Black Ice - Anne Stuart [43]
It wouldn’t be before tonight. First he had to get to one of his safe houses, clean her up and reassess the situation. Maybe the Committee would decide to terminate him after such a royal cock-up. He’d outlived his usefulness, and he was starting to act on impulse, which made him a liability. His employers weren’t the kind who gave second chances.
Hakim was expendable, but it had happened much too soon. And here he was, on the run, abandoning his mission before the main target had even showed up. Thomason would be livid. It didn’t matter. He was ready for this to be over. He no longer cared about anything or anyone, even his own worthless hide. As soon as he made sure Chloe was safe they could come and get him.
She was stronger, more resilient than he could have hoped. By the time the sun had risen across the French countryside her color had improved, and she slept more peacefully. He’d driven north, heading toward Normandy, and then circled back, coming toward Paris from the northwest rather than the south. It wasn’t much to throw his pursuers off, but he was hoping it would take a number of hours before someone found Hakim’s body and figured out who was missing.
He considered dumping the car, stealing a new one to cover his tracks a little better, but for some reason he was loath to disturb Chloe when she was sleeping so soundly. He had plenty of places to hide the car in the city—he just had to count on his luck holding for the next few hours. Long enough to get her safely on a plane.
He stopped in a small town just outside the city, leaving the car running while he went into a small store to get a few necessities. He lucked out—they had shoes in what he guessed was her size, they had Diet Coke and premade sandwiches that would taste like a cardboard baguette, but by then he wasn’t picky. Neither of them could afford to go without food, though he expected he’d have to hold her down and force her to eat. And while that vision was undeniably erotic in a pleasantly kinky way, he didn’t have time for it.
The coffee was the way he liked it—strong and sweet—and he drove one-handed through the morning streets of Paris, dodging the kamikaze traffic with expert ease, weaving in and out of the trucks and taxis like someone on a motorcycle, even taking a bit of the sidewalk at one point. Driving so fast no one would have time to notice anything but a blur. The usual Paris gridlock was nothing to him, and by the time he made it safely into the underground garage at the western-style hotel he was reasonably sure no one had followed him. They were safe for the next few hours.
It was an American hotel, bland and expensive and unremarkable, and he kept one of their better rooms, using it for the occasional cover, the occasional downtime. As far as he knew, no one was aware of its existence, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. As soon as they started looking for him they’d be able to track the extended room rental, and then he’d be shit out of luck.
But that much would take hours, and he was willing to take the chance. Chloe needed bandaging, neatening up, something to eat and as close to brainwashing as he could manage without the right sort of drugs. He hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to tell her. He wasn’t going to be able to convince her it was all a dream, not with those marks on her arms and her hair hanging around her face in odd lengths. Her face was pale, and there was a bruise beneath her eye that would benefit from ice.
He pulled into his allotted parking spot and turned off the car. That level of the garage was deserted at that hour—too early for the idle rich to move about, too late for the working stiffs. He could get her up to his room with the minimum of witnesses.
She had opened her eyes, staring at him dazedly. She’d pulled her shirt around her, but she hadn’t fastened it. Maybe it hurt too much