Chapter 66: The Price of Interference
The clock was ticking.
Micah could hear every second drumming against his skull, each tick like a countdown to a disaster. Tick. Tick. Tick. The sound wasn’t just audible, it was pricking his skin, dragging him into terror. His pulse throbbed in his ears, and his breath came shallow as if the oxygen in the room had thinned.
His tense nerves showed no sign of relaxation.
He was still inside Leo Mckay’s hotel suite.
Rather than a suite, it felt more like the scene of a crime.
The room was bright, with all lights on, but for Micah, it felt darker than any night he had seen. The hotel vents were constantly working, but they still couldn’t erase the suffocating stench of alcohol, sweat, and something else, something thick and fishy that clung to the air like a sinister fog. Micah’s nose wrinkled involuntarily. He fought the urge to gag. The smell was more than offensive. It was a constant, repulsive reminder of what had almost happened here... what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up.
He stood in the middle of the room, frozen, arms stiff by his sides, body vibrating with barely suppressed adrenaline. The gravity of the situation, of what he had done, was slowly sinking into his mind and body.
His gaze flickered from the drugged and naked figure of Leo sprawled unconscious on the bed to the closed door of the side room where he had locked the manager. A shiver passed through him.
He hadn’t signed up for this.
He was at a loss for what to do next. He had come here expecting a PG-rated scandal to expose, something spicy, dramatic. Instead, he had been handed a gruesome R19 nightmare that even he thought wasn’t fit for any age to watch.
Micah swallowed hard, the sound loud in his throat. He glanced at the clock on the wall again.