Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Three minutes before…
When Ryan glanced through the suite door’s peephole, he recognized the waiter who’d served him and Simone during dinner. Ryan frowned because he certainly hadn’t expected the same man to be bringing Simone’s dessert up to them.
The waiter glanced behind him, peering down the corridor.
Edward. That had been the man’s name. He’d introduced himself as soon as he approached their dining table.
Edward looked back at the suite’s door. He smiled, a little nervously.
Ryan flipped the lock. Opened the door.
Edward’s smile stretched a bit more. “Decided to, uh, finish that chocolate mousse, did you?”
“It’s for my girlfriend.” Flat words. “Didn’t expect you to bring it up personally.”
Edward’s hands curled around the delivery cart.
A square cart covered by a white table cloth.
The dishes on the cart were hidden by elaborate, silver cloches.
The dome-shaped cloches completely covered the desserts that Ryan had ordered.
Two chocolate mousses. And bread. Because Simone liked her bread.
A bottle of champagne chilled in an ice bucket right in the middle of the cart. Two upside down champagne flutes waited near the bucket.
“Our delivery staff was running behind, so I stepped in,” Edward told him in a warm, breezy tone. “Shall I wheel this inside for you?”
“I think I can manage to wheel it in.”
“Oh, sir.” Now Edward looked horrified. “That is not the type of service that we deliver here.”
Then why did you ask the question if you intended to wheel in the cart all along?
Edward began to push the cart forward. “I will get these items ready for you. I can even uncork the champagne, if you prefer.” The wheels of the cart squeaked.
Ryan stepped back, allowing the other man to enter. He shut the door behind Edward, automatically flipping the extra lock. He caught the faint stiffening of Edward’s shoulders, and he knew the waiter had heard that sound.
The cart’s wheels stopped rolling. Edward reached for one of the dome-shaped silver cloches that covered one of the plates. “This should be the lady’s chocolate mousse…”
It should have been the lady’s mousse, but as the silver lid rose, Ryan saw the gun that had been waiting on the previously covered plate. A gun placed right on top of the damn chocolate mousse.
Dammit, Simone is not going to get her mousse again.
Ryan didn’t yell. Didn’t bark at the bastard to drop the gun that Edward was already grabbing. Instead, Ryan attacked. He launched straight at the waiter.
Gunfire exploded when Ryan slammed Edward into the cart.
A wild shot that didn’t come close to anyone but did blast toward the wall near the heavy sofa on the right.
Edward tried to whirl toward him, but Ryan was not in the mood for that shit.
With his left hand, he grabbed the back of Edward’s head, and he slammed the guy down, hard, right into the mousse, but that certainly hadn’t been a hard enough hit to subdue the waiter.
Another blast of gunfire sounded.
The sonofabitch was pissing Ryan off.
So he slammed Edward’s head into the silver cover, the freaking cloche, and then into the champagne bucket.
“Ryan!” Simone’s desperate cry.
The gun fell from Edward’s slack fingers. Ryan spun him around, and when he did, well, that tricky bastard swiped out with his hand, and Edward grabbed a knife from the table.
Aren’t you the determined one?
Ryan leapt back.
Edward surged at him.
And Simone threw a lamp at the waiter. The lamp slammed into the side of his head, a loud, cracking impact, and Edward went down without even a whimper. Knocked out cold, he crashed to the floor as the knife slipped from his fingers.
Simone scampered forward, but Ryan threw out a hand. “Don’t!”
“Are you okay?”
No, he was pissed. “Fucking ruined the chocolate mousse.”
“What?” She inched forward.
“Simone, stay the hell where you are. He’s here to kill you, and I don’t want him to get within touching distance of you, understand?
” Ryan grabbed the gun that the waiter had been intent on using and tucked it in the back waistband of his pants.
Then he reached for the knife. A freaking steak knife.
“It looked to me like he was trying to kill you.”
No, the bastard hadn’t actually shot at Ryan once.
“Um, is that our waiter?”
A glance at Simone showed her trying to crane her head and get a better view of the man on the floor.
Her lips pursed. “It looks like our waiter.” A pause. “To confirm, our waiter just tried to kill you?”
“I don’t think he was interested in me.” He had to unclench his teeth. He’d just taken in her full attire. Or, rather, her lack of attire. “You’re still just wearing the damn sheet!” And looking sexy as fuck while doing so.
“Oh, pardon me!” Her eyes rolled. “So sorry that I rushed to the rescue and didn’t stop to put on underwear and clothes first. My bad. The next time I hear gunfire blasting, I’ll just bide my sweet little time and let you get shot in the head, will that work better for you?”
