The hair on the back of my neck rose. “You sense it.”
Harm inhaled. “Like the storm that’s coming.”
“Talk to me.” Harm had spent the last few years at the top of a mountain. If anyone could get in touch with a shift in the weather, it was him.
“We’re missing something,” he replied, echoing my exact sentiment to Luna.
“Agree.” I scanned every single person in the lobby as I strode toward the event rooms.
“Something crucial,” Harm added.
The hallway to the conference spaces empty, I turned back toward the lobby. “You got the pictures I sent?” Before getting out of the Escalade, I’d taken screenshots of the pics Luna had of Abernathy and texted them to Ty, Harm and Tyler.
“Those won’t help.”
I didn’t disagree, they were years old. “If you didn’t want to be seen, what would you do?”
“I wouldn’t be me.”
I rephrased. “If you were intent on revenge and were aiming for your target, what would you do?” I’d thought about this since walking off that private jet.
“What would I have to lose?”
“Anonymity, freedom.” Except that wasn’t the right question. “What he thinks he has to gain is what’s driving him.”
Ignoring my statement, Harm was silent a moment. “Your brother is hiding something. Her too.”
Weren’t we all? I didn’t comment. I needed to speak with her. “I’m coming up now.”
“Vance just left her suite.”
A decade old anger flared, and I shoved it down. “Two minutes.” I hung up and walked to the bank of elevators.
A couple and a group of three men in suits joined me as we waited. I cataloged all of them, and when the doors slid open for one of the lifts, I stepped back as they all got on. I waited until the elevator was ascending, then I hit the call button again.
Turning, I scanned the lobby.
The woman in the floppy hat was digging in her beach tote, and instinct had me take a step in her direction. At the exact same moment, another elevator arrived, and four loud teenage boys in swim trunks with towels around their necks spilled out.
“Dude, did you hear Sanaa was here in this hotel?” a taller one said. “She was in the lobby this morning.”
“I’d totally cougar tap that,” the shortest one boasted.
My hands fisted as they all laughed and aimed for the pool.
The lady in the hat picked her bag up and turned toward the restrooms as the door to the elevator the teens had just vacated started to close.
Stopping it with my hand, staring at the woman, I stepped into the elevator.
My cell pinged with a text.
Ty: All’s quiet. I don’t like it.
Hitting the button for the penthouse, I swiped my card key, then typed a reply.
Me: I don’t either.
Ty: Doing another perimeter patrol. We’ve got extra eyes on the garage and loading dock now. Sitrep if I find anything.
Me: Copy
I shoved my phone back in my pocket as the elevator opened to the top floor.
Harm made eye contact with me as he stood outside her suite and nodded.
“Do you know where Vance went?”
“Said he was going to do a patrol.”
I was uncomfortable with only two of us up here, but anyone who got this far would’ve had to bypass all our perimeters downstairs, and that would give us ample warning. “Luna’s watching the security feeds from the office, so we should have all access points covered.”
“Should,” Harm stated like it was a four-letter word.
No response for that, because he was right, I opened the door to the suite.
Every time I laid eyes on him, my heart broke more.
His square jaw tight with determination, his cheekbones almost too pronounced to be handsome, looking lethally unreal with a gun on his hip and heavy black boots, he strode into the suite with his gaze zeroed in.
Staring at me as if I were the only woman in the entire world, he didn’t so much as blink.
My breath short, my nerves rattled, I wanted to selfishly throw myself at him just so he would put his strong arms around me.
Instead, anxiety pushed attitude out of my mouth. “Do any of you bodyguards ever knock?”
Stopping a few feet from me, he said nothing.
This was the Ronan I had known.
Austere, unrelenting, heartless if you did not know him.
He was a boy who was never a boy all those years ago, because not even at sixteen when he was holding down a job and bringing home money to help his single mother was he allowed to be a child. He was already a man