She’d waited for them.
The knowledge that she’d deliberately placed her life on hold waiting for them wasn’t some sudden revelation. The signs had been there all along. The awareness of it had always been there.
Facing it, acknowledging it, was something else entirely.
She had known she was waiting. She had known, in that part of herself she’d locked down so tight, that they would have never willingly left her. She had known. And she’d been unable to face it, because facing it would have made being away from them unbearable.
As being away from her had destroyed both Shane and Sebastian.
That sense of them she had in Barcelona hadn’t been a fantasy. The awareness of their love for her hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. It had been real.
And it left her facing the knowledge that the risk of it happening again would always be there unless she managed to tame the untameable, and train the untrainable. God, talk about needing a miracle.
As she sat at her desk and went through mail, those emotions pulled and tugged at one another, demanding satisfaction, acceptance, and she was damned if she knew how to fix either problem. She couldn’t satisfy her need for answers, and she hadn’t yet been able to accept that they hadn’t trusted her enough to allow her to face that fight with them.
She understood their need to protect her; what she didn’t understand was the unspoken idea that if they had revealed the truth to her she would have somehow endangered herself or their attempt to learn the identity of the blackmailer.
That one pissed her off and kept her in a state of near anger where her lovers were concerned.
“They’re going to drive me crazy,” she muttered under her breath. “I can feel the nervous breakdown getting closer.”
With a shake of her head she put aside the stack of mail to answer and turned to her laptop. The buzz of a text message coming from her phone had a grimace pulling at her lips.
She had inherited her lack of interest in text messages from her mother no doubt.
Picking up the device, she stared at the screen for a moment. Just to make certain she was reading it correctly.
You were warned!
She stared at the message, the “unknown” listing of the number, and felt outrage explode inside her.
Like hell! She’d be damned if she was going to deal with this now. Shane and Sebastian were making her crazy enough. They did not need any help.
Jumping from her chair, she rushed to the door and jerked it open. A sudden blast behind her catapulted her into the hall and threw her into the wall across from her office with enough force to steal her breath and leave her crumpling to the floor.
Fighting to inhale as sirens began blaring around her, the sounds blasting through her ears, Alyssa struggled to draw air into her lungs. The force of the blow combined with the smoke rolling from her office made breathing a bit more difficult. She was going to kill whoever did this. Dammit, Dr. Brennan was going to bring that Amazon, Nurse Shaw, back and make her life hell. She couldn’t handle it.
She wasn’t going to handle it.
Emergency lights cast a red glow around her, making it harder to see through the heavy smoke, disorienting her before she placed her forehead against the floor, drawing in what little fresh air could be found.
Oh God, she hurt now.
Hell, the other bruises hadn’t healed yet.
A painful, furious groan escaped her as her fist clenched, her teeth grinding in fury.
She was going to kill someone.… She swore she was.
“Alyssa!”
“Alyssa, where are you!”
“Dammit, ’Lyssa, where are you?”
She lifted her hand, almost laughing at the thought that there wasn’t a chance in hell they could see her.
“’Lyssa, answer me!” Shane said. And he sounded really put out.
Spanish curses were ripping through the air and when Sebastian was cursing in Spanish, it was a sure indication he was seriously losing all that patience he swore he had. Not that she saw a lot of proof of it.
’Bastian was cursing harder than he had the day they learned she had a penchant for climbing.
She tried to call back to him, only to begin coughing violently in reaction to the smoke she drew into her lungs.
Oh, just let her get her hands on whoever did this. Coughing up smoke hurt, dammit.
“Alyssa!” Hard hands grasped her shoulders, pulling her up into a broad chest and quickly moving from the oxygen-deprived area and into the back courtyard.
As she drew in fresh air, another coughing fit wracked her chest from the abrasive smoke still lingering in her lungs. Spanish curses were still filling the air, which only pissed her off because she couldn’t have a little hissy fit herself for the wracking spasms ripping her lungs apart.
“Here.” A plastic oxygen mask was pushed over her face, pure oxygen spilling to her lungs as she breathed in, tears pouring from her eyes from the stinging effects of the smoky hallway.
“What happened?” Batting the mask away a second later, she lifted her head from where it had dropped to the hard shoulder it was resting against.
Sebastian’s shoulder. He’d taken a seat on one of the large, comfortable iron chairs spread out around the shaded courtyard outside the offices at the back of the house.
“We’re not sure yet.” Shane tried to push the mask over her face again.
“Get that away from me.” Pushing it aside again, she stared up at his face, watching as he checked the area, eyes narrowed, taking notice of each and every person gathered outside with them.
“My office was blown up.” She turned to Sebastian. “A text came into my phone—”
“We got the text.” He nodded, watching her closely.
“Pissed me off,” she sighed. “I jumped up and headed for the door. The next thing I knew I was being thrown into the wall like some kind of damned doll. That was not fun, ’Bastian.”
Her fingers were clenched into the material of the fine cotton shirt he wore. She turned her head to glare at him. “And I swear to God, if anyone calls Dr. Brennan I’ll shoot them myself. You hear me?”
“No, I agree, that wouldn’t be fun, baby. And I hear you loud and clear.” Sebastian tightened his arms around her, his gaze tracking everyone in the yard, wondering who was stupid enough to plant an explosive device in her office. It had to have been someone in the house, because they’d just checked her office before they left her suite a few hours before.
“Alyssa?” John Raeg—pronounced “rage,” as he was always quick to correct anyone who pronounced it otherwise—her father’s chief of staff, moved across the stone terrace quickly, a heavy scowl on his craggy features, his cell phone to his ear. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, feeling Sebastian’s hand as it continued to rub her back as a shudder raced up her spine. “I’m fine, Raeg.”
