When the elevator doors opened onto the penthouse floor, she turned to Aiden. “Thank you for taking the time to go with me today. I know how busy your job is.”

“You are the job right now,” he said.

The guard on duty opened the door to the suite for them, but Aiden didn’t follow her in, explaining that he needed to check in at his office. Before he left her, he said, “I have to go out of town tomorrow, but you can’t be alone, Cordelia. We’ll work out a schedule tonight.”

The door closed before she could protest. Did he think she still needed a babysitter? He was being ridiculous. Once she was inside the suite, she was as safe as could be. Time for another talk, she decided, and this time she would make him listen. She dropped her purse on the sofa, then reconsidered and took it to her bedroom. She didn’t want Aiden, Mr. Neurotic, to hyperventilate if he saw it. She took out her cell phone before setting the purse on a side table and checked her messages. There were five texts in all. She sat on the edge of the bed and scrolled through them. Four were from contractors in Boston. One was from Sophie asking about her doctor’s appointment, so she called her to give a report. Ten minutes later, they were still chatting. Sophie was filling her in on the fishing trip she and Jack had just taken.

“I can teach you how to gut a walleye,” Cordie offered.

Sophie was taken aback. “You . . . what? When did you learn that?”

“The other night I was . . . oh, never mind.”

After the conversation ended, Cordie went back to her texts and discovered one from Alec, sent a few minutes ago. He said he was just leaving the hotel and realized he forgot to ask her if she was up for dinner tonight with Regan and him. She decided to call him right away. Dinner with her friends would cheer her up.

He answered on the first ring. “Hi,” she said as she walked back into the living room. “Dinner sounds great. Make sure Jack and Sophie . . .”

Her head was down, but out of the corner of her eye something caught her attention. Her head snapped up and she saw the flowers. Then she saw him. Immediately she recognized the angry determination in his eyes, the scowl, the Fu Manchu mustache. She did the only thing she could do. She screamed bloody murder. He dropped the flowers—the vase shattering into a thousand pieces—and came at her fast as the door to the suite was closing behind him. She kept screaming. She knew she had to get to the hallway to get help. If she ran into the bedroom, she would be trapped. She circled the table and made a run for it, but he caught her before she reached the door, his hands on her throat, cutting off her air supply.

Jack had just put the car in drive when he and Alec heard her scream through the phone. He slammed the gear back into park and was out of the car and up the steps in record time. Alec was already ahead of him.

Aiden also heard her. He had just stepped off the elevator when Cordie’s ear-piercing scream hit him like a lightning bolt. He raced to get to her.

Cordie was not going to die without a fight. She made a fist and punched the man as hard as she could in his Adam’s apple. It slowed him down, but not for long. He gagged and released his grip for a split second, then grabbed her again. Realizing she was no match for his strength, she went limp and slumped to the floor, but he had such a strong hold on her, he pulled her back up. Time slowed in her mind, and she was about to black out when suddenly he was ripped away from her. Gasping for air, she slid down the wall. The world was spinning, but all she could see was Aiden, and she was terrified he was going to get hurt. When she finally could focus, she realized Aiden was pounding the hell out of the attacker. Good God, he was going to kill him.

Time was suspended in her mind. Suddenly Alec was there, and Jack was right behind him. She watched Alec pull Aiden off her attacker while Jack lifted her and carried her to the sofa.

“Let’s have a look,” Jack said. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No,” she answered. Her voice was so hoarse she didn’t recognize it. “I’m fine.”

The second he let go of her she jumped up and lost her balance. Her legs had turned to rubber. Grabbing Jack’s arm, she took a deep breath to calm herself. She couldn’t stop staring at Aiden. The look in his eyes was chilling. If Alec had let him, she thought Aiden would have beaten the man to death. It wasn’t temper she was seeing, or anger. It was fury.

While Alec was handcuffing him, the man said something Aiden took offense to. Aiden tried to grab him, but Alec blocked him with his shoulder.

