Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 32532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 163(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 163(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
“You know what I mean. He’s been alone almost all his life. And now you’ve made him suddenly responsible for someone else, and one who would remind him of his own childhood no less.”
“Do not make him sound like a hermit,” Calixte chided. “He has had hundreds of people dependent on him for years.”
“But not like this.”
“You worry too much, mon age. Things will work out fine, you’ll see.”
Something about her husband’s calmness had Eden looking at him more closely...and oh!
Her eyes widened.
“Are you...are you matchmaking?!”
“You wound me.”
Eden would have been quick to apologize if she thought that to be true, but the silkiness of his tone said otherwise.
“Is it not our God who ultimately determines every match? I am just here to facilitate or expedite, whichever is needed, and perhaps add a detour or two, just to make things more...meaningful.”
A good plan it was.
But what Calixte did not anticipate was Zacharie’s intention to also play matchmaker for his unexpected ward.
With someone far more suitable than himself.
Chapter Three
I’M READY FOR EVERYTHING the moment the short hand strikes three.
Bang!
Or at least I thought I was.
Until fireworks explode from everywhere, both real and digital, the noise made more deafening by the roar of the crowd. Champagne corks pop like gunshots. Confetti rains down in glittering gold. The masked figures below are on their feet, cheering, clapping, their excitement sharp enough to slice through the glass between us.
And then the curtains slip closed on their own, plunging me into darkness...just as a hand clamps over my mouth from behind.
“Follow my lead and do exactly as I say—”
I don’t scream. I don’t even flinch. Maybe I’ve already used up my quota of terror for the night, or maybe some part of me has been waiting for this, the other shoe finally dropping.
“—if you want both of us to get out of here alive.”
My rescuer’s voice is low. Male. Cold as a blade pressed to skin.
He also doesn’t think there’s any point to waiting for my response, since he’s already pulling me through a door I hadn’t even noticed was hidden behind the velvet curtains, and oh. Just like that, we’re in a hallway that smells like dust and old wood and something sharper underneath.
Gunpowder, maybe.
Or fear.
Gunfire erupts somewhere to our left, the sound making me flinch while my rescuer remains unperturbed, his stride remaining stealthy and unbroken. He moves like he was born in chaos, like bullets are just weather he’s learned to dress for. His grip on my wrist is iron, dragging me along, and some traitorous part of my brain notes that his hand is warm. That it fits around my wrist like it belongs there.
We duck through doorways and cut through rooms I barely have time to register.
A man in a suit rounds the corner ahead of us.
My rescuer shoots him in the chest without slowing down.
The body drops. I try not to look, but my artist’s brain catalogs it anyway: the way he crumples, boneless, like a marionette with cut strings. The red blooming across his white shirt like watercolor on wet paper.
More gunfire behind us. Shouts. The pop-pop-pop of it almost rhythmic, almost musical, drowned out by the ongoing explosion of fireworks outside.
We keep running.
Bodies are dropping at a faster rate than the last ten minutes of a George Romero zombie movie. Blood everywhere, splattering the walls, the floor, and now my face, warm and wet, and who knew blood would taste so metallic?
I want to gag.
I want to stop.
I want to curl into a ball and wait for this nightmare to end.
But my rescuer commands, and I obey.
He tells me to duck, I duck.
He tells me to run, I run.
He pulls me left, I pivot without thinking.
We move like we’ve been waltzing together since birth, like my body has decided to trust him even though my brain is still screaming that I don’t know this man, don’t know if he’s saving me or just stealing me for himself.
A door bursts open to our right, but my rescuer only spins, firing twice while we keep moving.
I don’t look at the bodies. I don’t look at the blood. I look at the back of his head, at the black mask covering his face, at the Kevlar stretched across shoulders broad enough to block out the world.
Jassy would be taking mental notes. Jassy would be memorizing details for later, building a profile, calculating odds.
I’m just trying not to trip over my own feet.
We burst through a final door and suddenly there’s cold air on my face, sharp and clean, and gravel crunching under my sneakers. A car waits ahead, sleek and black and already running.
Almost there.
Almost safe.
Almost—
Oh!
Terror grips my heart when I see a much younger girl—fifteen or sixteen maybe?—with mascara streaking down her cheeks and a torn dress hanging off one shoulder. Two men in suits are dragging her back toward the building, and she’s fighting them, kicking and scratching and screaming, but they’re too strong and no one is coming for her.