Page 37 of Corrupted Deception

Diamonds, just like mine, but I felt out of place here, nonetheless.

Charlotte Santoro wore jeans and tanks, and she spent the night camping out under the open sky every chance she got, not cooped up in a stuffy, overpriced hotel room.

“Room three-oh-seven,” I murmured to Mendoza, leading him to the elevator.

When we stepped inside, the mirrored walls reflected our images, and his gaze met mine in the mirror as he entwined my fingers with his. He pulled me closer, turning to face me at the same time. He started to lean down until our faces were just inches apart.

I turned my head at the last second, caressing Mendoza’s jaw with my lips instead, then leaving a trail of kisses down his neck to the hollow of his throat.

“I never kiss on the mouth,”Julia Roberts said inPretty Woman.

Thankfully, before I had to figure out where to go from the hollow of Mendoza’s throat, we reached the third floor and the elevator door slid open. Hand in hand, we walked down the plush carpeted hallway, the clicking of my high heels muffled.

Outside room 307, I held my breath as I slid my key card into the door.

Cielo was somewhere inside, and that knowledge offered a modicum of—grudging—comfort, but we’d never rehearsed this.

Would he pounce the moment I opened the door? Or maybe he’d lurk in one of the corners, concealed by the dark shadows of the room? Exactly howup close and personalwas I going to have to get with the Jolly Green Giant?

If he waits too long, just use the paralytic,I pep-talked myself and turned the doorknob with a renewed sense of calm—or something that at least resembled it.

The door clicked open, and I gently pushed it, allowing it to swing inward, ignoring my pounding heart and focusing on five things I could see.

The smooth painted wood

The black peephole

The gold numbers on the door

The round knob beneath my fingers

My crimson nails

Inside, the room was dimly lit, the curtains drawn to block out the city’s luminous glow.

My eyes swept the room, but I couldn’t see Cielo.

The en suite door was open.

There was a tightness in my chest, a visceral, tangible ache at the prospect of his betrayal, worse because like a fool, he’d caught me blindsided.

The people my father trusted had come through for him again and again, proved themselves loyal dozens of times over. And here, I’d been counting on a man I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.

I spun around to face Mendoza, took his hand, and walked backward into the room, yet another sultry smile playing on my lips.

The moment he and I cleared the door, it slammed shut.

Cielo emerged from the shadows behind it, lunging from the darkness, his strong forearm wrapping around Mendoza’s neck like a vise.

Mendoza’s eyes widened as he gasped for breath, his struggle seemingly futile against Cielo’s relentless grip.

I reached for the succinylcholine, hidden beneath my dress in the same garter I’d worn last time.

At the same time, Cielo repositioned Mendoza’s body and jerked his arm higher, tipping Mendoza’s head way back and giving me perfect access to the man’s carotid artery as if we’d rehearsed this move a hundred times.

I jabbed the tip of the syringe into his neck and depressed the plunger.

Five.

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