Page 73 of Never and Always
I ignored Ro as we jogged down the hallway.
“She doesn’t need you to fly off the handle,” Enzo added from the other side of me.
Caden was silently keeping pace behind us.
“I’ve got it.” A muscle in my jaw ticked. I didn’t have it. What I had was a wild mix of anger and fear.
Enzo’s cousin had called him. Piper’s brother had snuck into the hotel, as had the people hunting him, and Piper had been attacked. Again.
“They came through a balcony door.” Caden’s tone was clipped and pissed. “Right where our new cameras have been glitching.”
She wasn’t even safe in the hotel. I saw the open doorway to the suite ahead, and with two long strides, I cut the others off and entered first.
She was on the floor, Tessa beside her, and a man who looked a hell of lot like Enzo crouching beside them. He looked up and his dark gaze hit mine.
Fuck. This man was a killer, through and through.
My gaze dropped to Piper and my body locked.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Ro, get some fucking towels,” I clipped out.
She was holding a blood-drenched cloth to her arm.
“He had a knife,” she whispered.
Tessa rose, keeping her hand on Piper’s shoulder. “She saved me. She leaped at the guy and pushed me aside.”
My fucking heart stopped. Ro returned with some towels just in time to hear that. He made a rough sound.
Locking down my raging emotions, I took a towel, tossed the soaked cloth aside, and saw the cut. Not too long, and I hoped not too deep. I pressed the towel to it.
“The bleeding’s almost stopped,” Enzo’s cousin said.
“He saved us.” Piper’s gaze dropped to the carpet. “My brother ran. He left me.”
That fucking coward.
“Everyone, this is my cousin Alessio Rossi,” Enzo said. “He lives in Las Vegas, and works at the Avernus Casino.”
If that guy worked at a casino, I’d eat my flannel shirt. Maybe as some sort of enforcer. Still, whatever his employment, I was glad he’d been here. I met his gaze and lifted my chin.
In return, he inclined his head.
I tugged Piper closer and when she leaned into me, some of the tension in my chest eased a fraction. “We need an ambulance.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s a cut. I don’t need?—”
“It needs stitches.” And there was a lot of blood.
“Everett, I’m all right.” She swallowed and pressed a palm to my cheek. “Please? No hospital. I’ll sit there for hours, probably catch someone’s germs. I want to clean up…and have a whiskey.”
“You don’t like whiskey.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I do today.”
“I can call our hotel doctor,” Ro said.
