Chapter 5 AN UNUSUAL THREAT

Horizon's POV

It caused a joyous sensation in me as I walked through the plenty of people who were much lesser than me in status-if looked at in such a manner. I wasn't being humped upon by people wanting an autograph for being a popular part-time model and the only daughter of the owner of a famous multi-million fashion house, unlike the other places I had been much coerced by my parents to go to for their sake where the paparazzi would flock about me looking for pictures for their newspaper front pages. Here, they all went about their business without a care of your status. Traders called out for customers, asked to buy their stuff...

It was all so rowdy, yet very relaxing. Especially as did not have my guards trailing my every move because they weren't even aware of my leaving the mansion.

I made sure to explore the city to my fullest, visiting the park, and getting on a rollercoaster ride that my parents had forever forbidden me from going onto for fear of falling off its seat and splat several feet above on the ground. They had always tried inputting their fears into me but failed miserably. I always had a knack for adventures, and I always never allowed what they thought to be feared to get in my way.

Entering a local diner which I had decided to eat at to know exactly the quality of their meals after touring for a while, I sat at a table beside the window -because I always loved the view from the window - and ordered one of their cheapest meals on the menu, rice and a casserole dish, which sold for at least five thousand US dollars in the big restaurants where I always dined with my parents.

I allowed my nose to savor the delicious smell of food in the atmosphere while I sat, awaiting my order. The only good thing my hands could do in being put to use to distract me from the overwhelming clutches of boredom was to scroll through social media. However, I hadn't forgotten to block my parent's numbers as well as those of my bodyguards and to turn off my location access to keep them from finding me in the meantime.

"Enjoy your meal, mademoiselle," the waiter, whose intonation gave out in clarity that he was French, said curtly, dropping a tray of my order on the table in front of me.

"Thank you, Monsieur," I replied in the same curt manner, exuding an etiquette elegance as I prepared to dig into the meal before me that taunted my nose with a delightful fervor. It was as I scooped up a spoon of rice that my phone began a frantic vibration on the table, beside the tray of food.

My heart skipped a beat at first, as I thought it was my bodyguards or my parents who had outsmarted me and probably used another phone to try and locate me, and so therefore tried reaching me. I left the phone to vibrate on the table for a little while before I picked it up and gazed into it. I sighed with relief when I saw that the caller was only just Meredith. But I still had to be on alert for my parents or whatever hunk would walk right through the diner's entrance.

"Meredith? What's going on? You're calling me so-"

"There's a problem, Horizon," she uttered, interrupting me. Her voice was hushed as if she was hiding the fact that she was on the phone with me from someone on her end. That, I took seriously.

"What's wrong?" I asked, brimming with curiosity. "Did my parents find me?"

She went silent for a moment, but her leveled breathing was my hold against the thought that the call may have disconnected.

"Horizon, forgive me," she apologized for a reason I was oblivious about, throwing me into a much deeper confusion and an earnest desire to know what reason was behind her words.

"Wha-"

"They got your location," she spilled out. Not only did I drown in an alarming swell, but I also remained confused as to how they found me.

"How?" I inquired, mirroring her infectious, hushed tone. I was very certain of the precautionary measures I had taken to obstruct that from happening so sooner than I had expected, and so there had got to be another measure they took to find me.

As much as I had to leave there and probably trash my phone before they could find me, I allowed curiosity to get the best of me.

"They threatened me with a decision they were going to make concerning your future if I did not tell them where you were, and I couldn't help but spill, for your sake," she uttered, remorsefully.

"Where did you tell them I was at?" I asked her, pushing myself up from the seat I was in. I dropped a five-dollar bill beside the tray despite the actuality that I wasn't going to be able to eat the food I had barely touched anymore and literally sauntered out of the diner.

"Some diner in the local town," she replied.

"How did you know I was at a diner!?" I questioned suspiciously, yet incredulously. The diner wasn't a place I was usually at, so it pricked my understanding as to how she knew that.

"It doesn't matter, Horizon. Just, let them find you," she said. Her hushed tone was already starting to annoy me.

"You are so not advising me to do that, are you?" I countered with skepticism as I made my way through a crowd of people on the sidewalk, my eyes searching cautiously for any bodyguards or paparazzi that would recognize me.

"Listen, you don't understand -"

"What should I understand, Mer!?" I lashed out in frustration as hurried in a direction I could barely care to know where.

"They knew I would have an idea of your whereabouts, and so they threatened to have you put in a contracted marriage with someone if I didn't tell them where you are, and so I figured you would be in the local diner because you've always wanted to eat at someplace like that and so if they do not find you-"

Before she could finish her words, I bumped head-first into a tall, muscular body that resembled a wall. Then, even without looking to see who it was I had bumped into, I knew I was done for-not literally.

Standing before me were the very same men I was trying to escape from; only, I had brought myself to them-thanks to Meredith. I ended the call with Meredith and did not try fleeing from these six-foot-tall men who had been hired to bodyguard me till their contract was terminated. But them seizing me and hurling me into Dad's luxurious vehicle before the very eyes of some ordinary civilians did not bother me as much as what Meredith had said was the cause for her rating out my location which she supposedly knew.

Why would my parents use the idea of a contract marriage to threaten Meredith, just to find me?

No matter how casual it seemed, I couldn't help but think there was more to the threat than met the eye.