“Go ahead. Call her a bitch again. See what happens,” Aiden taunted, his voice deceptively calm. When he tried again to push Alec out of his way, Jack moved in front of him—no small trick, to be sure—and began to pat down the man while Alec recited his rights.

“What’s your name?” Jack asked. The man shrugged and didn’t answer.

“He’s one of the men who was with Simone,” Cordie said. “His name is . . .”

Alec finished her sentence. “Arnold Jenkins.”

“How did you know—” Cordie began.

“Liam,” Alec answered.

Cordie was too shaken to think it through. Everything was happening so fast.

“Is your buddy Charles Kendrick with you?” Alec asked.

Jenkins’s response was obscene. Alec had had enough of his filthy mouth and slammed him into the wall. “Stop talking,” he ordered.

Jack searched Jenkins and found no identification, just a hotel key card in his back pocket. He pulled a fierce-looking knife out of his left boot. There was a small pistol tucked in the other. As soon as he held up the weapons for Alec to see, Jenkins demanded a lawyer.

“Who do you want to call first?” Jack asked. “A lawyer or Simone?”

Jenkins looked at him blankly for a second and then grinned up at him with an arrogant smirk. The action was not lost on Jack and Alec, who exchanged a what-was-that-all-about glance.

Aiden went to Cordie and put his arm around her. She could feel him shaking when he gently pulled her down to sit on the sofa.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked her. “We should get a doctor here to look at you.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “He just choked me a little.”

“Choked you a little?” Aiden was so inflamed he could barely get the words out.

Jack crossed to the sofa and squatted down to look at Cordie’s neck. “It’s not bad,” he said. “His neck looks worse than yours.”

“I hit him in his Adam’s apple with my fist,” she explained.

“Good girl.”

Alec had pushed Jenkins into a chair by the door and was on the phone. He finished the call and said, “Jack, five, maybe ten, minutes away.”

Jack explained. “Alec has a couple of agents swinging by to get Jenkins. We’ll instruct them to lock him in isolation until we get around to interrogating him and letting him call a lawyer.”

“Is that legal? Putting him in isolation?” Cordie whispered so Jenkins wouldn’t hear.

“Processing a suspect takes time,” he replied. “And Alec and I don’t like it when someone hurts one of our own.”

They considered her one of their own. She was touched and suddenly feeling very emotional. She wiped a tear from her eye. “Make him sweat,” she said.

Jack laughed. “That’s a given.” He patted her hand, then walked over to Alec and said, “You’ve got this. I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and ride with Jenkins, make sure he’s put where I want him.”

“When you interrogate him, I want to be there,” Aiden said.

Alec shook his head. “Sorry, but no.”

An argument started and didn’t end until Jack left with Jenkins in tow. As he was walking out the door, he told Aiden, “You better figure out how he got up here.”

“I’m going to do that right now,” Aiden assured him. “Alec, are you staying here?”

“For a little while. Then I’m heading over to Jenkins’s hotel room with Jack. The crew should already be on their way.”

“Wait until I get back,” Aiden told him. “Walker and his nurse must have heard Cordelia. I want to tell them she’s okay.” His voice turned hard. “And I want to find that guard.” He paused at the door to smile at Cordie. “You’ve got a wicked scream.”

After the door closed behind him, she asked Alec, “Was that a compliment?”

“I think so.”

“Will you excuse me a moment?” She didn’t wait for permission but went into her bathroom to splash cold water on her face. When she looked in the mirror, she was pleasantly surprised. The skin on her neck was red, but she didn’t think there would be much of a bruise. Her sling was torn. She couldn’t remember that happening. Jenkins must have grabbed it when he tried to drag her up to her feet. The memory was way too fresh. She pressed her back against the wall and took several deep breaths. She was her father’s daughter, she reminded herself. No time for tears or tantrums. She needed to stay tough, to keep it together. She could break down tonight when she was alone.

