The woman who stayed

Daniel felt her hand go slack in his.

“Aziza.”

Her eyes were closed.

He pressed harder against her shoulder. Blood worked between his fingers, warm despite the cold water falling from the sprinklers.

“Mathew!”

“Car’s coming round.”

“She needs a doctor.”

“I’ve called ahead.”

Lilian dropped beside him and pressed a folded cloth into his hand.

“Use this.”

He couldn’t tell where she had found it. A tablecloth, perhaps. White, until he pushed it against the wound.

“Did you get him?” he asked.

“The man on the balcony? Yes.”

Daniel looked down at Aziza.

She had seen the gunman before any of them. She had tried to warn him.

He had been too busy demanding answers.

“Daniel.” Lilian touched his arm. “We have to move.”

He nodded and gathered Aziza against him, keeping the cloth in place as best he could. Her head fell against his shoulder.

She had been arguing with him a moment ago.

Now she didn’t react when he stood.

“Clear the way,” he said.

Mathew went ahead of them. Lilian stayed close, one hand supporting Aziza’s injured arm.

They passed the ruined dining tables and entered the staff corridor. People crowded the walls. A waiter held a towel to another man’s head. Two security guards were helping a woman towards the kitchen.

The woman in the silver dress.

She looked at Aziza and started to say something.

Daniel couldn’t stop to listen.

“Make sure they all get help,” he told Lilian.

“It’s being handled.”

“And nobody calls their families from a hospital bed because we forgot to do it.”

“I’ll see to it.”

The rear doors opened onto a loading area full of shouting people and arriving vehicles.

Mathew pulled open the back door of a car.

Daniel climbed in with Aziza still in his arms. Lilian slid in beside them and took over holding the cloth against her shoulder.

“Go,” Daniel said.

The car moved before his door was fully shut.

He braced himself against the seat, supporting Aziza’s head. A wet curl had caught across her mouth. He moved it aside.

There was blood on her cheek now.

His, he realised. He had put it there.

“How far?”

“Ten minutes,” Mathew said from the front.

Daniel looked at him.

“We’re moving as fast as we can.”

Lilian checked Aziza’s face.

“She’s breathing.”

“I can see that.”

“Then keep talking to her.”

He looked down again.

What was he supposed to say to a woman he had known for less than half an hour?

He didn’t know her surname. He didn’t know where she lived. He didn’t know whether there was someone waiting for her to come home.

He knew she disliked being underestimated.

He knew she carried a gun beneath an evening dress.

And he knew she had gone back for a stranger when she could have walked out of his casino.

“You still owe me an explanation,” he told her.

Lilian glanced at him.

“That’s what you’re going with?”

“She was willing to argue about everything else.”

“Fair point.”

He brushed his thumb over Aziza’s fingers.

“You hear me? We haven’t finished our conversation.”

Her lashes moved.

He leaned closer.

“Aziza?”

Her mouth opened, but he couldn’t make out the sound.

“Don’t try to move. We’re getting you help.”

For a moment, her fingers tightened around his.

Then the car turned, Lilian shifted beside him, and Aziza slipped away again.

At the clinic, someone tried to take her from him before the car had stopped.

“Careful with her arm,” Daniel said.

“We have her.”

He knew the doctor. He had paid for the building, the equipment and most of the people hurrying through its doors.

Still, letting go required an effort.

The doctor looked at the blood-soaked cloth and asked questions as they moved. Lilian answered most of them.

“Gunshot. Left shoulder. She lost consciousness at the scene.”

“How long ago?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Any known medical conditions? Medication? Allergies?”

Silence.

Daniel looked at Aziza on the trolley.

“We don’t know.”

The doctor glanced at him, then returned his attention to her.

They reached a set of doors.

“Wait here.”

Daniel took another step.

“Here,” the doctor repeated. “Let us work.”

The doors closed.

For the first time since the glass broke, Daniel had nothing to do with his hands.

He stared at them.

Blood had dried beneath his nails.

Mathew brought him a clean shirt and a report he didn’t want to hear.

Daniel listened anyway.

Two of their security men were dead. Several guests had been taken to hospital. The police had reached the Grand Venetian, and the staff were still trying to account for everyone who had been inside.

“Elena?” Lilian asked.

Mathew looked at her.

“Woman in silver. Injury to her leg.”

“She’s alive. Her husband’s with her.”

