities on their skin. I don’t care who you are, Lohan Pierre."
Lohan exhaled sharply. “This is a simple thing...we can settle it, Leo.”
“No,” Leo cut him off. “You don’t get to ‘settle’ anything and it's not a simple thing!”
He turned slightly, pulling his phone out, “You’re paying for her treatment and you are banned off Ana's. If this persists, we take you off our books completely."
Lohan went still and I ran my eyes over him quickly; he stood there sulking like a stubborn school boy and not like the beast of a man who had taken me to hell in the past minutes.
Leo held his gaze and muttered angrily, “I don’t care how much money you have,” he continued. “You don’t get access to my girls if you can’t follow simple rules.”
Lohan ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face, “I said I’m sorry.”
“Save it.”
Leo made a quick call. "Suite 402. Now. Bring the kit and a wrap."
Minutes later, the door opened again. Two large men in black suits stood guard at the entrance, while a woman I recognized from the agency’s first aid unit hurried in. She immediately wrapped a soft, thick cashmere shawl around me, shielding me from Lohan’s sight.
Lohan was leaning against the wall, now handing over his credit card to one of the guards, his countenance defiant and proud. "I... I’m sorry, Leo. Truly. I just... I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was that brat, Rod. Did you see him? The small brat, Rod, touching what belongs to me... he was touching her even after I had paid for her time and it's not supposed to be so! You know this!"
Leo looked at him with pure disgust as the card was swiped on a mobile terminal. "Ana does not belong to you, Lohan. She is a woman who works for me, and you could have reported her or Rod to me!"
"Is it done?" He turned to the guard.
"Yes, sir," the guard replied.
"Get him out of here," Leo ordered.
Lohan tried to look at me one last time, a pathetic, pleading look in his eyes as if to beg me to say a word in his favour but the guards moved him out before he could utter another word. The door clicked shut, leaving the room quiet once more.
The woman began gently dabbing at my face with a cool antiseptic wipe. "You're okay, honey. You're safe now."
ROD’S POV
I woke up to the feeling of eyes on me. I blinked slowly, my head heavy, my throat dry, my body still carrying the dull aftermath of last night. The room smelled faintly of perfume and something warmer, something human that hadn’t quite faded.
And then I saw her.
She was sitting upright on the edge of the bed, her back straight, her hands resting on her thighs, watching me like she had been there for a while.
I pushed myself up slightly, dragging a hand over my face. “You’re awake.”
Her lips curved, but there was no real smile in it. “I’ve been awake for a while.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice rough from sleep.
She let out a quiet, humourless breath, “That’s funny.”
I frowned. “What?”
She tilted her head slightly, studying me like she was deciding how much to say. Then she laughed, but it didn’t sound light.
“Do you even remember what you were doing last night?”
A flicker of unease passed through me, “I remember enough.”
“My name is Maya.”
“I know your name.”
“Do you?” she asked again, quieter this time. “Because you didn’t seem to last night.”
“You kept calling me Ana.” It sounded heavily like an accusation. When I didn’t respond immediately, she watched my face carefully, like she was waiting to see if I would deny it.
Instead, I exhaled slowly and ran a hand through my hair. “…I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said, but her voice didn’t match the words.
“I didn’t mean to...”
“My taxi is outside,” she said, already reaching for her bag. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so I could leave properly.”
“You waited?”
She shrugged lightly. “I didn’t want to just disappear. Take care, Rod.”
And just like that, she walked out.
The door clicked shut behind her, and the room fell into a silence that felt heavier than it should.
I sat there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular and my heart churning at my subconsciousness that yearned for Ana.
I reached for my phone when it beeped and noticed I had missed calls from Grandfather and Leo. I stared at the screen for a second, debating. Then I tapped Leo’s number.
He picked up almost immediately, “Rod.” His voice did not have his usual playful tinge.
“Leo,” I said. “What’s up?”
There was a pause on the other end, followed by a long exhale.
“Before anything,” he said, “was Maya okay?”
I leaned back slightly. “Yeah. She was fine.”
“Good.”
Then his tone shifted, “What the hell were you doing last night?”
My brows furrowed. "Watch your tone, man.”
“I told you Ana was with someone,” he said, his voice tightening. “And you still went after her.”
I straightened slightly. “I didn’t go after her.”
“You showed up where she was,” he snapped. “Same difference.”
I exhaled slowly. “Leo...”
“No,” he cut in. “Let me make something clear to you, Rod.” His voice dropped, colder now. “I run a business. My girls are not toys. They are not wives either. They are professionals. If a client books one of them, that time is his. You don’t interfere with that.”
I stayed quiet knowing I messed up and there was nothing much to say about it. Probably Ana had told him all about it. Sharp-mouthed-Ana!
“If you weren’t a good customer,” Leo continued, “I would have banned you as I banned Lohan."
“Wow. Why would you do that though?”
Leo spoke again, slower this time, “That bastard slapped Ana.”
My grip on the phone tightened, “What?” I remembered how he swept his hand across her face in the hallway, did he hit her the second time?
“And that wasn’t all,” Leo added, his voice lower and pained. “He beat her. Badly.”
Something cold slid down my spine, my head spun in circles and a hundred demons played a game of throw and catch inside my skull.
"How bad?!"
"Bad..."
Lohan f*****g Pierre! Ana's perfect skin! Her beautiful face and smooth body! I gripped the phone.
"How bad?!" My hands were shaking now.
- Writer
