Paolo gripped my shoulders. “You’ll be fine,” he said, without a flicker of emotion in his tone.
“I don’t want to go with him. I don’t care what my father told you. Please, Paolo! Please!”
His eyes dropped for a moment and then hardened. “You can’t stay with me. So you’ll go with him, or you’ll be alone. Those are your choices.”
So that was it. Everything we’d been through. Everything we felt—well, perhaps that was my fatal flaw. He felt lust; I felt more. He warned me not to. I didn’t listen. The sucker gets what the sucker deserves.
I lifted my chin. “Thank you, Derek. I’ll try to make your job as easy as possible.” I looked at Paolo. “I’m a piece of cake; easiest job you’ve ever had. Right?”
After all, I was just some sex kitten ready to pounce on his yarn any chance I got. Can’t get any easier.
Irritation flickered in his eyes. “You were great.”
“See. Nothing to worry about, Derek,” I said. “Good-bye, Paolo.”
I loaded myself into the white SUV.
Don’t look back, don’t look back, I commanded myself as we pulled out of the lot. I felt Paolo’s eyes following our truck from across the lot. Unable to resist, I looked back and saw the expression of a man who didn’t care.
Why did I look back?
So you remember not to cry over him. He doesn’t care about you.
Easier said than done, but I was determined not to. I would bury any feelings I had for the man and shove them down a deep, dark hole. I would not crumble. I would not shed one tear for a guy who didn’t care about me.
~ ~ ~
For the first thirty miles or so, Derek didn’t say much other than a few yeses and nos. He was more robotic than Paolo had ever been, which made me extremely uncomfortable. But then again, the entire situation felt uncomfortable.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I knew Paolo had intended to take me somewhere in Texas, given the direction we’d been heading and the fact he’d said it would be a two-day drive. But Derek had gotten onto Highway 25, north toward Albuquerque.
“A safe house, a few hours from here,” he replied.
Paolo had said it was the first thing he did: establish a level one safe house. And he made it clear that no one else would know its whereabouts, so it made sense that Derek would take me somewhere different.
“I guess my dad didn’t give you a lot of time to prepare,” I said.
“Prepare what?” he asked.
“The safe house.”
“We have people who take care of all that,” he replied.
Shit. He was lying. Paolo had specifically said that they never trusted anyone with that work.
Maybe you misheard Paolo. Maybe he’d said only he did all his own safe house prep?
Ask another question.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “I can only imagine how busy you guys get with all of your spying and killing people. My dad says he can’t keep up half the time.”
The guy bobbed his head. “Yeah. Well, comes with the territory.”
Holy crap. Paolo had been very, very clear; my dad’s people were not spies or assassins. They were very skilled information gatherers. Yes, that sounded like a spy to me, but he saw a distinct difference. In any case, whoever this guy was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t on my dad’s team. What was I going to do?
Think, think, think…
“Derek, I’m so sorry, but I’ve really got to use the bathroom. I drank way too much coffee this morning. Can we stop? I think I saw a sign for a gas station at the next exit.”
“We need more road behind us first. You’ll have to wait.”
Don’t panic. Don’t panic…“I really can’t. Have the bladder of an acorn. It’s really annoying.”
He glanced at me with those cold, blue eyes. “Sure. No problem.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him reach into his pocket and slam something into my leg. The needle stuck out like a porcupine quill, and whatever he gave me was potent. My hand didn’t even make it to my thigh to pull it out.
I am so screwed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Time is one of those funny things. When you’re busy enjoying life, it seems to pass by so quickly that hours can feel like minutes. And when you’re terrified, waiting for the inevitable, minutes can feel like days. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up on the floor in the windowless room with a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, the dankness in the air telling me I was likely in some basement, well, the minutes felt like weeks.
Paolo had said that if my father’s enemies ever got a hold of me, they’d remove my head and ship it off in a box. Every breath I took, every beat of my heart would be my last, I thought. I may never see my mother again and have the chance to hug her. I may never see my father or Paolo again either, which meant I may never get to kick them in their man baskets.