Lilian sat back, closing her eyes briefly.

Daniel turned the clean shirt over in his hands.

“The guard at the partition?”

“In surgery,” Mathew said. “He had her phone. We’ve got it.”

“And the docks?”

“Nobody’s going.”

“I know nobody’s going. Was she right?”

Mathew paused.

“We’re checking.”

Daniel stood and walked to the washroom at the end of the corridor.

He scrubbed his hands twice.

When he came back, a nurse was waiting with a clear bag containing Aziza’s belongings.

Her clutch. A bracelet. Two earrings.

A small device lay beside them.

Daniel picked up the bag.

“What’s this?”

“It was in her ear.”

Lilian stood.

The nurse looked between them, decided she wanted no part of the conversation, and returned through the doors.

Daniel held up the bag.

“She was talking to someone.”

“Yes,” Lilian said.

“You knew?”

“I found out while she was helping me keep gunmen away from the kitchen. We didn’t have time to discuss it.”

He handed the bag to Mathew.

“Find out who.”

Mathew’s phone rang before he could answer.

He looked at the screen, stepped away and listened.

Daniel watched his expression change.

“The docks?” he asked when Mathew returned.

Mathew nodded.

“Enough to know we weren’t walking into a business meeting.”

Lilian swore under her breath.

Daniel looked towards the closed doors.

Whoever Aziza was, she had told him the truth about that.

“And Trade Inc.?”

“The family deaths are confirmed. The daughter’s connection is less straightforward. There’s paperwork, but I want it checked properly.”

“Check it.”

“Already started.”

“Quietly.”

Mathew gave him a tired look.

“I wasn’t going to put it in the newspaper.”

Daniel almost smiled.

Almost.

He sat down again.

The doctor came out after what felt like most of the night.

Daniel was on his feet before the man reached him.

“She’s stable.”

He waited for the rest.

“She lost blood. We’ve treated the wound, and she’s being monitored. She needs rest.”

“Will she recover?”

“At this point, I expect her to. I’ll know more as we watch her.”

Daniel nodded once.

“I want someone with her.”

“A nurse is with her.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant. One person. And if she becomes distressed, you leave.”

Lilian made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.

Daniel ignored her.

The doctor hesitated.

“We should contact her family. Are you able to do that?”

“We’re trying.”

“Keep trying.”

He walked away before Daniel could ask anything else.

Mathew held out Aziza’s phone.

“It’s locked.”

“Leave it with me.”

“Daniel.”

He looked up.

“We still don’t know why she was there.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“She knew about the docks. She had a weapon, a communications device and someone helping her outside. That isn’t a girl looking for a bodyguard.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t decide she’s harmless because she got hurt.”

Daniel looked at his friend for a long moment.

“Harmless is the last thing I think she is.”

The room was quieter than he expected.

After the casino, the soft sounds of the monitor and the distant movement in the corridor felt almost unnatural.

Aziza lay beneath a white sheet, her injured shoulder bandaged. Without the heels and the steady, challenging gaze, she looked younger.

Not helpless.

He doubted he would ever make that mistake again.

Daniel pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down.

On the table, he placed her clutch and phone.

Someone should have been calling her. A friend. A relative. Whoever had been talking in her ear.

He looked at the dark screen.

Perhaps they didn’t know where she was.

Or perhaps they knew exactly where she was and were deciding what to do about him.

He leaned back, watching her face.

“You’ve made a mess of my evening,” he said quietly.

No answer.

He remembered her asking whether tomorrow morning would do for an appointment. He remembered her helping the injured woman. Her irritation when he tried to send her away.

He had spent years surrounded by people who offered him loyalty.

Most of them wanted something in return.

Aziza wanted something too. She had made that clear.

But she could have left him in that room.

His gaze moved to the bandage.

He was still sitting there when her phone vibrated against the table.

An incoming call.

No name on the screen.

Daniel picked it up and answered.

“Hello?”

Silence.

Then a woman spoke.

“Put Aziza on.”

“Who is this?”

“Someone asking whether she’s alive.”

He sat forward.

“She is.”

The breath on the other end of the line was small but unmistakable.

Relief.

“Is she awake?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’ll call again.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

Daniel looked at the woman in the bed.

“Who sent her?”

The caller was quiet for a moment.

“She came to warn you, Daniel.”

“I didn’t give you my name.”

“You weren’t the one we were worried about losing.”

The call ended.