by Zara Teleg
Copyright ©2020 by Zara Teleg
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the author. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
A New Paige is entirely a work of fiction. All names, characters, organizations, events, and places portrayed in this novel are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, localities, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First edition
Editing by Ritchelle Buensuceso
Cover design by Zara Teleg & Les
Cover photos by Shutterstock & Deposit Photos
For my parents, who taught me, as long as I believed in myself, I could do anything.
“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
Oprah Winfrey
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Please and Thank You
Also by Zara Teleg
A New Paige Playlist
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Paige
Icy hands grasped my shoulders and ankles as I was lifted onto another surface. Fighting the sedation, I pried my eyes open as much as I could. The images were fuzzy, and voices unfamiliar. My vision was blurred, and I couldn’t focus. My head spun like a Tilt-A-Whirl.
“Sir, was she conscious when you arrived on the scene?”
The ground rumbled beneath me as I was being wheeled.
“She’s been in and out,” a man’s panicked voice replied.
“Sir, you can meet us at the hospital.”
“No, I’m not leaving her.” His voice was stern as his hand grabbed mine.
“How are you related to the patient?”
“Um…she’s family.”
W-who? W-what’s happening?
“Fine, sir, you best come with us, then.”
Doors slammed and sirens blared as we started to move.
Where am I?
My eyelids were pulled up, a bright light was shined in one eye and then the other.
“Are you with us, sweetheart?”
“Paige, her name is Paige.”
A warm hand slid up and down my arm, comforting me, before holding my hand again.
“Are you with us, Paige?” My eyes opened to an EMT leaning over me.
“Yes.” It came out a raspy whisper.
My memory came rushing back.
“Where’s Ana?” Panicked, I tried to push my body up.
“Whoa.” A gentle hand pressed me back to the gurney.
“You need to lie back and let us take care of you. We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
An uncomfortable squeezing was increasing against my bicep. The blood pressure monitor tightened as the air was pumped through.
“Ana,” I moaned.
“Your sister is gonna be alright,” warm breath whispered in my ear before giving my hand a small squeeze. His voice was soothing. It calmed the trauma that was running through my mind in waves.
She’s going to be alright.
I tried so hard to keep my eyes open. I needed to see his face. The man who saved me. Emerald eyes bore into mine with worry written across his fading face as the darkness took me back under.
“Paige, stay with me...”
Chapter One
Paige
“Sorry, hun, I didn’t want to wake you.”
A woman wearing scrubs shut off the incessantly beeping machine. A nurse. I was in a hospital. I reached for my throat. It felt like sandpaper.
“I was going to get you some water. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she smiled.
My fingers cautiously touched the bandages that wrapped my throbbing head. I heard the nurse speaking to someone.
“She’s going to need to take it easy for a while,” she said. “A knock to the head like that can cause a concussion. We will be sending her home soon with all the instructions she needs to heal. It must have been a bad accident you were all involved in. She’s lucky she got away with just a bump to the head. The other girl was impaled and is in pretty serious condition.”
Impaled? What other girl? Then it all suddenly came back to me.
I was startled awake, wishing this was only a nightmare. A man kicked over something and cursed, making me stiffen. My sister wiggled against me, our bodies still tied together. I was mostly numb from the cold and the ropes. He turned on the light of his phone, shining it around the area until he found us.
“Gotcha, bitch.”
His pungent odor grew more offensive in the damp basement as he came closer. His hideous face became visible under the phone’s light as he tried to pull me and my sister apart.
“That fucking Colombian ain’t making me wait any longer for what’s owed to me.”
My struggling was ineffective. He quickly tied me to the pipe and dragged my sister across the damp floor.
“I hope you like to watch,” he held the large knife to her throat.
I squeezed my eyes shut as he cut her clothes off. Would he kill her? Would I be next? I squealed through the tape as she struggled against him.
“You make one more fucking sound and you will be permanently silent,” he threatened, pointing his blade at me.
My heart was thumping in my throat. I forced myself to be silent as I kept my eyes on my sister, who was now naked and being assaulted.
But she fought back and kicked him. He grunted, then punched her hard in the gut. I shrieked as she groaned in pain and collapsed to the floor.
“I said shut the fuck up!”
He grabbed the knife and began marching toward me. But he abruptly stopped—a loud set of pops, followed by shouting, then pounding footsteps thundered across the upstairs floor.
He moved past me and up a few stairs, cursing as more shots fired. Then he took off, running to the corner.
