Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“Dayuna, my Dayuna!” Janae screams for her dead lover on the floor while a person at the west exit targets us from the hallway. I shove the frantic prostitute into the hotel room to ensure she doesn’t meet a similar fate as Dayuna. Plastering myself against the wall, I take a measured peek. The elevators to the far corner start gliding shut. My heart scrambles into my throat as I glimpse—
“Victor!” Luxury shouts to me. A forearm is leveraged over her shoulder. The wanka uses my lady as his own personal body shield. The Arab fires another round. I drop to the ground. As I turn to tell Janae to do the same, a bullet thumps into her side. She drops to the floor.
My last glimpse of Luxury is her biting down on the forearm that wields the weapon.
Holding my handgun close to my body, I surge forward.
“Fucking bullocks!” The lift rapidly descends. I press the button. It takes seconds, precious moments that will never return, for another door to open.
“Excuse you, sir!” A couple shouts as I step inside. They glare. An offered glimpse of my gun motivates them to scram while I jab the button for the first floor. On my way down, each time the doors open, I flash my gun and continue alone.
On the main level, I slip into the lobby, gun holstered. I take lengthy, poised strides, though blood pounds through my ears.
At the commotion near the valet, I can no longer contain myself. I sprint outside into the blistering heat. The back doors of a Range Rover open, and my unconscious lady is tossed inside. I aim for the tires.
The fucking bullet ricochets, piercing the window of a supercar in the opposite lane.
Bloody Bulletproof!
Not a second later, open fire rains on me in all directions. I dip behind a marble statue, take aim at the security detail before me, and let off two shots.
Bullets pierce the skulls of the pair of guards, and the blokes are dead before they hit the ground. I exchange the clip. The magazine clanks on the concrete, and I continue shooting. I point the gun at a valet driver, pulling forward in a two-tone Bugatti.
He tosses the keys, and I quickly get inside. The back window bursts, riddled with bullets as I drive out of the parking lot. Up ahead, the Range Rover zips out and into traffic with Luxury in the back.
I pull out my phone and dial Paul.
“I am still—”
“Get aerial coverage of the vehicle I’m following!” I growl, glancing in the rearview mirrors at the trucks in hot pursuit. Just in case I lose her again.
11
Luxury
A pulsing throb rouses me from a slumber darker than death. I’m lying on my back, a hard metal slab beneath me. The ceiling and four walls crowd me in. Seized by anxiety, I shuffle in a lung full of stagnant air. Two guards border each side of a door. One’s familiar—the guy who had stood just inside of the elevator, waiting. Waiting for telephone confirmation to take me.
Weary eyes peer over me. Thinning, white hair escapes the woman’s hijab. Her hands clasp my bare belly. My t-shirt has been pulled up; my pants removed. I don’t know how I got here.
Think, Luxury. I was in the hotel. I-I murdered a woman. As soon as I stepped out of the hotel room, the elevator guy was waiting. He put a gun to my head. He didn’t take me back up to Al Rafi, though.
God, why do I keep thinking of Victor? I had been delusional as the Arabian forced me onto an elevator. I saw the man I love before being coldcocked over the head. Now my vision’s furrowed at the edges.
As the elderly stranger speaks, a young girl about ten years old repeats the words in English. “Are you with child?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“This whore’s lying,” argues another woman. I expect the venomous tone belongs to none other than Wasim. From my sedated position, I latch eyes onto a woman whose aura puts Al Rifi’s to shame. A woman who, by God’s given hand, is even more beautiful than any of the sheikh’s wives. Black marble eyes bore into my soul, those eyes . . . they remind me of none other than the devil himself, Al Rafi.
Shit, Princess Noor. Which means . . . I . . . murdered . . . an innocent woman. It hits me; I’m not David when he slew Goliath.
The elderly woman proceeds in Arabic. Her tone weaves into a chant. This time the child does not repeat the words. The girl hands her a mortar and pestle, and the old woman grinds a powered concoction while lacing together the same utterance.
I will my body to move.
First, my fingertips.
Next, my hands.
Life slowly floods through my veins and cuts into whatever toxins they may have given me.