There was the sound of a crack and Phoebe whipped her head around.
Ten stood. “That was a semi.” Ten reached behind his back and came up with a SIG Sauer in his hand. Her brother was never unarmed. “Stay here.”
There was another volley of gunfire and then the sound of a woman screaming. Ten opened the door to the hallway and disappeared, his lean body moving against the wall.
“What the fuck?” Hutch had his boxers on and seemed to have only stopped long enough to grab his weapon. And he’d been having a nice dream, so it seemed. Or the sound of gunfire in the middle of the night got him hard. It could be either with him.
Theo was right behind him, though he’d managed to put on a pair of sweats. “It’s coming from Kamdar’s room. We need to move. You have a piece?”
She hadn’t brought her gun out when she’d come to talk to Ten. She’d thought she was safe in this ridiculously expensive hotel, but naturally she was proven wrong. “No.”
“Take my backup.” Because Theo apparently slept with two guns. He handed her a semi and then he and Hutch started for the door. She followed, grateful that Jesse was a heavy sleeper. No matter what she said, she hated the idea of him being in danger. She wouldn’t ask him to quit. It was a part of who he was, but she would definitely use any excuse she could to let him sleep so he didn’t have a chance to get shot.
The outer room was complete chaos. There was smoke and suddenly the detector went off.
“Everyone calm down!” Ten yelled.
Erin was in the middle of it, waving her hand to disperse the smoke. “Some asshole set off a smoke bomb outside the king’s room.”
Theo’s gun came down at his side as he stared at Erin. “What were you doing in his room?”
Kamdar stood in the middle of it all, his big chest on display. He wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his lean hips. “She was protecting me from harm. This is all a ridiculous prank. Everyone get back into their beds. It’s too early to deal with protesters.”
“I heard gunfire.” Simon joined the group. He’d pulled on a pair of slacks and his dress shirt was open. Like everyone else, he was carrying a gun. It was likely the best-armed floor of the hotel.
“I heard it, too. What happened? Did someone take a shot?” Ten was down on one knee, inspecting the box someone had left outside Kamdar’s door.
“One of Kamdar’s bodyguards got a little freaked out. I think he thought it was a real bomb or something biological,” Erin replied. “And I wasn’t sleeping with Kamdar. Not that it’s any of your business, Taggart.”
“She is right. There was no sleeping involved,” Kamdar said with a solemn look on his face.
“And this was definitely biological.” Ten grimaced as he stood back up. “It’s shit in a bag someone lit on fire. What the hell is going on?”
Kamdar shook his head. “The oilmen, they do not like me. I’m too handsome, far too smart. They think they can scare me off with their shittings, but they are wrong. I will simply take their biological waste and use it to power my vehicles. That will show them. Come along, beautiful. Let’s celebrate our victory over their waste.”
Erin’s face went as red as her hair and she started in on the king. “Listen here. I don’t care how royal your ass is…”
Something was wrong. It didn’t make a lick of sense.
“I’m going to review the tapes, but this looks like some sort of practical joke.” Ten looked up at the fire detectors. They blared through the space. “Can we get these turned off? I can’t think.”
Simon moved beside her. “Where’s Jesse?”
“He’s asleep.”
Why would anyone risk a practical joke in a building where everyone was armed to the teeth?
Simon looked back at their suite of rooms. “In your room? The one that’s farthest from the lifts?”
She nodded. It was the farthest from the elevators and everything. “Why?”
But she’d already started to answer her own question. If it wasn’t a joke, then what was it? A distraction. Everyone should have been in bed. She and Jesse had the room farthest from the king’s. She doubted Jesse would even have heard the gunfire if he’d been awake, but the outer bedrooms would have heard it easily.
Phoebe turned back and started to run. Her heart pounded in her chest. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be because they would have to have gone through the hallway. She would have noticed someone dragging a body down the hallway. No one had gone past her so it was all right.
“Phoebe?” Ten was behind her.
“Jesse. This was about Jesse.” Simon kept up with them.
She just ran. She ran past the living area and back to the room where she and Jesse had become man and wife. Maybe not in the eyes of the law, but they’d bonded in their hearts. Her husband was sleeping and she was going to laugh because she was so damn paranoid.