Angry fists pounded into the suite’s door.
Her eyes went saucer wide. “Reinforcements,” she whispered.
“Yeah, but for us, not for him. Simone, please, go put on clothes.” Because he couldn’t think well with her just in a sheet. “Those will be the guards who were stationed in the hallway.” People under Jezebel’s command. “I’m sure they heard the gunfire.”
“I don’t know.” Her head tilted. Her hair trailed over one bare shoulder. “These fancy rooms are pretty well insulated. Not too sure how far sound traveled.”
“Simone. Clothes.”
“Ryan. Potential bad guys.”
He frowned at her.
More pounding came from the front door.
And the jerk on the floor let out a groan.
“I have this under control,” Ryan assured her as he took a step toward the door.
“I saved you. I came rushing in with the lamp. As far as I’m concerned, this now makes us even.”
“Okay, we are even.” Fine. Whatever. “But I’m wearing clothes and you’re not so…dress? Now?”
She huffed. Started to turn. Stopped. “Will you make sure those are actually your reinforcements before I leave you?” Soft. “Because I don’t want to leave you if you’re just going to get hurt without me.”
“Aw, Simone, you keep talking like that, and I’ll think you care.” He spared a glance through the peephole and nodded. “My team.”
“Ryan.” Just as soft as before. “For the record, I do care. Why do you think I ran to the rescue?”
His head whipped toward her, but Simone had already disappeared down the hallway. All he saw was the edge of her sheet, slipping away. He forced himself to take a deep breath. One, then another. Then he opened the suite’s door.
Two agents rushed inside. Both CIA. Not agents he knew particularly well, but he was familiar with their work.
“What in the hell happened?” Jamar Miller demanded. “I heard gunshots.” His gaze darted around the suite, only to land on the man still sprawled on the floor. “Is that the room service guy? Because I swear, we checked him when he got off the elevator. There were no weapons on the guy’s body.”
“Right. They weren’t on his body. He’d hidden the gun beneath one of the silver covers, and he had a steak knife wrapped up in a napkin.”
“Ohmygosh.” From Jamar’s partner, Charlotte Webb. True story, that was her name. Her actual, legal name. Her mother had apparently been a huge fan of the book. And the spider. “This should not have happened! I am so sorry!” She bounded toward the fallen man, drawing out her weapon.
Edward’s eyes fluttered open. He groaned and came face to face with Charlotte’s gun.
“Do you want us to kill him?” Charlotte asked, voice both loud and pleasant at the same time.
Her dark hair skimmed her shoulders. “Because we can eliminate him right now. I can shoot him between the eyes, and then my partner can stuff his body beneath this serving cart and we can wheel him out of this place without anyone ever knowing what happened to him.”
Edward tried to scramble back. Only there was no place for him to go because Jamar had stepped in behind him. With his weapon. “Hi, there,” Jamar said, his voice not nearly as pleasant as Charlotte’s had been. “Remember me?”
Ryan picked up the steak knife. “You just fired two bullets in my suite.” A shake of his head. “Do you know how much I’ll have to pay for damages now?” He closed in on his prey.
“No, please!” Edward’s hands flew up. Then he stopped and winced. He also brushed his right hand over his face, sliding away some of the chocolate mousse that still clung to him before touching his temple. “What hit me?”
“Lots of things,” Ryan informed him. “But it was the lamp that knocked you out.” He pointed the tip of the knife at the SOB. “You recognized her, didn’t you?”
Edward’s gaze jumped around the sitting room.
“Hello!” Simone’s voice. “He’s talking about me. And here I am, on cue.”
She strode into the sitting room with a smile on her face and, thankfully, clothing on her body. Black dress pants. A sexy, silky little white top that dipped off one shoulder. Black heels. And…
Fuck me. She had the stolen earrings in her lobes and the broach pinned on her blouse.
“So we meet again.” She dipped her head toward Edward, but then her stare got caught on the knife that Ryan held. Her eyes widened before she licked her lips. “That’s a very big knife you have.”
“Yeah, it is,” Ryan agreed as his grip tightened on the knife. “Pretty sure he was planning to use it on you.” Something that pissed the ever-loving hell out of him.
“Don’t worry.” Charlotte edged closer to Edward. “He won’t hurt you, ma’am. My partner and I are going to kill him, stuff him on the bottom of the cart here, and roll him right out.”
“Oh.” That was all Simone said. No outrage. No shock. Zero horror. After a beat, Simone nodded. “Good plan.” She waved to the terrified man. “Goodbye!”
“No!” Edward screamed. He lunged up to his feet.
Jamar immediately clamped a hand around his shoulder.