Page 6 of Soulmate of the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #8)

TOMMASO

I woke up earlier than I’d expected to, while the sun was still below the apex of the sky, and stared at Paige for a long moment.

Her hair splayed brightly over the pillows, curling around the curve of her full cheek.

She’d never told me directly about her issues with mirrors, but I’d guessed.

Watching her last night had been like a miracle.

But now, in the morning light, my chest squeezed.

She was brave. I knew that, had seen it a million times.

But I wanted her to be able to keep getting braver, not get the wind knocked out of her by some bastard who wasn’t worth the time of day.

I sighed and climbed out of bed to start my day.

In the common room, Harry and Eddie sat blearily on couches.

“I’m ordering breakfast,” I said.

That brought them around. In a few minutes, I’d placed a massive room-service order with food for all six of us.

When it arrived, I woke Paige, and she stumbled out of the room a few minutes later.

The guys descended on the food, then returned to their positions at the doors, leaving Paige and me alone in the kitchen.

She ate a stack of chocolate-chip waffles with mechanical precision, never once looking up at me.

“So, I talked to Killian.” I took a bite of bacon.

She whipped her head up. “What did he say?”

“He got to you too, huh?” I smiled.

She tugged on the end of a loose strand of hair. “Maybe. But I didn’t give him anything solid.”

“Me either.” I salted a plate of eggs. “Just that it was your decision.”

She gestured at me, vindicated, like she was proving her point to an invisible Killian. I smiled for a moment.

“Your decision is still made, right?” I poked at my eggs and glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.

“I want to go,” she said. “Definitely.”

The certainty in her brown eyes flickered like I hadn’t seen it do in a while. Whatever Killian had said might’ve gotten through to her. Or maybe being here was already too overwhelming for her.

“No one would judge you if you didn’t,” I said.

“I’m not looking for an out!” she snapped.

I put my hands up and sipped a mug of coffee.

She huffed out a breath. “Sorry. People just keep trying to subtly talk me out of this, like I can’t take someone looking me in the eye and saying they don’t think I should go.”

I looked her in the eyes. “I don’t think you should go.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I’ve been all in on this plan,” I said quickly. “And it’s still your call. If you tell me to fuck off, I’ll fit you for body armor myself. But I can’t help wanting to keep you safe.”

“And I want you safe,” she muttered.

I flinched. My job was dangerous, and it always would be.

“Which is the only good argument Killian’s made so far.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I’ll think about it, okay? Just…go do your mafia stuff, and come back before it’s go-time. I’ll know by then.”

I kissed her softly, pushing all my love into her, and she met me move for move. She agreed I’d be too distracted with her there. But I didn’t want to think about that now. I had a raid to finish.

I pulled up to the rented house to find it a flurry of activity. Men, mostly in undershirts and pajama pants, swarmed this way and that in the desert heat, all drenched with sweat. Carp peeled out of the crowd and walked over to me.

“Took you long enough, Sleeping Beauty,” he said.

I smacked him on the back of the head. “You’ve got deep enough bags under your eyes to pack all of Sera’s clothes in. Did you even sleep last night?”

He yawned. “Enough. Trust me, you don’t come up in Miami with knowing how to stay sharp after a long night.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “How are things going?”

“Good, good.” He nodded as he looked out over the crowd. “We’re assigning guns, loading, oiling, you know. That Mostafa guy was by earlier. He said something about a location, but I think Stan handled him.”

I clapped Carp on the shoulder and headed inside to find Stan. Mostafa was supposed to call me, but I wasn’t surprised he wanted to give up phones as quickly as possible. The Egyptian bastard was getting downright skittish.

Luckily, Stan wasn’t too hard to find. He was holding court in the middle of the kitchen, playing some kind of complicated game with pieces of cut-up paper. I stared at them for a long moment and realized he was trying to fit everything into the trunks before load-in actually began.

“Should’ve known you were too old for this,” I said. “I leave you alone for four hours, and you invent a puzzle game.”

He snickered. “Killian jetted off to the location Mostafa dropped damn near as soon as he could see, which is why I’m doing this bullshit. I don’t have all the cars to just test and see.”

“What’s this location?” I asked

Stan looked up from his papers. “Right. Zahur is launching an attack against one of Rahim’s houses tonight.” He gave me an address.

I nodded and headed back outside. I needed to catch up with Killian anyway.

A few minutes later, I slowed as I drove through a lower-income residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Cairo. Half-dressed kids scattered out of my way, and I frowned. Rahim, one of the billionaire skin traders, lived here?

Something glinted in my rearview mirror, and I looked in that direction.

Killian sat on one of the high branches of a fig tree in a cluster with a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes.

When I followed his line of sight, I found a rundown warehouse with Arabic graffiti on the side.

I supposed some things didn’t change between countries.

I parked the car a bit away and walked up.

“How does it look?” I asked.

“You’re the most obvious thing I’ve seen all day,” he replied. “Get your ass up here.”

“Piss off, I’ll dump both of us on the ground.” My massive frame would barely fit between the branches.

Killian grunted, then clambered down. “Fine. Honestly, I see why he picked this place.”

I leaned against the tree. “Yeah?”

“It’s isolated from the rest of Rahim’s holdings, the neighbors around here know to put their heads down when the gunfire starts, and it has two major entrances plus a small one. The forces in there have to be spread thin.” Killian frowned. “He’s smarter than I hoped.”

“If the inside forces are spread thin, so is he.” I crossed my arms. “We have all of the rest of the surrounding area to hit him with. He’ll be bottlenecked just like Rahim’s people are.”

Killian nodded. “The apartment building next door is mostly abandoned. An ambush would be easy.”

“Good.” I smiled down at the crappy warehouse. “But Zahur’s not going to waste his time here. We have to hit him at home.”

Killian sighed. “Well, then let’s get a taxi.”