Page 30 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
“Great.” I nudged Zahur with my foot. More blood spilled from the couple of holes she’d put in him. Definitely dead. I holstered my gun and turned back to Paige.
Her shirt was split down the middle, and she hadn’t moved, other than the nod and the trembling. For a long moment, we stood in a silent hotel room together. I didn’t know what she needed. I barely knew her. But I assumed she needed someone by her side, even an asshole like me, and stand by her, I could.
“T-Tom?” she asked eventually.
I blew out a long breath. “Hurt. Badly. But alive last I saw him.”
Her eyes widened, and her silent tears flowed faster. I wished I’d had better news to give her, but she’d clearly proven herself capable of dealing with the worst of the worst. Hiding his condition from her wouldn’t help anything. I just didn’t need to give her the little detail that he had been stabbed in the lung.
“Look, we have to get moving,” I said after another long moment. “I don’t know who’s going to show up first, Egyptian cops or Zahur’s clean-up team, but we don’t need to see either of them right now.”
She blinked a few times.
I grimaced. Even after meeting Sera, emotions like this were difficult for me to know what to do with. “I can call Sera if you think she’d explain it better?”
A beat of silence passed, and without a word, Paige sat up. All emotion had disappeared from her face. She still shook like a leaf in the breeze, and she hadn’t released the knife, but she’d flicked some switch in her head that let her do what she needed to.
“Passports are in the false bottom of Tom’s suitcase.” She stood. “I’m going to go get the supplies for the women.”
“Paige—”
Crunch.
Both of us whipped around to face the unmistakable sound of someone very carefully stepping on broken glass in the main room. I put a hand up and drew my gun then snuck to the door.She ignored my instructions and tiptoed behind me, the knife still in her hand. Someone rounded the corner into the short hallway leading to the door, and I lifted my gun and aimed.
“Hey!” Salim, one of my men, whipped off his mask and put his hands up.
I lowered my gun. “I almost killed you.”
“I noticed.” Salim eyed Paige behind me. “Stan sent us.”
A few more men in all black piled into the hall. I’d requested everyone he could muster. I nodded crisply.
“We’re just readying to leave for the airport.” I holstered my gun. “There is a suitcase of supplies that needs to reach the women in…?”
“The third bedroom,” Paige murmured.
“The third bedroom,” I repeated. “Send a team with that to the house. The rest of you, organize bodies, strip identifying marks, and prepare yourself to be visible in public.”
I stepped back into the room with Paige and closed the door. She looked at me for a long moment. Her still expression didn’t move, but I realized she was wondering why we were in here.
“You need to change,” I said softly.
She looked down at herself, then quickly back up, like the sight horrified her. While she gathered new clothes, I wrenched up the false bottom of Tommaso’s suitcase. Passports, money, everything she could need. Except the passports only covered her, Tommaso, and her security force. If we ended up needing them, I’d have to return to the house or send her alone. Was there a chance we could get out the way we’d come in? I had no idea.
“I’m going to rinse off,” she said from the bathroom.
I stood. Our escape was a problem for later. Without a word, I sat with my back against the bathroom door and listened to the water as knowledge washed over me. I’d been too late. By a hairsbreadth, but too late. Paige had saved herself.
CHAPTER 25
PAIGE
Iscrubbed my hands in the hotel bathroom sink, holding my own gaze so I didn’t have to watch the water turn crimson. A bubble of manic laughter expanded in my chest. So long hiding from mirrors, and here I was clinging to one to keep my wits.
But I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’tanything. Because as soon as I started feeling, I’d have to think about everything that had happened, and I needed to flee the country, not break down.
My hands still clung to each other stickily. The sink wasn’t doing enough. And Zahur’s blood covered my chest. I switched on the shower and paced.
