Hotel Noir: Kiss Me to Survive novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Kept Guest

Locked in Suite 9 under the hotel's rules, Fenella finds the phone dead and the shot man's locker key in her coat; the manager holds out his hand for it.

"You're not leaving" is a terrible thing to say to a woman who just watched a man get shot.

I told him so in the lift.

"I'm leaving," I said. "I'm walking out of that revolving door, and I'm calling the police from the street."

"Lucan's men are on the street," Enoch said. He watched the brass numbers climb. "Four of them, in two cars, with the engines running."

"Then I'll call from here."

"Try."

The lift opened on the ninth floor, onto a carpet the color of old wine.

He led me down a hall of dark doors to the one at the end, which had a brass 9 on it.

He unlocked it with a key from his waistcoat and held it open.

Inside was a sitting room with a leather couch and tall windows full of rain.

Through an arch I could see a big bed made up in white linen.

My company washed that linen.

The phone sat on a little table by the couch.

I picked it up, and there was no sound at all.

The bedroom phone was dead too.

"The lines to this floor are cut at midnight," Enoch said, "for the guests' privacy."

"That's not privacy. That's a cage."

"It's a house."

He took off one white glove, finger by finger.

"Here are the rules, Miss..."

"Corrigan. Fenella."

"Fenella. The Hotel Noir has a Truce, older than me and older than the Laskers.

"No one kills, hurts or takes a person under this roof who's been kept."

"By you."

"By the manager. I kissed you before the staff, and I said the word. So you're kept."

"And Lucan just walked out because you said a word."

"Because if he breaks the Truce, every family in Port Calder breaks him."

He put the glove in his pocket.

"He's a spoiled man, but he isn't stupid."

"What happens at midnight tomorrow?"

"You come down to the lobby and I kiss you again, in front of the night staff and one outside witness."

"That's the whole rule?"

"Every midnight. Miss one, and the house lets go of you."

"And outside the doors?"

"Outside the doors you're anyone's."

I sat on the arm of the couch with my hands shaking between my knees.

The door opened behind me, and the woman with the gray bun came in with a nightgown, slippers and a tray of tea.

"This is Odile," Enoch said. "She runs every floor of this hotel, and she's the only person in it I'm afraid of."

"Don't be foolish," Odile said.

She set the tray down and looked me over.

"Your hands are cold, love," she said. "Drink that."

I drank it.

It was sweet and hot, and it helped.

"He didn't scare you, did he?" Odile said. "Enoch looks like a funeral, but he's a good boy."

"Odile."

"I'm only saying."

"I watched a man die tonight," I said, and my voice cracked.

"I know," Enoch said, more gently than I expected. "Odile, ask the porters if they found him."

"They found nothing," Odile said. "He was gone before the cleaners came."

"Gone how?"

"I'll tell you when I've seen it," she said, and she left.

I didn't understand that, and I was too tired to ask.

Enoch stood by the window with his bare hand flat on the glass.

"Fenella," he said. "Lucan doesn't fire a gun in the Noir without his father's leave."

I said nothing.

"You picked up something," Enoch said.

"I picked up my cart."

"Fenella."

"I was in a hurry."

He turned from the window.

In that light the scar through his eyebrow looked like a line drawn with a ruler.

"There's a notebook in your coat," he said. "I saw it in the lobby."

"Lucan saw it too. That's why he said midnight tomorrow and not now."

"So he wants it."

"Everyone wants it. Give it to me. I'll keep it safe."

"You'll keep it safe." I laughed, a little wildly. "You kissed me in front of a roomful of people and told them I was yours."

"Kept."

"Forgive me if I don't hand my only card to the man who just told me I'm his."

He didn't answer for a second.

Then he held out his bare hand, palm up.

I took the notebook out of my coat.

It was small and black, with a rubber band around it.

A brass key had slipped out from between the pages and sat in my palm, with a paper tag tied to it.

The tag said 31.

I closed my hand over the key, kept the book out for him to see, and put the key into my shoe.

"Have the book," I said. "It's in code. I looked."

He took it and studied the first page for a long time.

Then he looked at me, and I swear for one second he smiled.

"The key," he said.

"What key?"

"Fenella."

"Good night, Mr. Hatherley," I said. "It's the first night of my life I've been kept. I'd like to sleep on it."

He stood there with the notebook in his bare hand.

Then he nodded, once, and went to the door.

"Lock it from the inside," he said. "Odile has the only other key."

He stopped at the threshold.

"Fenella. If you run, I can't follow you past the doors."

"I know."

"Then don't," he said, and the door closed behind him.

I sat very still in the sitting room of Suite 9.

I took the key out of my shoe and looked at the tag again.

Under the number 31, in tiny ink, someone had written a place.

Calder Union Depot.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend