Page 23 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
Fuck, I was quitting the force if I ever got back home.
CHAPTER 18
TOMMASO
Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.I stared down at Zahur’s cackling guard as goosebumps raced across my body. Fucking Mostafa. That two-faced piece of shit had to have ratted on me. He fed Stan, fed all of us, bullshit. And I had fallen right into his goddamn trap. Zahur wasn’t here; Zahur was never going to be here. I had to pretend for everybody else’s sake that I wasn’t the cocky jackass I’d been accusing Zahur of being all along.
I shot the guard on the ground just to watch his brains splatter. “Spread out. See if he’s right.”
I turned and raced down a hallway I was mostly sure I hadn’t seen before. The fighting, the gunfire melted to the back of my brain. If he wasn’t here, where the fuck was he? We’d told Mostafa about the house we rented for staging, but the piece of shit didn’t know about the hotel. I’d been very clear not to tell him that. Right?
Bullets thudded into the wall next to me. I swerved into the nearest room. The pain in my shoulder seemed to be growing, blurring my vision, and I couldn’t think about lifting that stupid fucking automatic and bracing against the recoil. I needed to know if that guard was an ass or a sign I’d fucked up unimaginably.
Rooms disappeared past me. No Zahur. I flipped over furniture, smashed bejeweled hookahs, tore curtains off their rods. Riccardo Marino had riddled his house with secret rooms and passages. Zahur must’ve done the same. Any monster smart enough to know he operated best in plain sight would. But I didn’t find a goddamn thing. I dropped a guard with my pistol, then another. Only my right arm was worth using.
Paige was going to kill me. I’d put in all this thought, all this time, and I’d still risked my life for nothing. I’d promised her I’d fix everything, I’d slay her dragons, and I couldn’t. The bastard was going to get the fuck away.
In the back of my mind, I remembered that afternoon in the hallway with Celia, when I was so young, so scared. I’d puffed myself up and tried to wield the inherent danger of a woman in the mafia against her. When in peril, I’d stepped instantly into my role as a monster. It was so easy. And maybe I had been, before Paige. Or maybe I could have been. But I knew I didn’t want that anymore. I wanted to be the man she saw in me, the fucking Robin Hood, and Robin Hood never lost.
I whipped around a corner and found a door nearly the same color as the wall behind it. A bullshit secret door, for people not willing to put in the effort. I kicked it down without taking a breath to lift my pistol.
Someone rushed out and slammed into me. Off-balance from the kick, I tumbled to the floor. My left shoulder screamed. The weight on me was lighter than I expected, nothing like a full-grown man in body armor. Something seared along the side of my chest, and instantly, I knew something had gone very wrong.
“Go, go, go!” my attacker shouted in a high, feminine voice.
My vision started to swim. My jacket soaked through with my own blood. She’d found a gap in my vest. Another figure ghosted out of the night, this one properly big and black like a guard should be. I was going to die. I pictured Paige’s face in as muchclarity as I could manage. Scowling at me as I left today. Crying as I promised to always find my way back to her. Distrustful as I promised I’d meet her at the hotel as soon as I could.
And then I’d turned to find Mostafa right behind me.Fuck.
The second figure yanked my attacker off me. “We’re here to help!”
I watched the exchange blurrily. My attacker was a half-dressed woman, covered in scabs and bruises. A handful of other women waited behind her. Something in her hand shone red.
A second woman stepped out with another shiny something and lifted it to Killian’s neck. It was Killian who pulled my attacker off. Killian, who’d said Paige should stay at the hotel. In my mind, a distant voice screamed to move, to cover the blood gushing from the wound on my chest, to say something.
“How do we know that?” the first woman demanded.
“Go to the east wall, where you can see the neighbors’ palm trees,” he said urgently. “Take as many women as you know about, and yell ‘Venus.’ The wall will blow, and people on the other side will take you away from here.”
My attacker gritted her teeth, then made eye contact with the other woman. “If he’s letting us go, killing him won’t help. You know there are others.”
The second woman withdrew her blade, and all five of them hurried away.
Killian knelt next to me. “Motherfucker. Of course, she found the weak part of the vest.”
I had to say something. Paige. The hotel. My vision went gray around the edges. Killian darted away as another figure walked up.
“God almighty,” the figure said. Carp, I knew that voice, that accent. “I thought you weren’t missing the fight?”
My tongue was too heavy. Paige. Mostafa. Hotel.
Killian returned with a swath of fabric and began tying it around my chest.
“Hotel,” I wheezed.
My oldest friend met my gaze. I saw the worry in his eyes. Dimly, medical terminology floated toward me. Pulmonary, that was a bad one. I tried to look certain, to impress on him that nothing mattered more than making sure the love of my life didn’t fall to the man I’d saved her from.
“Okay,” he said.
