Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
For Mina’s life.
As I round the corner, I slip on the shiny floor, barely managing to right myself. Yanking the gun from the back of my waistband, I point the barrel in front of me as I race toward our room. From the end of the hallway, I call at the top of my voice, “Mina!”
The door to our room is closed. My senses sharpen. Fear is a monster breathing down my neck as I close the distance.
A loud crash sounds, like metal hitting tiles.
No!
I increase my pace, my lungs burning with the exertion. Two nurses, alarmed by my cry, come running but stop when they see the gun.
“Stay down! Keep the hallway clear.”
My mind is a frenzy of madness when I finally reach the door and grip the handle.
Locked.
I don’t hesitate. I jump back, charge, and kick it down.
What I see isn’t what I expected. The nightstand is overturned, the nurse lying next to it. Mina stands over her, clutching a gun in one hand and her injured side with the other. A red blotch is growing on the hospital gown under Mina’s fingers.
“Mina!”
Gun aimed, I rush into the room. Mina doesn’t look at me, all her attention on the woman on the floor. I follow her gaze. The nurse is writhing like a snake, a hypodermic needle sticking from her neck.
On closer look, I see I was right. It’s a good disguise. Brilliant. But that smile gave him away. It’s the same smile he had on his face that day at the station when he looked at Mina and me before averting his eyes. The same arrogant smile I recognized in his photograph.
Nagy seems helpless, harmless, but still. I keep my gun trained on him. “What the fuck happened?”
“Poison,” Mina says, not taking her eyes off Nagy.
I fix my attention on the needle in his neck. “What poison?”
“Strychnine.”
I’m battling to digest the information. “Where did you get it?” I should’ve left a weapon with her, for fuck’s sake. An oversight I’m not going to forgive myself for.
“Adami.”
“You knew he’d come looking for you here,” I say as the knowledge sinks in.
“I didn’t know, but I wanted to be prepared.”
Nagy gurgles, his eyes rolling back in his head. I know what strychnine does. It acts on the nerves that control muscle contraction, mainly those in the spinal cord. It causes agonizing muscle spasms and affects breathing. Death follows from cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, or brain damage.
I touch the hand in which Mina is gripping the gun to pull her attention to me. “Do you want to finish him off?”
Her voice is calm. “No.”
I respect that. Nagy convulses. He curls into a ball, snaps straight, and curls up again. His fingers twitch. His body goes still. Finally, his eyes turn dull.
“It’s over.” I reach for the gun in her hand. “His?”
“Yes.”
I put the gun aside and slip mine back into my waistband. “How did you manage to take it off him?”
“I pretended to be asleep. He was going to smother me with a pillow. I stabbed him in the neck with the syringe before he could see it coming. We wrestled. He reached for the gun in his thigh holster, but the poison took effect before he could get a good grip. The gun fell when he stumbled and knocked over the nightstand. That gave me enough time to get out of bed and grab it.”
“You’re bleeding.” I lift up her gown. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
I unwrap her bandage with unsteady fingers and inspect the wound underneath. “It’s not nothing. You tore a few stitches. Come here.” Pulling her small body to me, I hold her tight, feeling her warmth, her fragility, her aliveness. I still haven’t recovered from nearly losing her at the Hotel Paris, and now this. If Nagy had succeeded… I tighten my hold on her, refusing to think of that possibility, pushing the knowledge of her illness deep inside. “I should’ve given you a gun,” I say, my voice strained as I pull back to meet her gaze. “That was a fucking stupid mistake.”
“I slept with the syringe under my pillow, just in case.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
Yes. To her, it wouldn’t seem important. It’s simple insurance, something people like us take for granted. I take a breath and remind myself that she’s like me. Tough. Capable. Merciless, when she needs to be. Still, my heart feels like it’s about to explode each time I picture her in danger. “I want to know these things in the future,” I say, my tone hard. I search her eyes. “Even the mundane things you think don’t matter.”
“Okay,” she says easily, still calm as fuck, but the tremors I’m starting to feel in her body tell a different story.
“It’s over,” I murmur, cupping her delicate jaw. “He can’t hurt you anymore.” Recalling her wound, I force myself to let her go. “We better let Adami look at those stitches. I’ll call for cleanup.”