Her knee connected, drawing an agonized grunt a second before she was thrown into the wall hard enough to send her bouncing to the bed.

Voices were raised, outraged, cursing.

Piper was struggling to make sense of it as the sudden explosion of a weapon discharging shocked her senses into an abrupt return to reality.

Every bone and muscle in her body hurt.

Dizziness assailed her, washing through her and weakening her as she struggled to lift herself from the bed.

Was she shot?

Oh, God, Dawg would kill her if she managed to get shot while escaping to New York. She would hear all kinds of “I told you so”s. Her sisters would of course blame her for the additional security that would follow. . . . Who the hell were those men rushing into her room?

Oh, God, they were big. . . .

There were too many of them. . . .

Too big, and too many.

Darkness rushed over her, drawing her into a pit of icy nothingness. The complete lack of sensory information was like being buried alive.

She was aware, yet she wasn’t.

There, yet she wasn’t.

And one question haunted her through it all: Exactly what was it her attacker had been demanding?

Where are they, you little cunt?

Where was what?

Who?

“Lady? Lady you okay? Someone call an ambulance; she’s hurt. She’s hurt—”

She’s hurt.

Who was hurt?

Oh, yeah—it was her.

She was hurt.

Then the darkness deepened; that nowhere place grew, sucked her in, and enfolded her until nothing and no one else could penetrate.

* * *

Jed came awake instantly, before the first, faint vibrating tremor of the phone against the wood nightstand eased away. The second vibration didn’t have the chance to begin before he flipped the cell phone open and brought it to his ear.

“Booker,” he answered.

“Jed Booker?” the male voice asked, faintly quizzical, highly uncomfortable, and not yet fully mature.

“It is.”

“My name is Bret. Bret Jordan. You don’t know me, but I found your name in this lady’s journal—”

“Piper.” He was out of the bed instantly and dressing. “What happened?”

“Well, me and my friends were staying at this hotel in New York City when the lady in the room next to us started screaming. When we ran to her room this guy was beating the crap out of her. He got away with her purse, but her day planner was still lying on a table and it had your name in it. If you know her, the doctors really need some info.”

“Where is she?” Jed growled the single word, having dressed as the kid made his explanation.

He was given the name and address quickly as he jerked his boots on his feet, grabbed his weapon and keys, and headed for the door.

“Look, are you family or something?” he was asked then. “They really need to treat her, but she’s unconscious—”

“Comatose or unconscious?” Jed was in the pickup he kept parked at the inn for those times when he needed something besides the Harley.

This was one of those times.

There was a moment’s mumbled conversation. “Man, the nurse won’t tell me. She says family—”

“I’m her brother,” he lied instantly. “Her only family. Now, is she comatose or unconscious?”

“Here’s the nurse.”

The nurse was, fortunately, more informative.

Identifying himself as her brother to the nurse, he waited what seemed like an eternity as she found the doctor. Pulling from the inn’s parking lot, he drove at the legal speed limit until far enough from the inn to avoid drawing Timothy’s attention, then hit the gas and increased his speed.

Until he hit the highway he wouldn’t be safe from detection, just from being stopped for speeding. Sheriff Mayes’s deputies would immediately report the truck speeding if they saw it, just as any Somerset cop would report directly to Chief of Police Alex Jansen.

As he got to the city limits, the doctor finally, thankfully, took the phone.

Piper was stable, thank God. He wouldn’t have to call Dawg after all. She was currently severely bruised, concussed, and unconscious, but in stable condition. The hospital needed permission to treat her, though, the doctor explained.

Jed lied once again and told them he was her brother, gave the doctor permission to treat Piper, then asked her to put the young man who called him on the phone once again.

“You didn’t give the nurse the planner to call—why?” he asked instantly, suspiciously.

“I don’t know.” Jed could almost see the uncomfortable shrug he imagined the young man made. “We were the ones who rescued her; I guess we kind of feel responsible for her until someone else gets here. You know? And that dude that attacked her tried to shoot us as he ran out of the room. The police around here are nuts, too. They didn’t even bat an eyelash, so no one’s watching to make sure the guy doesn’t come after her again.”

“I’ll be there in approximately three hours,” Jed told him. “Can you wait?”

“We’ll be here until you get to her,” Bret promised. “But if you could get here faster, it would be good. I heard the nurse say someone else already called the hospital and asked about the lady attacked at the hotel, so whoever attacked her could be planning to come back.”

“How many are with you?”

“Just me, my best friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Olivia,” Bret told him. “We’ll wait on you. No one’s going to bother her while we’re here.”

“Thank you.” Jed wasn’t reassured, but he had to admit he was damned glad to know she wasn’t alone.

“Well, if it was my sister, I’d want someone to wait on me,” the boy admitted. “Drive careful. We’ll be here.”

Careful?

Jed hit the interstate and pushed his foot on the gas as he disconnected the call, then made another.

