Marked

four-2

“He’s alive,” she said, looking back at Ester and realizing the pan she’d used was Archer’s favorite for cooking steak. If his TV was damaged too, he’d resort to murder.

“What are we supposed to do with him?” Ester asked.

That was the next question, Nya stood up next to Ester and they scrutinized their victim for a minute. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We could dump him in the street,” Ester said. “But how do we get him down the stairs?” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Archer does s**t like this all the time. We have to be able to figure it out.”

Archer chained people up for information. Nya had never checked the protocol on what to do with men who wanted to cause trouble. “Archer has experience.”

“Should I call him?” Ester asked and again answered her own question. “No, he’ll be so pissed. There’s nothing he can do from Vegas. But he’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll have to keep this sack of s**t here ‘til then.”

“Overnight? What are we supposed to do with him overnight? He’ll wake up before then.”

Still, Ester was considering it and when a gradual smile began to form on her face, Nya felt her wariness grow. “We’ll just do what Archer does. You spent some time chained in his bathroom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can show me how it’s done.”

Ester was excited, but Nya swayed on her feet. Adrenaline could only keep a person going for so long. “My head is spinning.”

“Do you need to sit down? Should I take you to the hospital? Did this prick hurt you bad?”

She’d hit her head, but not hard enough to cause serious damage. The nausea began to subside. “No, I just… I’m better now, I just felt dizzy for a second.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Ester suggested and then perked up. “Oh my God, maybe you’re pregnant! If Archer’s knocked you up, you have to get back together!”

Archer had reminded her that her period was due and it hadn’t come. But that wasn’t unusual for her. When there was stress in her life, her natural cycle had a habit of checking out.

“I’m not pregnant,” Nya said, but she was already being tugged into an Ester hug.

“Oh, we’ll get you a test! We can tell Archer when he comes home! He’ll be thrilled!”

Thrilled with the idea of a pregnant ex-girlfriend, when that ex had taken responsibility for birth control, Nya didn’t think so. But it didn’t matter, she knew she couldn’t be because she’d never missed a pill. “I’m not pregnant, I always take my pill.”

Ester let her go and deflated. “Sometimes they don’t work if you take antibiotics, have you been sick?”

“I’m not sick and I haven’t…”

She hadn’t been to the doctors for antibiotics, but…

“What?” Ester asked, grabbing her again. “What is it?”

“Archer gave me a shot once, but…” Nya shook off her worry. “No, it’s dumb, that was months ago and we weren’t even sleeping together then.”

Ester’s eager hands gripped tighter. “How long between the shot and the shagging? Docs say you should use alternatives for a week.”

When it came to s*x, Ester was a wealth of information. “Three days maybe four,” Nya said and Ester was grinning again. She didn’t want to encourage the woman, but the timing of the injection became less important when she remembered that she’d missed her pill while attached to his floor.

“Then it’s possible!”

“No,” Nya said, “not a chance.” Because she couldn’t face that it might be a possibility, not because there wasn’t one. “If I was pregnant Archer would go insane! I can’t be, no, not now, we’re not even together.”

“You will be if you are,” Ester said. “It’s just the excuse he needs to get his head out of his butt.”

“Can we focus on the problem at hand and not talk about things that are impossible?” Nya asked.

Ester grumbled but didn’t argue. “Fine, help me move this bastard into the bathroom, let’s see how he likes being tied down.”

Anybody else might think that chaining a guy to a pipe for slapping a woman was a bit excessive. It had taken both of them a lot of sweat to drag Jonno from the living room through to the bathroom. Nya was just grateful she’d locked her own chains before so she knew exactly how to wrap them and attach the padlock, and she remembered the cuff Archer had used on her. It might not be needed, but Jonno was a piece of s**t who’d had two goes at beating her now.

Pressing the duct tape to his mouth, Ester had been quite proud of their work. Nya was more pragmatic. Jonno was going to wake up and make a noise. The saving grace was that the downstairs neighbor wouldn’t complain.

