Page 28 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
My head flopped over, but I didn’t feel any restraints break. Maybe they were… The thought floated away before I could finish it. The monster attempting to drag me back under hooked claws into my skin and fought. I forced my eyes open.
A bright spot of color appeared against the pale wall of Zahur’s house. I was still at Zahur’s house. I could find him—no, he went to the hotel. The hotel!
“Yeah, we’re going to need to get Mr. Conti somewhere he can receive proper care,” the doctor said. “Triage is wasting time, and time is the one thing he doesn’t have.”
The bright spot resolved into shapes. Four shapes. Women’s shapes, in shreds of bright robes. They should be…somewhere else. Something about a teddy bear? And fireworks?
“I’m not fucking around,” one of the women said sharply.
She had dark hair, dark eyes, and a lanky build. She put her arm around another woman who was crying. My eyes closed, and when I reached to open them again, they seemed to have disappeared. Restraints, always restraints. The monster pulled me deeper.
“I have a responsibility,” the sharp woman said.
She sounded like Paige, my Paige. Maybe she was my Paige. Maybe Paige was safe, close enough to touch, and doing what she did best: protecting the women around her.
All the restraints on me, and I still felt my lips curve into a smile before the monster dragged me away.
CHAPTER 23
PAIGE
Iscrambled for purchase on the plush carpet as Zahur dragged me through the suite by my hair. Pain and fear raced through my body. Oh, God. Rico. Harry. Eddie. Dead. Dead. Dead. My feet slid in their blood.
His goons followed us through the suite to the door of the bedroom Tom and I shared. The bastard only paused long enough to kick the door down before grabbing me under my arms and tossing me onto the bed.
I tumbled through the air in slow motion. The knife under the back of my bra pressed cold and sharp against my spine. If I landed wrong, it was all over. I was such an idiot. All this fighting, and I was going to die by my own knife.
A small, bitter voice in my head suggested that might be better than letting him touch me again.
I landed on the mattress on my side. The razor-sharp knife scratched the bare skin of my back, but I barely had time to notice that before Zahur flipped me onto my back and loomed over me.
“My little redhead,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of you.”
His sickly sweet cologne crowded my nostrils, plugged my throat. He clawed at my breast, the cotton of my T-shirt barelydulling the feel of him. A few of his men called suggestions in Arabic from the door. He dragged his nose down my cheek and exhaled hot breath onto my ear.
“I remember how you sang,azizati,” he murmured. “I’m looking forward to making you sing again.”
Scream. He meant how I had screamed. Through everything I’d remembered, I’d forgotten that. He flicked out a wickedly sharp knife, the same one I remembered from that last night with him, and everything in me froze.
My heartbeat slowed. My breathing, even slower. Every joint locked. My arms lay stiff at my sides, my legs dangling off the bed. All my screams, all my hopes of someone else hearing, died. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I hadn’t prepared for this.
Zahur grabbed the hem of my shirt and slit it up the middle with his knife. The men behind him hooted. I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t even move them from his face. What the fuck was I doing? What was all my training for if I was just going to lie here like a dead body when I finally got a chance to use it?
His hands were rough against my skin. Familiarly so. If I brought my knee up, I could shove him back toward his men who might shoot him in the second before they shot me.
My knee stayed locked. Frozen.
Zahur wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He continued to tease me, taunting me as he dragged the knifepoint over the bare skin of my stomach, my arms. I blocked him out. He drew the lines of the scars on my chest, nicking the front of my bra. A promise. He intended to take his time.
Come on!I screamed in my mind.
I was ice. Zahur leaned over me and crushed his mouth onto mine. When my lips remained as icy as the rest of me, he pulled away and backhanded me. My head cracked to the side. It didn’t hurt. Not yet. Ice never hurt. It was never scared, either. With gentle hands, it packed all the memories I’d unpacked back intothe box in my mind, tucking them away for when we had more time.
But I was tired of running, tired of hiding from myself and what had happened to me. I’d unpacked that box on fucking purpose. I’d thawed under Tom’s warm eyes, his warm hands. Where was that Paige? Why couldn’t I find her?
Why was I nothing again?
Zahur set his knife down, stepped back, and started unfastening his pants. Hoarfrost hardened over my skin. I could do nothing but watch.