Then another man came. This time, I knew who it was. I knew the sound of his footsteps. I recognized his limp and his shiny shoes—it was the man who brought me here. He promised that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, that they wanted someone else. At the time, I didn’t know they wanted my sister.
“What happened here?” he said with his thick Hispanic accent when he found me tied to the pipe. He cut me loose, scooped me up, and threw me over his shoulder, leaving my sister there. I wiggled, I tried to fight, but my bound hands and feet left me no way to get loose. He stopped at the top of the stairs, making sure it was all clear before he poked his head out, then raced down the hall to the outside door.
If I didn’t get away now, I would never see my family again. And my sister, she was going to be raped and killed by that man.
We burst out of the compound and to the street; I looked up, not expecting to see someone following us. He had a gun and put a finger to his mouth, letting me kno
w not to give him away.
The moment my eyes met his, a calm came over me. He was here to save me.
I was about to get loaded into the back of a van, but then there was a scuffle. My head hit the door of the van and then the ground. When I came to, double vision made it hard to focus. I closed my eyes and let gentle arms lift me from the sidewalk. The smell of leather, tobacco, and cologne engulfed me.
“Paige, don’t be afraid. You’re safe now. It’s going to be okay. I got you.” My eyes met his for a brief moment, then everything went dark.
A tear crawled down my cheek. I shook my head and began listening to the nurse again.
“Is Paige your girlfriend?” I could actually hear the flirtation in her sweet southern accent. Who the hell was she talking to?
“Uh, not exactly.”
I recognized that voice—it was the last thing I heard before I passed out. He was the man who rescued me. My eyes scanned the dimly lit room. He took up the entire doorway. The nurse stood close to him, holding a clipboard to her chest. The light that came from the hall cast a shadow on his face. I could only make out his long hair and straight nose.
“Kai, thank God I found you! Where’s Paige?” a woman’s voice carried into the room. The man, Kai, took a step back into the corridor.
“Excuse me, visiting hours will be over in a few minutes, so please make it quick,” the nurse sounded annoyed.
“Whatever, I don’t care. I need to see my li’l sis now.”
All I could see was bright blond hair barging into the room like she owned the place.
“Paige, my baby girl! I can’t believe it’s you.” Her voice broke as worried eyes fell on my face.
Ivy. She was my sister’s best friend and the person she moved with when she decided to go off the radar for a few years after an awful incident with her ex, who was the reason I was lying here, injured. Her hand swept gently over my forehead as our eyes met.
“Ivy,” I whispered, smiling warmly as all my childhood memories of the girl I looked up to most came flooding back. She was even more beautiful than I remembered.
“How are you feeling?” She flicked on the small light above my bed and poured a glass of ice water from the orange pitcher that sat on a tray. She put the plastic cup to my lips. “Sip slowly.” She kissed my head and placed the pitcher down.
I peeked over her shoulder, noting that Kai was speaking to the nurse in the corridor. When he turned his head and I got to see his face for the first time, I nearly lost my breath. Kai was more than good looking, with his shoulder-length brown hair and sharp jawline that showed through his five o’clock shadow. An unexplainable ease fell over me when he smiled as our eyes connected for a brief moment. The emerald green was vivid, even from several feet away. I forced myself to turn back to Ivy. She was following my line of sight, a smirk on her face.
“Kai has that effect on most women.” She tilted her head to the nurse who was practically drooling. I cleared my throat and asked questions I was afraid to get an answer to.
“How’s Ana? Is she going to be okay?” My voice came out low, and I struggled as I pulled the words from my dry, strained throat. A familiar unease came over me. I gripped my hands on the stiff sheet, pulling it up to my chest, holding onto it like it was my lifeline. Ivy rested her hand on my shoulder.
“Sweetie, she’s stable now, so I don’t want you to worry. But I’m going to level with you. It was touch and go for a while. But since the transfusion, she seems to be doing better. She wasn’t in good shape when she was brought in, and she’s been out since she got here, but Rage is taking good care of her.”
“Rage?”
“Rage, her man. And you better get used to calling your sister Juliet now. She insists. It’s not just her cover anymore. She said she will never be Ana again. You’ll get used to it.” She winked.
The nurse returned to the room and cleared her throat. “Ms. Conti needs her rest, and visiting hours are almost over.”
Ivy rolled her eyes, then flashed me a sweet smile. “Sweetie, I’ll be back first thing in the morning with lots of goodies for you. Don’t you worry about a thing. You and your sister are going to be just fine.” She kissed my cheek.
