“How did you end up in this room?”
“I’m not really sure. They had a cancellation? A mix-up? I don’t know. When we checked in this morning, I used the bridal room to get ready, but they brought Alvin and the guys here. And our luggage. Said it was an upgrade since we had the wedding downstairs.”
I have a million little things bubbling up inside me—Alvin’s kinky perversions that he never mentioned in two years of dating, the fact that two men are lying dead in the room, and Tomas.
But only one of those things is looking at me like this is all somehow my fault.
“When you checked in this morning, were you together?” He nods to Alvin, still bleeding on the floor but kind of crawling toward the door.
“No. It was our wedding day. We couldn’t see each other …”
He doesn’t even try to hide his eye roll. Asshole. “Did they type your name into the computer?”
While these questions all seem very purposeful, the heart flutters, stomach cramps, and oncoming headache mean I am one or two minutes from a full-on panic attack. I don’t have time for all this.
“Probably. They had to give me a new key card.”
“Then you’re in danger.”
“No shit.” Tommy and what he’s become are my most pressing dangers.
“Until I know why the rooms were changed and what these guys were after, you have to come with me.”
He grabs my bicep in a death grip to start dragging me out, but I jerk away, then use as much weight as I can shift to stomp on his foot hard.
Tomas doesn’t even blink. He waits a minute before he looks down at me. “Finished?”
“Fuck you.” He’s not the boy I remember or the man I once hoped to grow old with. He’s a murderer. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
His blue eyes go stormy and gray, dark and angry. “You’re coming with me.” And to emphasize his power, he drags me through to the seating area then shoves me against a wall when I start to go slack. “These men will torture you and rape you and do God knows what else just because you were unlucky enough to end up in a room that was supposed to be theirs.”
I scoff, despite the fear that’s bubbling up inside of me. “So, my life lesson for the day is go with the murderer I know because the ones I don’t know might torture me before they kill me?”
He glowers without another word and pulls me toward the exit.
But I’m not done. “Who’s Gio and why is his cash hidden here?”
That stops him. He lets go of my arm and sighs. Calmly, as if he hasn’t just killed two men, injured another, and is not on the verge of kidnapping me on my wedding night, he glances down. “What did you say now?”
“One of the goons said, ‘The cash was here. Presidential suite #1409.’ I don’t know much about guns or murder, but I know this is the Presidential suite, room number 1409.”
He considers me with a side-eye then hauls me back through to the bathroom. He checks the toilet tank, the cabinets, the towels, and ignores the framed art that no reasonable designer would ever hang in a bathroom unless it was to hide something.
I guess it’s about thirty steps through the bedroom and the other room to get out of here, and I won’t be able to slow Tomas down because there’s a big dead Italian man lying in the way of closing this door, so I’m going to have to distract him.
I count to ten for courage, inch around Joey Tribbiani, and stand between Tomas and the door. This might be my only chance to get to the police. “You ever seen a picture that big hanging in a bathroom?”
I wait until he’s lifted the painting and his back is turned to run.
My shining moment. A perfect distraction. Run, Forrest, run!
I would’ve made it, had it not been for Alvin. He’d made it almost out to the seating area on his stomach when we weren’t looking, trailing blood like a slug. I trip over him and go sprawling through to the marble floor in the seating area. “Fuck!” I tear the knee to my jeans, but the only real injury is to my pride. Alvin groans in muted pain.
Tomas stands in the doorway, shaking his head at the pitiful sight. “No wonder you two got married. You’re the Abbott and Costello of escape artists.”
I have to swallow back a laugh. I forgot how Tomas used to love those old black and white movies.
He shakes his head and shrugs a shoulder. “If you want to go, Corrie”—oh, God, no one’s called me that in ten years—“go ahead. But they’re going to come for you, especially when they come to me and I tell them you have their money.”
I blanch, the color draining from my face. “You wouldn’t.”
He isn’t that cold. That uncaring. He loved me once, didn’t he?
He nods to the dead guy by the closet. “Ask that guy what I’m capable of.” He cocks one brow. “You can come with me, and I’ll protect you until you don’t need it anymore. Or you can go it on your own. Maybe the cops can help you, but then you’ll have the Italians and the Russians chasing you.”
He crouches over Alvin and flips him so he is on his back. I can’t make out what he says because blood is pounding in my ears. Tomas fists a handful of Alvin’s hair then lets his head fall to the floor with a thwack of skull on marble.
“What about Alvin?” I ask.
Tommy shakes his head. “Just you. I’ll have someone come by and help your husband”—he says the word with pure disgust—“get his story straight for the cops. But if you’re coming with me, then we have to go. Right now. No other choices.”
He stands and steps over Alvin, then holds a hand out to me.
“You coming?”
He’s calm and smug and I hate him for everything he was and everything he is. But I don’t have any other choice until I figure out what to do.
I take his hand.
6
Tomas
Things work for me because I plan, then if the plan goes awry, I adapt. But this clusterfuck is unadaptable. I’ve never been so careless. So stupid.
Corinne is huffing and puffing in the passenger seat. I’m checking the rearview mirror every two seconds like it’s my first day on the job.
Alek would be laughing his ass off at my shitshow of stupidity. I missed the mark. Killed two Italians. Grabbed a girl. The only redeeming quality of this night is the duffel bag of money I have stowed in the trunk.
The city is still alive with action. It’s only a little after two a.m. and I’m watching for police cars, gang colors, or Italians on the hunt because I’ve killed two of their men. Next to me, Corinne smells like sunshine and flowers. I’m torn between pushing her out of the car because I can’t afford the distractions and calling Alek to meet us so she can ride back with him. Whatever it takes to put some distance between us.
Alek would deliver her to my father, and she’d end up on the auction block next month once they’d “trained” her. I shouldn’t give a fuck, but I do, so that’s not an option.
Left on her own, she’d call the cops, which would snowball into an even more tangled clusterfuck.
No. Best to keep her with me. Huffing and puffing aside.