“Control,” a well-modulated feminine voice answered.

“This is Agent Booker,” he stated before quickly giving his control number. “I’m en route to agency airfield in Louisville, Kentucky. Advise all law enforcement to allow disposition and advise agency pilot to have transport ready. Destination New York City.”

“We have you on satellite, Agent Booker,” Control advised him. “All law enforcement will be advised and turned away. Proceed with caution to airfield Delta-Bravo-Tahoe, where a pilot will be advised to be waiting in hangar six-four-zero.”

“Understood,” he responded. “Agent Booker out.”

No doubt Timothy would question him once he was given the report of Jed’s midnight race to New York City, but that could be days away, possibly weeks, until Timothy called and requested agent maneuver reports. Though that was something he rarely did.

The landscape sped by; the roads, luckily, weren’t busy in the hours after midnight until four in the morning or later. It gave him the space needed to travel safely at the speed needed to reach the airport just outside Louisville and to still the sudden, unheard-of terror piercing his heart.

What the hell was Piper doing in New York City?

Whoever the hell she’d been sneaking out to meet had obviously abducted her, hadn’t they? Piper surely wouldn’t leave the state without letting her brother, Dawg, know she was leaving.

Or would she?

Damn her.

He’d been driving himself insane in his attempt to figure out where she had gone without resorting to official channels or contacts to learn her secrets. She’d left without telling him with whom or where she was going. It was obvious she didn’t want to share the information or the identity of her lover.

She hadn’t wanted to share it then; she would share it now.

She would share it or he would be on the phone to Dawg.

Piper and her sisters didn’t think there was anything worse than having their brother or male cousins pissed. Piper was about to find out there was something far worse.

There was Jed, and he wasn’t about to let an attack against her go.

This had nothing to do with protectiveness or control. It had nothing to do with an attempt to dominate her life. What it had to do with was the fact that someone had dared to hurt her, and he would make certain that someone had the favor returned.

* * *

Piper stared at the nurse in disgust.

“You can’t make me stay here,” she informed the middle-aged, kindly looking nurse as the woman stared back at her with concerned hazel eyes.

Standing at five feet, four inches if she was lucky, her gray-and-brown hair pulled back from her face in a tight braid as the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes drew in with her frown, the nurse watched her in disapproval.

“You’ve had a concussion, Ms. Mackay, and I doubt you feel much like walking right now, let alone traveling to the train station. If you’ll just calm down, the doctor will be in soon; he can check you and let you know what damage has been done.”

“I already know what damage has been done,” she muttered angrily. “Trust me; I can feel every bruise.”

And she could. Every single bruise, scratch, and jab that had been plowed into her undefended body.

“I’m certain you can,” the nurse agreed compassionately. “But that concussion could be dangerous. Your brother’s due at any time—”

“Excuse me?” Piper knew she’d just lost her breath as trepidation began to race through her system.

Oh, God.

No.

Not Dawg. Surely to God no one had actually called Dawg.

“Your brother Jed.” The nurse smiled again. “His name and phone number was in your day planner, thank goodness.” She moved to the bed and, as Piper stared back at her in shock, actually managed to wrap the blood pressure cuff around her arm. “Your purse was stolen. If it hadn’t been for his name and number in your planner, then we’d have had no idea whom to contact.”

Her brother Jed, not her brother, Dawg? No doubt Jed had called Dawg. Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches were probably just ahead of his arrival and blowing fire and brimstone. And once they stepped into the hospital, hell would have no fury like the Mackay men pissed off.

“God, this isn’t good.” Lying back against the hospital bed, Piper closed her eyes wearily. “How long ago did you talk to him? Forget it.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “Doesn’t matter; he could be here in two minutes or in two hours.” Opening her eyes, she levered herself up on the bed. “Where are my clothes?”

Nurse Dade widened her eyes in surprise. “Ms. Mackay, where your clothes are doesn’t matter,” she informed Piper. “You need to rest.”

“I’ll find the damned things myself then.” Piper sighed.

She really didn’t feel like finding anything, especially her clothes, but sometimes a girl just had to do what a girl just had to do, right?

“Ms. Mackay, you’re in no shape to leave the hospital alone.”

“Nurse Dade, you really have no idea the forces of nature getting ready to rip through this hospital,” she informed the nurse as dread began to fill her. “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—on my brothers. Famine, pestilence, war, and disease are a kiddie playground in comparison, and I have no intentions of hanging around for the fallout.”

Nurse Dade’s eyes widened. “Sweetie, I talked to him myself.” She gave a small, nervous little laugh. “He was as nice as he could be. I think you may have hit your head harder than the doctor thought.”

Struggling from the bed, Piper ignored the nurse’s disapproving glare as she shuffled to the small cabinet next to the end of the bed.

Aha, clothes.

“Ms. Mackay, this isn’t advisable.” The nurse sighed as Piper struggled past the roommate who had been listening in amused interest.