“It’s so great to have you back, li’l sis. You look so good, by the way. I mean, you always were a beauty, but even with a bandaged head, girl, you look amazing.”
Her gorgeous smile warmed me. She was always like a sister to me. When she’d moved away years ago, Ana had not been the only one devastated—I’d lost her too.
“Uh, Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Um, can you please ask Kai to come in for a moment. I’d like to say thank you.”
“Sure, girl.”
Ivy stood outside the door, hands on her hips as she looked way up to Kai, whispering and then waving her hands in the air before they came to rest across her chest. Her hip pointed out, and her lips were twisted. “Don’t fuck with me” radiated from her body. He argued for mere seconds before her victory smile had her turning on her heel, practically skipping away.
Gripping my sheet again, my clammy hands heated as Kai strutted in. His scent filled the air. Each step he took seemed to be in slow motion. My throat dried up again as I looked for words to say. A brilliant, devilish smile appeared as he read my apprehension.
“Relax, angel. I don’t bite.”
Kai
I wasn’t two steps into Paige’s hospital room before she tightened the sheet and gripped it like she was going to fly away.
The color began returning to her knuckles when I sat on the edge of the hospital bed. My hand instinctively reached for her face. My fingers softly held her chin, turning her head to get a better look. She relaxed, letting me assess the damage. I winced at the swelling emerging under the bandage.
“I’m so sorry, angel. If I would have gotten to you a few moments earlier, maybe you wouldn’t be lying here.” I squeezed my eyes closed. I always found myself a little too late when it mattered the most.
Paige’s face softened. She looked at me with those extraordinary violet eyes and released the sheet from her grasp. Her voice was no more than a strained whisper.
“Y-you saved me… Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened to me or where I would have been taken. I might have never…” Her voice trailed as her eyes grew wide again; her hands returned to fists, grabbing at the sheet.
I could see in her eyes that she was reliving what had happened. I wanted to find that asshole who did this to her and make him pay.
“Paige, I think you better rest now. Do you want me to get the doctor? Maybe they can give you something to relax—”
“No, I don’t want to take anything,” she snapped, then took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” she said, gentler this time, forcing a smile. “I think I have already been given enough meds. I just need to know that my sister is going to be okay, then I want to go home.”
“Doll, that’s not going to happen for a least a day or two. But believe me, Rage will stop at nothing to make sure she’s well taken care of. You just rest and I’ll do what I can to check on Juliet and get you an update.” I winked, projecting confidence to put her at ease.”
“Thanks, Kai,” she said, blinking away tears.
I stood there longer than I should have, entranced by her. She looked nothing like her sister. Paige had fair skin to Juliet’s golden, and she was this tiny little thing. Her untamed pale-blond hair gleamed under the dull light of the sterile hospital room. Her injured state did nothing to diminish her quiet beauty. The IV drip had revived her lips to dark pink. And her rack—I felt like such an asshole when my eyes fell on her tits, but I couldn’t resist. She crossed her arms across her chest. Fuck, she caught me.
“Um, Kai, I’m getting a bit tired.” Her fake yawn was pathetic. She’s no actor. “If you find out anything, could you please tell me?”
“Of course, doll.” I pulled the blanket from her feet up to her petite body. Her cheeks tinged pin
k as she thanked me again, looking up through those long black lashes.
What was I thinking, ogling her like that after the hell she’s been through? But she was just so…compelling.
When her eyes locked on mine again, there was a piece of me that thought she felt the same weird connection. I gave her a small smile and ran a finger from her cheek to her chin before reaching up and pulling the chain on the light above her.
“Get some rest, doll. I will see you tomorrow.”
Paige
“I’m fine. I just want to see her.” I pleaded with Nurse Jaime again for the second day.
“Hunny, you should be able to see her tomorrow.” She held her clipboard, only looking up when I did not reply. Her blue eyes were empathetic as she put the board down, coming to my side.
“You’ll be able to move around once the doc clears you. She’ll be here to go over your results from all the tests that were done. I know you’re worried about your sister, but the best thing you can do for her now is to heal yourself.”
She set down a glass of orange juice and a tray of gross-looking hospital food. “Take these after you eat.” She placed two blue pills in a paper cup. “They’re for pain and swelling, but if you don’t eat, they could be harsh on your stomach.”
I looked down at the platter of pudding, broth, and crackers with some kind of meat and potato blob. I pushed the tray away. I wouldn’t be taking the pills.
