Page 3 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
Gamal’s exit was preceded by a few soft jeers, but that didn’t stop the tears filling Mostafa’s dark eyes when he saw the kid. Truly, he really wasn’t much worse for wear. Part of me wished he was. He’d been given a good bruising by Paige, and a few more by my men for what he’d done to Jer, but he walked fine in the middle of the group of guards.
I released Mostafa. “Let’s call it five minutes. Then, I really need to get moving.”
He sprinted forward without a word. I nodded to Stan, and the guards parted to allow the man access to his son. The sibilant sounds of Arabic filled the night air as expected, and I smiled. I’d made sure Salim, the member of Killian’s syndicate who spoke Arabic, was on Gamal’s guard duty as often as physically possible. I didn’t even need to watch to know everything would go as planned.
Another man stepped off the plane. Tall, dark-skinned, built like a brick shithouse. Sam, the guy I’d picked out to head Paige’s security team. I beelined for him and steered him over to where she stood. Sam was a new hire, but he came highly recommended by Killian himself.
“Paige, this is Sam,” I said. “Sam, Paige.”
She nodded and stared up at him.
Sam stuck his hand out to shake. “Good to meet you. We’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days sinceI’m leading your security detail. I wanted to meet you ahead of time”—he glanced at me—“but there wasn’t enough time.”
Paige smirked at Sam’s little jab and shook his hand. “Well, I look forward to seeing a lot of you. Fair warning, I’m a bitch before I’ve eaten something.”
Sam laughed, and I grinned. I knew they’d get along.
“All right, Sam, you know the rest of your team?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Great. Round them up and take the SUV you’re gonna find a hundred yards to the west into the city. You five are our hotel team.” I rattled off the address.
Paige rolled her eyes. “Hotel team?”
I saw right through her bravado. The wobble in her dark gaze told me she had expected me to go with her.
“I gotta get everything loaded into the house for staging,” I said. “Trust me, I’d rather be on the hotel team, and I’ll be joining you as soon as I fucking can.”
She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss me, then she and Sam walked away to track down the rest of her team. I breathed a sigh of relief. Sam was a good man. Nothing would happen to her while she was with him.
When I turned around, Mostafa was right behind me, no sign of Gamal.
“Thanks for the smooth landing,” I said.
He nodded. “We may only hope that the next few days go as smoothly.”
I laughed. He really was a worrier.
CHAPTER 3
PAIGE
Ijostled into the man on my left, then the one on my right, and back again. Fucking shitty SUV. Fucking desert. I could’ve lived the rest of my life without feeling the particular cold of a desert at night again.
“All set back there?” Sam called from the driver’s seat.
“More like game, set, match,” I grumbled as another dune sent me rattling.
He chuckled. “We’re almost to the city, I swear. Tom said there’s a better vehicle there, too.”
I grimaced and focused on keeping from banging my nose on the seat in front of me.
The car Sam promised was indeed better than the shitty SUV in that it actually gave me a chance to look at the men I’d spent an hour driving through the desert with under some kind of light. And I got to sit in the passenger’s seat. Sam was new to me, which set me on edge, but I’d seen the other three around the house, I thought. The one named Harry had a tendency to ghost around the place not really saying anything. The second was named Rico. I only recognized him because one time I’d caught him fixing his hair in the downstairs bathroom. Scared the shit out of me, but he apologized so much that I was laughing beforetoo long. I didn’t know the third one’s name, but I knew I’d seen him around.
It didn’t escape my notice that I hadn’t seen any of these men at the house more than four or five months ago.
Sam rolled down the window, and my stomach churned as the thick diesel smell of Cairo leaked in. I clapped a hand over my mouth.
