Page 85 of Her Noble Protector

“Remember, no noise,” one of them said.

Lisa opened her mouth to scream.

“You scream, bitch, and I’ll blow her brains out,” the huge man said. Lisa looked at Cami and she started trembling with terror. Then she heard a mushy thud and she whipped her head around in time to see Ezio falling to the ground. The man who’d been behind him was wiping the blood off the butt of his gun with his sleeve.

The man next to Lisa looked her up and down. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of her, then it looked like he was sending a text. The room was silent. Lisa jumped when his phone beeped. He looked at Lisa and handed her his phone.

Lisa put the phone up to her ear, knowing who would be on the line.

“You killed Leon,” Maria said.

Lisa’s eyes glittered with rage as she looked at Cami, then remembered that horrifying night in the church in Mexico. “Yes, I did. I killed that monster.”

“You’re going to pay.”

The phone went dead in her hands. She didn’t know what to do next. She saw blood pooling around Ezio’s head. She needed to do something.

“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked the dead air as she turned slightly away from the man watching her. She pretended to listen as she dialed 9-1-1.

“Raiden will stop you,” Lisa said as she turned a little more.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“I’m being held at gunpoint—”

Then her world went black.

23

“Max, I can’t get ahold of Ezio, Lisa, or Cami,” Raiden yelled as he hit the freeway on the way to downtown Virginia Beach. “They’ve been watching Cami.”

“Hold on, what are you talking about?”

“Back in Arizona, while Cami was in the hospital giving her statement, she gave her contact information to the cops. I’ve been concentrating so hard on the fact that Lisa gave her updated contact information to the cops for the investigation, I forgot they have Cami’s address too.”

“Fuck,” Max whispered into the phone.

“Now I can’t reach her or Lisa. Lisa said Cami was going to visit her today.”

“Calm down, Raiden, the security at the condo is tight—”

“I can’t get ahold of fucking Ezio, either,” Raiden roared.

“Are you on your way there?” Max asked.

“Yes,” Raiden bit out.

“We’ll have your back,” Max said. “I’ll call you with details.”

Raiden hung up and concentrated on driving. How could he have been this fucking stupid? Something had been niggling in the back of his brain since they’d discussed the dirty cop angle, and he hadn’t thought it through. He slammed his fist against his steering wheel, then passed a car on the shoulder.

Raiden’s eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the snarl of traffic in front of him, trying to figure out ways to maneuver through the glut of cars so he could reach his destination.

His phone rang and he hit answer from his steering wheel. “Yeah.”

“I’m in the lobby,” Zed said. “I’m going with the security manager to look at hallway and elevator footage to see what we’re up against. Cullen is two blocks away; he was at the hospital having lunch with Carys.”

Shit, tomorrow was the day Kane’s guy was supposed to have set up surveillance inside the condo. Why the fuck had they done his parents’ house first?