Page 5 of Scary Suitor

“Goodnight,” I mutter, voice trailing as I stare at the food inside a brown paper bag.

It’s from my favorite restaurant around the corner. I finally understand what Cassio meant when he said he bought me dinner.

Millions of questions blotch my thoughts like a miraculous constellation.

How did he get up here without a key card? How did he know which apartment was mine?

Why won’t he give up this one-sided game of cat-and-mouse?

“Alright,” Finny grumbles, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“I ordered delivery when we clocked out,” I lie and strain a twitching smile. “I’m not hungry anymore. Do you want it?”

“Girl, no,” Finny shrieks vehemently, waving a finger at me. “That place is a calorie catastrophe.”

She blows me a kiss and slams her door shut, likely to physically remove herself from the temptation still sitting by my foot.

I pick up the food and step into my home, closing the door with a tired sigh. Crushing the bag to my chest, I wrack my brain for solutions.

How does one release a banshee scream without waking the neighbors at ten o’clock?

Chapter Two

Cassio

I don’t blame this man for not knowing; I really don’t.

He was just a blameless obstacle in my way, a naïve soul thinking he could stand in the same light as my pretty Alina.

Her friend, Finny, takes partial fault for his predicament. It was her idea to set Alina and this man up for a blind date. Alina is too kind to decline the date, so I’m happy to do it for her. A little persuasion is fine, but if he’s insistent about his moral obligation to show up like he’s doing right now, then I’m also not to be blamed.

I’m giving him a smooth way out, and my altruism has its limits.

“Sir, listen,” the man says with a stiff back, “I must get going.Mydate is waiting for me, and it’s impolite to make a lady wait.”

The emphasis doesn’t go unnoticed.

An exasperated sigh parts my lips as I examine his somber expression. He looks adrift, lost in a serene motion of thoughts that keeps him at consciousness’s bay.

“If my suit gets dirty,” I say, unwilling to hide the threat as I kindly give him three more seconds of grace.

The seconds tick by, and he looks more like an idiot than someone lost in his decision-making moment.

I can punch him and break his cheekbone. I can put him in a chokehold and render him unconscious. I can shoot and let him bleed out. Usually, there would be more bruises and blood along with broken bones, but to show up on a date with filth is disrespectful.

So many options, I contemplate as I backhand him into the wall.

He slumps to the ground, limbs bent uncomfortably, and the bouquet of roses flops onto the grass.

He was lucky I caught him just as he was about to leave the flower market.

What kind of fool would he make of himself if we had an audience?

I crook a finger, and two men abandon the shadow’s embrace. They take the unconscious man and his flowers to his car, pull the vehicle into a security camera blind spot, then discard him in the car.

Big cities aren’t safe, so let’s hope my men locked the doors. Really, it’s not his fault if he wakes up with his belongings stolen.

If he wakes up at all. Bad luck befalls everyone equally.

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