Page 4 of Pascal and the Forger

His husband left him on read.

Call him.He should, except he was always the one making the first move. Always the one bridging the gap. Still, he stopped in his tracks as his thumb hovered over the little phone icon. Jairo would be in meetings now. He chewed his bottom lip. Win’s call would interrupt—

“Hello.”

He jerked his head up, falling back a step when his gaze clashed with that of the stranger in front of him. He was heavily muscled, good-looking in a dark and dangerous way Win immediately recognized. He tightened his grip on the phone, pretending his sense of self-preservation wasn’t screaming in his ears. “Hello.” He gave the man a short nod and moved to step past him.

The man moved when he did, blocking his path. “Come with me, please.”

Alarm bells clanged louder and louder, but Win kept his composure. He was a pro at that, after all. “Who are you?” The harsh glint in the stranger’s eyes sent his heart hammering. “What do you want?”

“Who I am doesn’t matter.” He said it so coolly. “What I want…a moment of your time, Win Shäfer.”

He would have gasped at the sound of that name, his name, if he hadn’t honed his reactions a long time ago. There was nothing about the man in front of him that he recognized. Nothing that hinted that they’d known each other back then. Had Win fucked him when he’d been turning tricks? He glanced around, body going still when he spotted two other men blocking the mouth of the alley.

An ambush?

His hands shook and he swallowed. “I don’t know you.” But he couldn’t be sure. He’d done so many things that heated his body with shame. “I’m not going anywhere with you. My husband—”

“I know who your husband is.” The stranger’s lips curved slightly. “Does he know who you are?”

Terror clawed its way down Win’s spine and still, he managed to stay on his feet. To lift his chin. To hold the man’s gaze. “Who are you?” No one should know who Win truly was. His past had been wiped and reconstructed by the very best, making it so no one would ever know who and what he’d been. But this person, he knew. How?

“Someone wants a moment of your time.” The man shrugged. “I’m here to deliver you to him, that’s all.”

But that couldn’t be it. There was no “that’s all.” Everything he’d built was in jeopardy. But why? He heard his heart pound, felt it in his ears as if it were physical punches, as he asked, “And if I don’t come with you?”

Cold eyes pierced him. “Are you brave enough to find out?”

A sob caught in his throat, but Win swallowed it back. He wasn’t that street-corner whore anymore. He wasn’t helpless anymore. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I do.” The stranger stepped to the side, motioning for Win to continue on down the alley to the parking lot. “After you. We’ll take your car.”

He could fight, but he had zero chance at overpowering three men. He could scream, but the attention that would bring— He couldn’t have Jairo finding out all the things he’d lied about. Not like this. Hopefully not ever. So Win walked, hesitant steps at first then more confident strides until he got to the white Porsche Panamera GTS Jairo got him for his birthday the year before. The parking lot was empty, though he knew he wouldn’t have drawn attention to himself even if it wasn’t.

He got behind the wheel of his vehicle and followed instructions as the stranger directed him down familiar streets until they drove into a hotel’s underground parking garage.

Win stiffened. What was this? “I don’t—I’m not—” It had to be a former client, why else would they want to meet at a hotel? Did he expect Win to fuck him? He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, shaking.

“Relax.” There was a trace of something—empathy?—in the stranger’s voice as he got out. He walked around to the driver’s side and opened Win’s door. “I can guarantee it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” Win shot back as he exited the car and straightened. They were almost chest to chest, he and the stranger, and he was taller, so Win had to tilt his head back in order to meet his dark eyes. Those eyes, they told stories, Win saw as he stared. Stories he didn’t want to read. “What’s your name?” When the other man’s brow shot up, Win told him, “You know mine.”

“Call me Toro.” He gestured to an open elevator that waited for them with one man inside—dark skin, heavyset—carrying at least two guns that Win could make out.

Win didn’t budge. “Am I walking to my death, Toro?” Or his rape? He couldn’t ask that last part out loud.

“Not to my knowledge.” Toro stared at him, waiting as if he had all the time in the world.

He probably did. He didn’t strike Win as someone who had anything to lose. Who had people he loved, who loved him. Everything about the stranger named Toro screamed darkness and danger. Funny, for some reason, everyone Win came in contact with had that air about them. Something about him acted like a magnet, attracting that kind of energy, and he hated it.

Wanted nothing to do with it.

Still, he’d tied himself to a man like that.

He’d married a man like that.

His was a life of lies and regrets, so what was one more heaped to the pile? If he died tonight, at least he’d be free of the deceit. No more struggling to keep all the stories straight.

---