Her breaths were even and slow, lifting her perfect breasts and dropping them in rhythmic succession. There were fresh bruises on her face from where she’d fought back and ultimately lost, but that hadn’t slowed her. The woman was a fighter.
Of course, she was nothing to Busir. Frankly, he didn’t care if she lived or died, but Kalim had very clear instructions she be left alone. And Busir didn’t want to do anything to screw up this hit so they could finally end this fucking job. He certainly didn’t want to watch as Minyawi used the girl for his own perverse deviances and then have to explain it all to Kalim later.
And he had a sinking suspicion if something didn’t change soon, he’d have no other choice but to do both.
Minyawi stood from where he’d been seated on the opposite bed, staring at Lauren Kauffman, and moved forward. He crouched down close to her and ran his finger down her neck, across her collar bone, lower to the tip of her breast. Eyes closed and still half-drugged, the model moaned and tried to shift away from the hand that was groping her. Minyawi only chuckled.
Busir stood quickly. “Kifaaya! Don’t touch her.”
Minyawi turned those soulless eyes Busir’s way and tightened his jaw. “What did you say to me?”
“She’s not to be harmed.”
“I’m not going to harm her,” Minyawi said in an icy voice, shifting his attention back to the model. “I’m just going to have a little fun with her.” His hand slid down to the model’s slacks, and he used his finger to pull the cotton lower on her hip, revealing her creamy skin.
Minyawi’s laugh deepened. And Busir saw their chance to finally end this shit assignment slide right down the drain because of Minyawi’s volatility and unpredictability. He moved in a rage with barely a thought, kicked Minyawi in the kidneys and readied himself for a good knock-down, drag-out fight. He’d had it with this guy and every lost chance they’d had up until this point.
Minyawi rounded on him fast, but what Busir hadn’t calculated was the knife Minyawi kept strapped to his thigh. Metal flashed, just before the blade sliced through Busir’s throat and a gush of liquid spilled from his body. He slumped to the mattress. Shocked. Immobilized. Eyes wide as he choked on his own blood.
Minyawi glared down at him and wiped the blade of the knife on his dirty camo pants. “No one tells me what to do.”
Dimly, Busir heard a phone ring, and saw, though increasing darkness, Minyawi lift his cell to his ear.
“Yes,” Minyawi said firmly, eyes still on Busir. “You’re sure? They’re alone in Dr. Gotsi’s apartment?” A slow, victorious smile slid across his face as he nodded. “We will be there shortly. Busir? No. He’s indisposed at the moment. Yes. It will be finished tonight. I guarantee it.”
Busir opened his mouth to yell, just as his world went silent.
Okay, enough was enough.
Kat threw back the covers on the gigantic four-poster bed, clicked on the bedside lamp and scrambled out from between the sheets. The clock across the room read 2:10 a.m. as she dragged on her jeans and slid her feet into her shoes.
She’d been lying here for the past two hours, listening to the sounds of the rain pounding the city, waiting for God-only-knows-what. She was done waiting.
The dainty Victorian furnishings with their Queen Anne legs and that delicate rose wallpaper surrounding everything was making her head swim. And every time she looked up at the lace canopy above the monster bed she’d been laying in with its intricate carvings and wide posts, she wanted to puke because it made her think of Pete and what he was doing in another room in this enormous apartment right now.
She’d been stupid to think he would come to her. Obviously, what had happened between them in that motel room last night had been all about sexual tension, time and place and leftover hormones from being at that strip club. And his following her to North Carolina? Not about her, but about watching his back.
It didn’t even bother him that she was up here and he was down there, with that…piranha.
She turned for the door, not caring that it was pouring outside, or that she had no idea where she’d go from here, or that Minyawi and his goons could be out there waiting for her right this very minute. If she spent another second in this penthouse, she was pretty sure she