He had made a racket. Nya had been in Archer’s bed with Ester, not that she’d slept because she was in her ex’s bed, and after her conclusions tonight, it felt wrong to be here. Feeling wrong in Archer’s bed made her feel sick. This was the grief she should’ve gone through at the end of the relationship. But like she’d said to Ester tonight, it had just taken her forty days to realize that she wasn’t going to win him back.

Ester liked having a captive and it was amusing to see how she slipped into the role like a pro. Sometimes she was chatty, driving Jonno insane with her chatter. Later on, she’d spent some time poking him with the spiked heel of her shoe, telling him he was a piece of s**t. Nya enjoyed listening to that.

Ester had needed supplies, like wine and cigarettes, but she didn’t want to leave the apartment because Nya had just unrolled Archer’s knives on the dining table at Ester’s request and pulled out two that she felt confident about using to keep Jonno in check if they needed to.

Insisting that she should stay, Ester sent Nya to the store for food, liquor, and more duct tape. So Nya had gone on the run and been gone for less than an hour. When she was coming back in, she was in a hurry, but slowed in the entry hallway when she saw a man sitting on the stairs. He wasn’t just sitting alone; there was a toolbox and wood lying on the floor. He wore jeans and heavy boots, but it was the muscles under his tee shirt that she took notice of.

It was a feminine awareness as well as a prickle of wariness that trickled through her. He was a potential threat who could hurt her if he wanted to. He would have the strength to knock her out if he knew how to throw a punch. Because of where he was sitting on the stairs, she couldn’t get by him, and there was no lift or alternative route.

But it didn’t matter because as soon as she approached the stairs, he turned and landed his bright blue eyes right on her. They were so striking against his dark hair and the scruff on his chin, she was taken aback.

“Excuse me,” she said, with every intention of squeezing past the guy to run up the stairs.

He put an elbow on the stair behind him and leaned back. “What’s the secret password?” he asked, his warm smile startling her.

Examining what he’d been doing with the tape measure on the stairs, she registered the new bannister spindles on the floor and the tools beside them. “Password?” The old spindles were looser than they had been before. “You’re fixing the bannister.” It had been broken since before Archer had carried her in here over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said and patted the wall. “Then I’m gonna paint.”

“You’re a handyman?” she asked. “Who hired you?”

As far as she knew, most of the apartments in here were owned by the same guy, the guy who was happy to take as much of Archer’s money as he could and do as little as possible to manage the building. He nodded toward an apartment door by the communal entrance. “One B,” he said. “I just moved in. I like looking at pretty things and…” He scanned the environment. “This is not a pretty thing.”

Raising her paper bag on her hip, Nya adjusted the weight of it. “Then why move in?”

“It’s cheap. Near where I work and now I’ve found that it does have something pretty for me to look at.”

But she wasn’t in the mood for pick-up lines. “Can I get past now?”

“You live in the building?” he asked.

“I’m Two B,” she said. “One up.”

That was good news to him. “Ah, so you’re above me. I like a woman on top.”

So he wasn’t finished with the cheesy lines. Typical that she should find herself the meat in the most arrogant apartment sandwich. “Lines like that don’t work on any woman who’s worth a relationship,” she said. “If you want a bimbo who’ll drool on your muscles, I’m not that girl.”

Nya tried to go past him, but he slid across the stair to get in her way. “What girl are you then?”

“I’m the girl who wants to get upstairs. I have to get back to my friend, she’s waiting for me.”

“You have a roommate?” he asked. “Or a girlfriend?”

“None of your business.”

He laid a hand on his chest. “Oh, you’ve cut me deep, smexy.”

She squinted. “What the hell is smexy?”

“Smart and sexy,” he said, proud that he knew that. “I got it from my kid sister.”

“Better a kid sister than an ex-girlfriend,” she said because it seemed like one of those teenage words and if his ex was a teenager, this guy had serious issues.

