Page 173 of Sins of a King

“It’s a safe assumption,” Duncan voiced. “Unless we get him out of the country.”

“You want to move him? He’s unconscious.”

“What choice do we have?” Brad demanded. “We fly out tonight. By the time Winters is done cleaning up the mess on the docks, it will be too late. Flynn will be safe.”

“And what about me?” I asked. “I’m just supposed to leave the city?”

“You can’t leave,” Brad said. “You have to stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because Winters needs to believe you’re both still in the city. You can’t flee,” Brad explained.

“But Flynn,” I said. “I need to—”

“I’ll look after Flynn. Take him to my father’s house,” Duncan said.

I put a finger to my third eye and began to rub. A headache was looming. “I don’t know,” I murmured. “I need some time to—”

“There isn’t time,” Brad said. “You have to decide now.”

Would Flynn leave my side if the situation were reversed? No, he would be with me. But I had to do what was best for both of us, and at the moment that meant being separated from him.

“Ready the plane,” I said.

By dawn, Flynn was thirty thousand feet in the air and soaring closer and closer to Scotland, farther and farther away from me.

“You made the right choice,” Brad said as the car returned us to the front of The Rex Hotel.

“Did I?” I wondered. I hadn’t slept in eighteen hours, and I was delirious. Delirious and weepy and…pregnant. And still not at all sure how I felt about it.

“It was an impossible choice,” Sasha said, “but you didn’t make it about emotion. I respect that.”

I sighed, knowing even though I was exhausted, I wouldn’t sleep well until I was next to Flynn again. Sasha climbed out of the car first, followed by Brad. Too numb to pay attention to what was going on around me, I got out of the car and caught sight of Fred Winters and three of his men waiting out front of the hotel.

He looked a little worse for wear, lines etched at the corners of his eyes. Brad and Sasha immediately flanked me, but I gently urged them aside.

“You need to come with me,” Winters demanded.

“I don’t need to do anything,” I stated.

“I just want to ask you some questions.”

“No.”

Winters’s jaw clenched in annoyance.

“What did you expect?” I asked. “Accost me outside of my husband’s hotel, and I’d be more inclined to do something for you? I did enough for you, and it got my husband shot.”

Sasha put his hand on my shoulder, no doubt as a way to silence me. I listened and shut my mouth. I moved forward, wanting to get off the early morning Manhattan street. It was relatively quiet and devoid of traffic, but that would change. Trucks, people, and honking horns would soon be rampant.

Winters said nothing as I entered the lobby. I gave a sigh of relief. Sasha and Brad escorted me to the private elevator and rode all the way with me to the penthouse suite. I was beginning to hate the place.

“I’ll stay,” Sasha said. “On the couch.”

I shook my head, looking at both of them. “Go home. I’ll call if I need anything.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Brad asked.