Turning, he was speaking into the phone as he moved back toward the house, the sound of sirens rushing steadily closer.
“What the hell was that, ’Bastian?” she demanded as Shane eased away from them, moving slowly toward the edge of the courtyard.
“We’ll know what it was soon,” he promised.
“Someone put an explosive in my office. Are they fucking crazed?” An amazed laugh escaped her. She couldn’t believe it. Someone had put an explosive in her office, for what? Because Sebastian and Shane intended to share her bed?
“We don’t know that yet, sweets,” he assured her, his voice low. “Let’s wait and see what we find before we jump to conclusions.”
Shane had completely disappeared now. Looking around, she didn’t catch sight of him, but paramedics were rushing into the courtyard, along with Detective Allen. The suspicion on his face wasn’t subtle. It locked on her, his gaze narrowing as he moved directly toward her.
“Ms. Stanhope,” he greeted, pushing the lightweight jacket he wore back as he propped his fists at his hips. “Sure you don’t know who’s trying to hurt you?” he asked, a reminder of the same question he’d asked when he’d interviewed her after the attempted hit-and-run.
“Only one person would have wanted to hurt me, Carl,” she sighed as his gaze sharpened on her. “And he’s dead. Last I heard, ghosts have a hard time with some of the things going on around me.”
“Ghosts might.” He nodded slowly. “But some people get fixated on stuff. Maybe someone they were close to? Someone that loved them?”
“Then your guess is as good as mine.” She laughed bitterly. “If you find anyone willing to admit to loving that bastard, even his parents, then please let me know. I’ll say a prayer for them.”
Shooting the detective a look, Sebastian gave a little shake of his head. He’d talk to Carl himself. He wanted Alyssa out of sight and safe. Now.
“Here’s Landra and her bodyguards, Alyssa. I want you to go upstairs with them while I find Shane and see what’s going on. Can you walk?” Sebastian’s hand ran comfortingly up her back.
“I can walk.” Pushing at his hands, she rose from his lap, though he could have sworn she swayed just a bit as she stood.
“Mr. De Loren.” The lead security personnel nodded as Landra stopped in front of Alyssa, her voice low as she talked to the younger girl. “Mr. Collier said to follow your directions until we heard from him. What do you need?”
Sebastian nodded to where Landra actually managed to draw a low, shaky laugh from Alyssa. “Get them to one of the more secure suites upstairs until we have this taken care of. I don’t want anyone but myself, Shane, the senator, or your boss in those rooms,” he ordered them, his voice tight.
“Yes, sir,” the agent responded soberly. “We’ll make sure they stay safe.”
Sebastian met Landra’s gaze, then and nodded to the bodyguards, indicating she should take Alyssa and go with them.
“Come on, dear, let’s get out of here so the boys can take care of this,” Landra urged her, one arm wrapped around Alyssa’s waist. “They’ll work so much better without us breathing down their necks.”
Whatever Alyssa said, Landra gave a little laugh, filled with amusement. “Yeah, well, we like to let them believe they do, sweetie. It makes them happy; then we’re happy.”
Evidently Alyssa thought little of not being able to breathe down their necks.
“Sebastian.” The detective stared around the courtyard, watching, taking everything in. “We have a problem here?”
A member of the Sinclair Men’s Club and a personal friend of Ian’s, the detective knew his main concern was protecting the club and its members.
“We have a problem here,” Sebastian affirmed. “But it’s not a club problem.”
Carl snorted. “Doesn’t mean much, according to Ian,” he murmured. “We talking here or at your office?”
“Here. After they’ve all left.” Sebastian nodded to the staff milling around. “The senator and Jeb will want to be there, so let’s just do this once.”
“I hear ya,” Carl agreed. “I’ll check things out inside then. We’ll talk before I leave.”
Sebastian nodded, catching sight of Shane as he eased from the doors leading into the back office and moved easily to where Sebastian stood.
“Anything?” Sebastian asked him.
“Low-grade explosive. I’ll have to wait on analysis before I know the intent behind it. My opinion, though, if it wasn’t meant to kill her, then it was meant to put her in a wheelchair. The text triggered it, but she didn’t wait when she got the damned thing. She was at the door when it went off or she would have been wearing the chair leg like a stake.”
“God, Shane,” he bit out, the image far more graphic than he wanted to deal with.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Shane stared around the area again. “I’ll contact Falcone, tell him to put a rush on it. We need him here as soon as possible.”
Falcone and his partner, Gia Bennet, were currently wrapping up a lead on a suspected tie between Harvey Stanhope and Gregory Santiago. The private security investigator and his partner made up one of the teams Shane was considering for the international security firm he and Sebastian were putting together.
“Whoever it is, isn’t wasting time. They have access to the house and the club, and they mean to destroy her, one way or the other. Send the names of the staff here to Khalid; let him run them against membership, see what we come up with.”
By the sound of his voice, like Sebastian he wasn’t expecting any matches.
“Someone’s very, very stupid,” Shane said, his lips barely moving, ensuring no one could follow the conversation. “If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t have come after ’Lyssa like this.”
If they knew what they were doing, then they would have checked out those surrounding Alyssa. They would have checked his and Shane’s backgrounds and at least suspected there was more to them than meets the eye. Because damned sure, they weren’t aware that Alyssa’s lovers were far more deadly than they appeared. And the two showing up in the next twenty-four hours were guaranteed to fuck someone’s shit up. And they wouldn’t even know it until it was far, far too late.