Page 69 of Tamed Enemy
“Again.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
I wake, and it’s dark. Faint gray light creeps in at the curtains. I can hear horns honking, but they sound far away. I struggle to sit, pushing myself up with my elbows.
“Go back to sleep,” Cole says. I squint and see him in a chair by the window.
“What time is it?”
“Almost nine o’clock.”
“Day or night?”
“Night.”
“What day?”
“Thursday.”
I’ve lost two days.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“The Plaza. In New York.”
I want that to be enough questions and answers. I wish I could go back to sleep forever and never need to think about anything ever again. But I have to know.
“What happened?”
Sighing, he comes to sit on the edge of the bed. He tells me all of it, the things that I remember, and more I didn’t see.
Tarasov took the phone from Jonathan, sending himself the recording.
Federov’s men closed around both pakhans, getting them out of the club.
Cole took me to the room where we met Fournier. He held me until a doctor came, someone Gage keeps on call for when things get out of hand. After a thorough exam, I got a tetanus booster and antibiotics.
Jacobson’s men met us at the door to the club. Drew Cameron, my bodyguard, is stationed outside this suite right now. Two more Sawgrass soldiers are on duty in the lobby. Collins is back in Washington, under lock and key.
I’m bruised and exhausted and every muscle in my body feels like it’s been pounded with a mallet. But I didn’t need stitches, even where Antonov shoved his chair leg between my thighs. I haven’t had a pain pill since last night. I have no internal injuries.
“Almost like you knew what you were doing,” I say.
Cole doesn’t match my forced smile.
“And the money?” I ask.
“What money?”
“Tarasov’s hundred grand.”
Cole puffs air through his lips. “This was never about money.”
“But we got it?”
“Yes,” he says. “Rider handed it over without taking his share.”
I reach for Cole’s hand. “You did what you had to do,” I say. “We both did.”
