Delgano: The Intro - Page 108

Sayeda prayed harder than she ever had that Atlas had made good on his promise. He’d given her exactly two throwaway numbers. As of this moment, she’d used up all her lifelines.

The banging on the door increased, and she gripped the cutlass tighter.

Why now?

Why, after all this time, after she’d established herself on the island and was planning to open a small restaurant on Independence Street, did he have to show up now? That silver-blond hair passing through the market had been unmistakable, and she’d assumed she’d slipped away undetected.

The person kicked in the door.

A face appeared.

At first, the light behind the man obscured his features, but then he stepped to the side. Eyes as blue as the island’s beaches assessed her from above, and dark hair hung slightly over his forehead.

“It’s okay,” he said, and his smile somehow managed to immediately put her at ease. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m Lattimore. I’m a friend of Atlas.”

Her chest pitched high. “Atlas?”

“Yes. Wait, one second.” He went around the room, drawing curtains and opening blinds before returning to the corner she’d tucked herself into.

He crouched.

The influx of light had caused her to shield her face, but when she lowered her hand, the man’s expression changed. As if he had no control of the limb, he brushed her cheekbone with his thumb. Then, when he caught himself, he pulled back.

“Are you Sayeda?” he asked.

She didn’t respond.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He let his gun fall to the side and raised both hands. “I swear. I’m Lattimore. Atlas is like a brother to me. We’re here for Sayeda. You used to communicate with him in Morocco. Recently, you sent him an alert, and he pinged you here.”

She looked around.

“Hey Atlas, come here a minute?” he called, halfway turning his chin toward his shoulder. It was almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to completely look away from her face.

Another man appeared, this one blond with pale blue eyes. When the man spotted her, he went still.

“Holy shit.”

Lattimore exhaled. “So it’s not just me. Thank God. Thought my feelings had stumbled into hallucination territory. She looks just like her, right?”

Atlas nodded. “Same eyes, same face. Same everything.”

“Didn’t you say Eesh told you about a rumor that she had a sister?” Lattimore gestured to her. “Either a sister or a doppelgänger because…damn.”

“After Curtis, she told me to stop looking. That she didn’t want to know anymore, and she was adamant about it. With next to no information, the trail went cold anyway.”

“Do you think…”

“Man, I don’t know. Anything’s possible.” Atlas, smiling, crouched next to Lattimore. “Hi, Sayeda. I’m Atlas, but you can call me Hunter, or Julien, if you prefer. It’s nice to finally put a face to your name, and it’s a beautiful name, by the way. What is that, Arabic?”

Lattimore elbowed him. “Isn’t Eesh’s name Arabic?”

“Joel, you’re obsessed.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

“You guys don’t understand,” she interrupted. “There’s a man after me. He’s…insane. I saw him on the island. It’s not safe.”

A third man entered the quaint, off-the-grid, three-room house, this one all dark—hair, eyes, aura. This man gave her the same chills that Novi did, except Novi was a playful kind of crazy. This man probably didn’t know how to spell the word playful.