Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,57

I’m not so obsessed by her that I can’t see the threats around me.”

Sebastian lurched for him, but Alyssa pushed her hand back against his chest. Winston grabbed his arm.

“Get yourself in check,” Winston urged him. “Because if you go for him and I don’t arrest you, then I’ll be sharing a cell with you. That doesn’t help either of us.”

“Sebastian.”

His gaze flew to Alyssa’s face. She didn’t say his name enough. He loved to hear it on her lips.

She smiled at him. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t. You don’t know him.”

She swallowed. “But I know you. And Antony. And Winston. And this is what’s right for all of us.”

She was basically trading herself—going into Dex’s custody—in order to protect them.

His stare whipped to Dex. “You were supposed to help her.”

Dex raised his chin. “I am.”

The hell he was.

“I’m also helping you. You’ll thank me later.”

He would rip out the man’s heart later.

“Goodbye, Sebastian.”

His name again, slipping from Alyssa’s lips, only she wasn’t supposed to be saying good-bye to him. He wasn’t supposed to be losing her. He wasn’t going to lose her.

She stepped back from him. Turned toward Dex and the bastard’s stupid outstretched hand.

“No!” The word burst from Sebastian. “I don’t care what I have to do, he’s not taking you from me!” Once more, he surged forward.

This time, Winston caught one of his arms. Antony caught the other.

“Play the game,” Antony rasped to him. “Do it your way.”

“Don’t make me haul your ass to jail,” Winston muttered. “Shit, you know I won’t do it, so I’ll wind up losing my damn badge.”

Alyssa took Dex’s offered hand.

“We can get her back,” Antony added quickly. “Just not here. Not when he has a whole team in the hallway and nurses are gawking at us. Pick the time. Pick the place.”

The time was now. The place was now. It was—

“He’s got media waiting outside,” Winston revealed in a grim voice. “If you do this, you’ll take us all down in a blaze of glory that no one will forget anytime soon. The media won’t know you’re a spy. They’ll just think you’re a dumbass rich boy who picked a fight in a hospital, and your detective buddy and your business partner backed your ass up, and we will all lose everything.”

Alyssa glanced back at him.

Please. She mouthed the word again. Asking him to stand down. Asking him to let her go.

Asking him to let her sacrifice herself for him.

“Dex!” Antony shouted.

Dex stiffened. Slowly glanced back.

“I thought we were on the same side,” Sebastian said.

“We are. You’ll realize that soon enough. Once you’re thinking clearly again.”

“My mind is crystal clear.” He smiled at Dex. A deliberate flash of his dimples. “See you soon, my friend.”

Dex frowned.

“Very, very soon.” It was a promise.

Dex hurried away with Alyssa. The goons he’d brought along closed in around them.

Antony and Winston didn’t let Sebastian go. If anything, their grips tightened on him, as if they expected him to make a last-minute lunging attack.

He wasn’t. Because Alyssa had asked him not to attack. So he wouldn’t.

Or, at least, he wouldn’t attack there.

He watched the group until they vanished.

“That was a close call.” Winston still didn’t let him go. “I thought you were going to fight for her.”

“I am,” Sebastian promised. But he wasn’t doing it in the freaking hospital. And he wasn’t going to take his friends down with him.

Besides, Alyssa asked him to stand down, and for the moment, he would.

He would just take the fight to a different location. And I’ll make sure that my friends aren’t pulled into the battle between me and Dex.

“Hell.” Antony sounded worried. “What are you planning?”

“Let go so I don’t have to hurt either of you.”

They slowly let him go.

He marched forward.

They followed quickly.

His mind spun as he considered possibilities. “Winston, get your connections to work on those street cams. You see our perp, you call me immediately.”

“On it.”

The elevator was up ahead. The doors were open.

He could see Alyssa. For an instant, their eyes met.

The doors shut.

“He’s not going to let her go.” Antony stared at the closed doors. “Not until the threat is gone. You and I both know why.”

Yes, they did. Because Dex had put the pieces together, too. Because Dex had realized that Alyssa was the key in this mess. The tool that the perp planned to use against Antony…because she was his sister, and he loved her.

And the tool that the perp planned to use against Sebastian.

Because even Dex knows