Chapter 33 – The hotel room

Mimi wakes up on a bed, her head feels awful. It’s like there’s cotton in it. Something’s stuck to her mouth. She’s lying on her side with her arms up. She’s lying uncomfortably and wants to pull one arm down, but she can’t. Confused, she looks up and sees that her wrists are tied to the headboard of the bed with a rope. Suddenly everything comes back and she remembers what happened. She looks around in panic. On her left is a window with crumpled flower curtains. An armchair is at the foot of the bed with a cupboard with a TV on it next to it. On her right is a separate room with two doors and a hallway next to it.

This is probably a hotel room, she thinks. That’s the bathroom with a toilet. Oh, she really needs to go to the toilet. Hopefully someone will come soon who can untie her so she can go there. All the walls of the room are old pink dirty damp spots. She smells the old mold. Not an expensive hotel, that’s for sure, she thinks.

At that moment the door opens and her kidnapper enters. He is a large broad man dressed all in black.
“Hello Mimi,” he says kindly.
“Hwo?” she says through the tape.
Danni carefully pulls the tape from her mouth.

“Can you untie me? I really need to go to the bathroom.”
“Of course.” He quickly pulls out a knife.
She flinches.

“Don’t worry,” he says quickly. “Go quickly.” He cuts her ropes, puts the knife on the bedside table and pulls the tape from her mouth.

Mimi lets out a sigh of relief as she starts moving her arms. The blood starts flowing again. She stands up and in 3 steps she reaches the two doors and pulls open the left one. It is a cupboard. She quickly takes the other door and flees inside. Finally a toilet!

Seemingly at ease in the armchair, Danni waits until she is finished. He is a little nervous, because he wants to tell his story well. He does not want to hurt her more than he already has. The ex-mercenary is already very happy that she came through his chloroform treatment healthy.

A little later, the girl comes into the room, relieved. To her right, she sees the door to the hallway. She thinks for a moment and decides not to try to escape. Calmly and controlled, she sits down on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to tell me why you kidnapped me?”

Danni nods and tells her about the mercenary army from which he knows Noa. “Do you know what happened then?” he asks Mimi. Noa has told her everything. When she nods, he continues.

“When the group disbanded, I came back home. I looked for work, but it didn’t work out so well. In the end, I started delivering suspicious packages for a shady gang. A while ago, I lost a package and that’s when the real trouble started. I owe the gangster gang 15,000 euros. I can work for it, but that will take years. That’s why I asked your housemates for ransom for you. All I want is to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“You bastard, my friends don’t have that much money,” Mimi says angrily.

Uneasy because of her look, he gets up and starts pacing. “They’ll get that much money for you. You’re their favorite.”

Her anger disappears immediately and she looks at him in surprise. “How did you come up with that? How do you know this?” She unconsciously rubs her wrists where the cuffs were.

Danni shrugs, a gesture she knows well from her tough boyfriend. “I’ve been following you for a while,” he confesses.

“How long?” she asks.

“Ever since you gave Noa money at the mall when he was begging. I know everyone in your house. I’ve followed them one by one to find out what kind of work they do and who their connections are. I even picked the lock on your basement at night and looked around in there. I saw the dance hall they built for you.”

Mimi’s eyes widen in surprise. No one in the house noticed that anyone was following them or had been in their house. They would have said it, she’s sure of it.

“I’m surprised Noa didn’t realize I was following him. He’s always been very sharp, he could even see what you were doing behind his back,” Danni says proudly at the memory. “Now he only has eyes for you. He has always been protective of people who are weaker than him. That he can be so in love with someone is completely new to me,” he concludes with a smile on his face.

Mimi’s cheeks turn red. Her eyes fill up as she thinks of the sadness her great love will now have. And what about the others?