Page 48 of Enemy Boss

Chapter 37

Cullen

She looks a bit dazed but otherwise ok, and I take her hand in mine and lead her to the couch. I use my other hand to pull my cellphone out and I dial nine one one as I sit Max down.

“Nine one one, what’s your emergency,” the dispatcher says.

“Hi. I’m at one twenty-two Westcoat Avenue. There is an intruder. I have put him down and I will restrain him until the police arrive. Please hurry,” I say.

I pull the cellphone away from my face even though I can hear the dispatcher talking.

“Sir? Sir?” she says, and I press the screen and end the call.

I glance over at the man. He’s still out cold. I look back at Max. She is sitting on the couch where I led her towards, her hands clenched together in front of herself, her eyes staring into space and tears dripping off her chin. I go to her bedroom and grab a fleecy grey blanket. I come back and wrap it around her shoulders. She looks up at me briefly and smiles.

“How did you know he was here?” she says.

My cellphone is ringing, and the man is starting to stir.

“Later. I’ll explain everything later,” I say.

I go to the man and kneel down with one knee in the small of his back. I pull his arms behind his back and hold them in place with one hand. With the other, I check my cellphone. As I suspected it’s the dispatcher calling me back. I ignore the call. I don’t want to stay on the line until the cops arrive because I might get distracted from making sure this bastard doesn’t get to go anywhere. Plus, I’m hopeful they will be a bit quicker if they don’t know for sure that the situation is still under control.

The man squirms beneath me and I yank his arms up and he makes a pained sound and stops fighting against me. I stay tensed and ready for him to try something, but he doesn’t bother trying again. Funny how guys like him can only fight against women. The police finally arrive about ten minutes later, two officers, a man, and a woman.

Max and I seem to notice them in the doorway at the same time.

“Come on in,” Max says, standing up.

The officers come in and look around. The female office goes to Max and gently sits her back down, and the male officer comes over to me.

“I’ll take it from here,” he says.

I nod and get out of his way. He takes over my position, but he doesn’t cuff the intruder yet. I go and sit beside Max on the couch.

“I’m Officer Reynolds and my partner is Officer Norman,” the woman officer says. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

Max explains how she heard a knock on her door and how she thought it was me, so she opened it, only to find Ross, her abusive ex-boyfriend standing there. So, I was right about it being him. I feel strangely guilty hearing how she opened the door because she thought it was me there, although it was hardly my fault.

She goes on to say that he said he wanted to talk to her and how scared she was, so she played along but he saw through it and how he slapped her face. He is lucky the police are here when she says this because if they weren’t I would have killed the bastard with my bare hands for that. She carries on and says how he was trying to kiss her against her will when I came in and pulled him off her.

I tell my version of the story, how her apartment door was slightly ajar, and how I heard voices, and I realized that Max was in trouble, so I pulled her attacker off her and decapacitated him and called for help.

“What about the main door. Why is that left unlocked?” Officer Reynolds asks.

“Don’t ask,” Max says. “It’s been reported plenty of times.”

“And what about your apartment door. Doesn’t that lock either?” she says.

“Yes,” Max says. “I opened it for Ross thinking it was Cullen and when Ross came in, he didn’t close it properly. I left it because I had a feeling that things would get out of hand and I thought with the door open, someone might hear something if it went really too far and call the police.”

Her voice sounds a bit shaky, and Officer Reynolds seems to notice it too because she looks at Max in concern.

“Do you need an ambulance ma’am; get you checked over?” Officer Reynolds says to Max. She shakes her head. “Are you sure? You could be in shock.”

“Honestly, I’m ok,” Max says. “I just want to curl up here and forget this ever happened.”

Officer Reynolds looks unsure and while I would rather Max go and get checked over, it’s obvious she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, so I step in.

---