“No ex-girlfriends for me,” he said, opening his arms. “I’m free and single.”

“And that’s none of my business.”

He didn’t seem to be getting her lack of interest. “Levi,” he said, offering his hand.

“Nya,” she reciprocated, but ignored his hand.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked, not dissuaded by her snub.

“Color?”

He stroked the wall. “We’ll use it for the walls and have a paint party, do the whole thing, all the way to the top. Do you think I could get the other tenants involved?”

Okay, the guy was making an effort and it wasn’t his fault that she was having a shitty day, preceded by a shitty night. She decided to relent. “I can introduce you around,” she said. Maybe if he made other friends in the building, he wouldn’t bug her. “Georgie-Boy lives next door to me, he’s friendly, you’ll get plenty of chat from him. Ella lives opposite, she’s a bit quiet and kooky, but kindhearted, don’t f**k with her.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m always gentle.”

“Next door to her is an older guy, Mr. Reyes. It kind of depends what day you get him. Sometimes he’s in a great mood and wants to talk all day. But be ready, he likes to complain about everything, it’s his hobby. So be prepared to hear every grievance he’s had since 1952.”

He laughed and leaned against the wall. “Roger. Who’s on the floor above?”

That floor wasn’t as welcoming as hers might be. “I’d maybe stick with the first two floors,” she said. “It gets a bit dicey when you go higher.”

“I can be friends with anyone,” Levi said. “What are we talking? d**g dealers? Hookers?”

“No hookers,” she said. “Though I think everyone in this building has a criminal connection somewhere, except maybe Ella, I think.”

“That include you?”

“I plead the fifth,” she said, happy to leave him wondering on that one.

“What’s the deal with Ella?”

“Her brother owned her apartment, then he OD’d. She’s his only family and inherited the apartment. I guess staying there makes her feel closer to him or maybe she just can’t afford anywhere else. He was dealing a while, so I figure the place is paid off. Mr. Reyes owns his place too. He says he bought it before the neighborhood went to s**t. The rest of us try not to take his opinions personally.”

He laughed again and she smiled, it was so weird to be having a normal conversation without drama or life and death dilemmas hanging over their heads. She didn’t have to think about who was pissed off for what reason, or who this guy might be allied with, and if he could be an enemy. He was a guy with a tape measure and a toolbox, not a leather-bound roll of knives or a bag of cocaine.

“When you introduce me around, I’ll show you how I can charm anyone.”

That was quite a claim. Though it could be her insider knowledge that made her dubious. “You think you can charm everyone in this building?”

He seemed to think about it, but she knew he was just drawing out the suspense. “I bet I can.”

“Bet what?”

And again, his smile grew. “I like a girl who holds a guy to his word. How about dinner?”

Nya was taken aback. “If you can charm everyone in this building, I have to go to dinner with you?”

“Yeah.”

Hmm, Nya considered the proposition. “What does charm mean? There has to be a benchmark.”

“Let’s say if I get invited in for a drink, we consider that success.”

That was a laugh, he’d end up passing out. “If you have a drink in every apartment, you’ll never get back to yours.”

“We don’t have to go in, the invitation is enough.”

Nya was confident that he wouldn’t be able to charm everyone in the building because she’d seen what a frosty reception Archer could give to his guests. She held out her hand as much to solidify the deal as to make up for being rude before.

“Okay. But now I really do have to get to my friend,” she said, and he stepped aside to gesture at the stairs.

Nya ran halfway up before she paused and looked back. “Thank you,” she said.

He scratched his brow with the end of his tape measure. “For brightening your day?”

She laughed. “For caring about the place. It’s more than anyone else has done for a long time.”

The graffiti hadn’t changed since she’d been coming in and out of here, and she hadn’t had issues with the neighbors or heard of gangs fighting on the stairway, so she’d guess that over time, those who had mistreated the place had moved out or moved on. But no one had bothered to come in and fix the building up.