Page 34 of Goodnight, Sinners

Saskia let out a watery laugh. “Happy.”

Madison wrapped her arm around Saskia and squeezed. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“It hasn’t been okay in a long time,” Saskia murmured, laying her head on her friend’s shoulder. “I don’t even know what okay feels like.”

“We’ll get there, sweetie.” Madison looked up as a car with tinted windows pulled up to the curb. “Our ride is here.”

“Maddy…”

Madison shook her head. “You’re coming with me. My dad has set up a safe-house for us. We’ll stay there until he’s able to either negotiate with your cousin or get you a new identity that can’t be traced.”

“Jozef has a long reach.” Pain sliced through her as she thought of her cousin and the possibility that he might be gunning for her. She hated the mafia with a passion. In what other world would a beloved cousin, almost a brother, have to make such a terrible decision?

“Ours is just as long over here. He won’t be able to reach you, I promise.”

It was so tempting to allow Madison and Lord Grayson take care of her. In some ways she was much older than her years, having grown up in a demanding family, but she was also still a nineteen-year-old girl. She wanted to rest, to stop having to make decisions on the run, to let someone else take over for a while.

“Okay,” she whispered, fear surging through her. Fear of the unknown, fear of putting her friend and her family in danger. “Let’s go.”

Together they climbed into the town car Lord Grayson had sent and sped through the streets of London toward an unknown safe-house.

They arrived less than an hour later.

Saskia’s lips twitched as she climbed out of the town car and stared up at the magnificent towering glass skyscraper. The glass had a green tint that shone with sparkling newness as the sun hit it.

“This is lying low?” Saskia shook her head. “I was clearly not doing it right.”

She thought of the tiny basement suite in Lichtenstein she’d rented through Airbnb using one of her fake ID’s. Or the leaky hovel she’d spent four days in outside of Paris. That place had been a few hundred years old and likely never renovated.

Madison grinned. “A safe-house doesn’t need to be disgusting. Trust me, we’ll be safe here. This place belongs to a friend of my dad’s so it can’t be traced back to my family.”

As they walked through the bright penthouse suite, filled with light, tasteful art and modern decor, Saskia wondered about the person who owned the place. What did his regular home look like if this was his spare?

She laughed out loud as she inspected the pool. “Yeah, I think I can lie low here.”

The two women spent the rest of the afternoon getting reacquainted. They gossiped about old school friends, ordered sushi from one of Madison’s favourite restaurants and made themselves at home.

Madison chose the master suite on the main floor while Saskia chose the loft bedroom. As she set her backpack down on the queen-sized bed, she looked around in awe. Huge skylights filled the room with light, casting soft shadows across the fluffy white duvet. Warmth caressed her skin, softening the brittleness of the last couple of weeks. The loft was huge, the furniture sleek, the ambiance modern, all of which appealed to her.

Unable to resist, Saskia let the lure of luxury lead her into the soft covers of the bed. She was still wearing her travel clothes, but she didn’t care. Being surrounded by safety for the first time in weeks was a lullaby to her anxious brain.

She fell asleep almost instantly and slept heavily until something woke her up.

Saskia blinked into the gloom, trying to remember where she was as her exhausted brain played catch up. The shadows had shifted as the day progressed.

She yawned widely and glanced at the skylight over her bed. It was now dark out. She’d lost most of the day to sleep. She flipped the blankets back and shifted to the edge of the bed. That’s when her brain registered what had woken her.

Voices.

She heard an indistinct murmur from the floor below hers. Since the loft was open, she could creep close to the stairs leading down and hear what was being said.

“Let me talk to her first.” Saskia glanced down to see Madison talking to her father. She was about to interrupt them, when Madison said, “I don’t want her to hate me. I can make her understand.”

Lord Grayson, a tall, grey-haired man, snorted. “You think she’ll understand that you’ve betrayed her for a luxury trip to New York with your boyfriend? No, Maddy, she’s dangerous. Better to let me handle this. We’ll have her removed quietly and sent back to her family.”

Saskia didn’t have time to process the betrayal of one of her closest friends. The moment Lord Grayson finished his sentence, she flew back into the bedroom, scooped up her backpack and frantically looked for an exit.

There was nothing in the bedroom, and of course the windows were sealed shut since they were on the top floor of a high-rise.

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