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I look at the message for a few seconds, trying to shake the haze before getting out of bed and walking to the door. I still don’t understand how Jay has found me. Am I dreaming? I stand on my tip toes, look through the peephole and see Jay glaring at me, and open it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think my father would really come after me.”
He stalks into the room. “We don’t have time to talk, grab your purse,” Jay says, opening up my suitcase to throw the shopping bags lying around into it.
“Stay behind me,” Jay says, half dragging me to the exit door and into the stairwell, closing the door behind us quietly just as the ding of the elevator alerts us of an upcoming visitor. I have the floor to myself, and room service has already delivered my food. No one should be on this floor right now, and it is difficult to keep my head upright.
He grasps my waist and pushes my head into the crook of his arm, and we walk down the stairs. One floor, then two floors, then three floors and fear so intense runs through me.
The adrenaline, all that has happened, the sadness I feel of losing Jay, and the overwhelming feeling that my father has decided to end my life are all too much. It happens time and time again. No one wants me, and now the sleeping pills are overtaking me. I feel like I am on the outside watching as I shut down. I try to warn Jay, but no sound comes out before I fall into the black oblivion.
31
JAY
All of a suddenshe stops walking and starts to sway. I put Sasha’s suitcase down just before she passes out in my arms. I hit Dereck’s number. “I’m in the stairwell, far right looking in. Three flights down and have to leave her suitcase.”
“Roger that.”
“Have the driver pull around to the right front,” I say, making my way down the stairs with her pressed to my chest. Her breathing is shallow, and my heart is beating like I’m in a fucking war zone. This shit goes on daily in my life, but it’s a whole new ballgame when my angel is involved. I hear the stairwell door open and hear the shoes of the enemy clicking quickly against the concrete stairs above us, then hear the muffled exclamations when they find the suitcase and realize she’s just ahead of them. They are excited that they have found her, and then I hear Dereck take the fuckers out with one precise shot to each of their heads.
I reach the bottom of the stairs, Matt opens the car door, and everyone makes room to let us in. “Sasha, what happened?” Marenah cries when she sees her sister’s lifeless body.
“She passed out, but she’s breathing on her own,” I say. My thumb hasn’t left her pulse in case I need to breathe the fucking life back into her.
Dereck raps on the trunk of the limo a few minutes later, and the driver pops it open. He throws Sasha’s suitcase in and then slides in next to us. “Let’s move,” he says to the driver.
Dereck scowls when he looks at Sasha crashed out cold in my lap. “Is she okay or do we need the doc?” he asks.
“I honestly think she’s just passed out,” I say, shaking my head, unable to take my eyes from her sleeping form.
“She doesn’t like flying. She usually takes a couple sleeping pills when she travels overseas,” Marenah says, digging around in her sister’s purse until she finds what she’s looking for and holding the packet of sleeping pills for us to see.
“After the night she’s had, that would probably do it,” I say, brushing her hair out of her face so that I can watch her sleep in my lap, knowing that my finger won’t come off of the pulse in her neck until she wakens.
“The angel sleeps,” Dereck says before leaning his head back against the seat rest and closing his eyes.
“Did you call the cleanup team?” I ask.
“You know that I did.”
“I have no doubt, but you know I have to ask,” I say.
“Uh-huh, sent their pics to intel, too,” he says.
“Status on the ground?” I ask.
“Mission accomplished, and Giovanni Larussio is on his way home. The cleanup crew is working overtime tonight,” Nick says, smirking at me and saving me the trouble of asking. Bunch of wise guys I have working with me, but I wouldn’t trade them for anyone. The only ones we’re missing are Damian and Keith, who are tied up with Jenny and Brian and a situation with her niece, and Sheldon, who is already with Chase and Katarina.
It is another thirty-minute car ride until we get to Chase’s and we enter the gates. Nick keys in the passcode to the guest house and I carry her up the stairs. This house has ten bedrooms, all with private bathrooms. While there are enough for her to have her own room, I take her to the one I’ll be using.
I slip her robe off and tuck her underneath the covers with nothing on but her white cami and lacy undies. I push her hair out of her face and kiss her again before making my way back downstairs to my men.
True to her word, Gaby, Chase’s housekeeper, more like a surrogate mom to all of us really, has filled the refrigerator with beverages and lots of food. She’s going to put my men into a sugar coma with all of her pies, but they seem completely happy with their fate as they sit around the bar and consume the desserts and food she has made.
Matt stands up and helps Marenah with him. “I’ll tuck her in and be back down in a bit,” he says, and she blushes.
“Thank you for taking such good care of my sister even when she was fighting against it. She seems to think that one day our father will somehow come to his senses and declare his love for us. The sad reality is we are a constant reminder of what he lost and will never have. He chose the money instead of love, and he will never put himself in jeopardy of losing it,” Marenah says, turning and walking up the staircase with Matt, who has his hand on the small of her back.
“You’re welcome,” I say, low enough that no one but myself can hear. I open the refrigerator, grab some water, and sit down with the team.
