Page 24 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
“What?” Carp asked.
“I’m going,” Killian said. “He needs?—”
I lost my grasp on the words. The gray started to overtake my vision. Paige, nothing mattered but Paige. She would want me to…to do something. I sucked in a breath. Thin, aching. I exhaled.
The gray went black.
CHAPTER 19
PAIGE
Iperched on the edge of the couch in the common area, trying to convince myself not to check my phone.
“…And then Amalia says, honey, I grew up in Philadelphia. If you think I won’t break your wrist to get the last dahlia on Mother’s Day, you’ve got another thing coming.” Sam grinned at me.
I chuckled. He’d been regaling me and the rest of the security team with tales of his wife ever since I returned to the common room, slowly coaxing me away from the window and involving me in the conversation. Amalia seemed like an incredible woman, and I couldn’t wait to meet her when we got home. Maybe she’d want to help out at the shelter.
But, like always, the thought of returning home turned my stomach.
“I’m gonna go make some more tea.” I stood.
Sam held up his mug. “Coffee, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I shook my head. “I understand why your wife breaks wrists.”
He laughed. “Then, I’ll have tea.”
I took his mug with a weak smile and headed for the small kitchenette, slightly walled off from the rest of the space. In here, I couldn’t help myself. I checked my phone: 12:02. Nothing fromTom. Nothing from anyone, except a text from Sera asking if I’d heard anything that I’d been ignoring for hours. I started the kettle and put bags of peppermint tea in Sam’s mug and mine. Normally, I didn’t bother with tea, but Mom used to make me peppermint when I was sick. It soothed my stomach, even if it didn’t actually touch my nerves.
My phone vibrated in my hand. As I started to glance at the caller ID, the door splintered inward.
I froze. Boots thundered over the carpet in the main room. Bullets flew. The caller ID read “Killian.” It was over. Tom was dead, and so was I. The bastard had won.
No. That was damsel in distress behavior. After all this fucking time, I was going to go down fighting.
I silenced my phone, covered my mouth to hide any noises, and yanked a knife out of the block. They’d marched right past me. I sank to the floor, then squeezed myself into one of the cabinets there. I’d emptied it out earlier, looking for the kettle. I could hold the knife in the grip that made it better for stabbing, spring out, and?—
Fuck, what was the grip? I turned the kitchen knife this way and that, my heart hammering louder than the gunfire in the other room. I’d trained for so fucking long. I had to know it. I just had to.
Abruptly, the gunfire cut off. I cracked the cabinet open, prayed I had the knife correct, and braced to spring. I’d die fighting.
I’d find my own way back to Tom’s side, wherever people like us ended up after we died.
Through the crack in the cabinet door, I could just see when a burly Egyptian man stepped into the kitchen with a knife pressed to Sam’s throat. Blood beaded on his dark skin.
“Come on out,azizati,” crooned a voice that turned my skin to ice.
Zahur. He was here. I couldn’t see him through the sliver of light, but I’d never forget the way he sounded, the sick, honeyed way he called us pet names.
“No one else has to die,” he continued.
Oh, God. He was promising Sam’s life in exchange for me. I had no element of surprise, nothing to bargain with. I didn’t even have the confidence I was holding my fucking knife correctly.
“Don’t do it, Paige,” Sam said. “I know what choice I made coming here. Amalia did too.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth as nausea roiled through my stomach. Amalia would be devastated. And worse, he’d said her name in front of Zahur.
The bastard laughed like he could read my mind. “Amalia, was it? Perhaps I will have to make a visit overseas once I’m done here.”
