Page 94 of The Pawn

“What are you…” I start, confused. Enzo saved my life. He killed three men to save my life. He almost died himself to save me.

Surely, the warning bells ringing in my head aren’t right.

Just then a figure emerges from behind Enzo. He’s tall and wearing a hoodie that reminds me of the Grim Reaper tattooed on Cassian’s body.

“Enzo, watch out!” I cry out.

Enzo glances over his shoulder, then back at me. Half a dozen more men follow this first one, hoodies hiding their faces.

But Enzo doesn’t move.

In fact, he’s calm.

“Enzo?” I hear myself ask as he drops the plastic bag and holds a rag in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Allegra. I didn’t want to hurt you,” he says, and steps toward me.

I open my mouth to scream, to call the attention of the soldiers, but before I can, Enzo grabs me roughly and pulls me into his chest. He slaps the cloth he takes out of the bag over my nose and mouth, muffling my scream,my struggles are useless against his strength. The chloroform begins to do its work. My hands slip from his forearm, arms dropping limp at my sides. As the world goes sideways and darkness closes in around me, the last thing I see is the traitorous face of Enzo Trevino.

32

CASSIAN

Iscrub my face, barely able to keep my eyes open. I haven’t slept a full night in too long.

I’m headed back home after seeing Seth and speaking with his doctors and the security team. Seth is in the ICU and it’s not looking good. He tumbled down the main staircase. They don’t know what he was doing up. How he was out of his room. The security cameras happened to have stopped working right around the time of his fall. The last thing they captured was a black SUV with opaque windows pulling into the lot, two men in black, hoods pulled over their heads climbing out, then nothing.

“Shit!”

How could Malek get to him? How could he know about Seth at all? The men working security didn’t know shit. There was no mass outage, nothing natural to cause the security cameras to shut off.

It can all be arranged easily enough. Men can be bought easily enough. I know that myself, don’tI?

I need to call Vivi. I don’t want to do it, but I need to. I’d already moved her from the safe house in Hawaii to another location, this one in California, but she’s still a flight away and she needs to get back. I push the button and the phone starts to ring.

“Cassian?” she finally answers just before the call should have gone to voicemail.

“Did I wake you up?” I know I did.

“What’s happened?” she asks, she must have just looked at the clock. She must know I wouldn’t call unless it couldn’t be avoided.

“It’s Seth, Vivi. You need to get back.”

I hear her intake of breath and can imagine her covering her mouth so as not to wake Gage.

“What’s happened?” she asks.

“He had a fall. A bad one.”

“How bad?” Comes the question I don’t want to answer.

“I don’t think he’s going to make it.” The moment I say the words, I know they’re true. I know it without a doubt. A sadness settles in deep and profound and beside it, a tiny thing, relief. Relief for him. For me. That relief, I know it makes me a monster.

Vivi stifles a sob. “I’ll be on the next flight out,” she says after a moment. “Are you at the hospital?”

“I just left. Go straight there. I’ve upped security. I’ll arrange for you to stay?—”

“I’m going home, Cassian. I’m going home after…”