She took a few minutes to clean up. After tossing the sling into the trash, she changed into a new blouse, combed her hair, and applied a little lip gloss. At the moment, that was the best she could do. She sat on her bed for a while, willing her heart to stop racing, and when at last she felt composed, she took a notepad and pen from the nightstand drawer and returned to the living room.

Aiden was already back and standing at the bar talking to Alec. She went to the dining table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

“Cordie, would you like something to drink?” Aiden asked.

“Diet Coke, please.” Her voice was still raspy, and her throat was sore from the man’s hands squeezing it closed.

“Are you sure you don’t want something stronger?” Alec asked.

Aiden filled a glass with ice and poured the drink for her. He put it on the table and pulled out the chair adjacent to her while Alec took the seat across from him. Both men were studying her. Cordie was acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and Alec was impressed by how she was able to hold it all together. Aiden, on the other hand, was worried. He knew she needed to let out her feelings, not squelch them.

“What’s the paper and pen for?” Aiden asked.

“I thought I’d make notes and write down Liam’s phone number. I want to call him.” She picked up the pen and looked at Alec. “May I have his phone number?”

He had the number memorized and rattled it off to her. It was only when she started to write the numbers that she realized her predicament. She was left-handed, and unfortunately her left arm was in a cast. She wasn’t ambidextrous, but she tried to write Liam’s name with her right hand, giving up after three letters. The scribbles looked like a preschooler’s work.

She pushed the paper and pen to Alec, who said, “Where’s your phone? I’ll program Liam’s information in.”

“I don’t know. I had it when he—” She stopped suddenly, took a breath, and asked Aiden to call her cell phone.

They found it under a chair. After adding Liam’s contact information, Alec handed the phone to her. “I want to know why you want to call him,” he said, “but you can explain later. Right now I want to hear what happened. Did you let Jenkins in? Did you open the door for him?”

“No. He was walking into the suite when I came out of the bedroom. I saw the flowers . . . then him.” Frowning, she looked around the room. “What happened to the flowers?”

Alec pointed to the foyer. The flowers were strewn all over the marble floor, and the vase was in scattered shards. She thought it odd that she hadn’t noticed the mess until now. Had he thrown them? She couldn’t remember. She’d been busy at the time trying to keep the maniac from choking her to death.

“How did he get past security?” Alec asked.

Aiden had the answer. Patty had gone to the lobby on her break to make a few personal calls. Jenkins approached her with flowers and asked if she knew where the penthouse elevator was located. He was dressed in navy pants and a navy shirt with the name of the florist shop on the back, and he also wore a baseball cap with the florist’s logo. She offered to carry the flowers up but realized the vase was too heavy for her. Without thinking, she took him up with her. That was the first mistake.

The second mistake was made by the guard on duty. Walker was pitching a fit because he couldn’t get into the wheelchair without help. The guard left his post in front of the elevator and went into the suite to help.

Third mistake: Patty rushed to Cordie’s suite and opened the door for Jenkins, not realizing Cordie was back from the doctor yet. Telling Jenkins to just put the flowers on the table, she ran around the corner to help Walker.

Aiden wanted to fire everyone, including Walker—if that were possible—for being impatient and demanding everyone’s attention. He wasn’t thinking like a businessman now because he was still having an emotional reaction to almost losing Cordelia. He wouldn’t allow himself to acknowledge why he was out of control when it came to her, or why just thinking about anyone hurting her sent him into a rage. He found it impossible to be reasonable.

Cordie talked him off the ledge and saved a few jobs in the process. She pointed out that yes, while mistakes were made, everyone would now be more vigilant. In the end Aiden compromised to keep the peace. He would let Patty continue to take care of Walker and to help Cordelia when she needed her assistance, and he would transfer the guard to another less stressful position in the hotel. He told Alec, if he had to hire his very own SWAT team to keep Cordelia safe, then, by God, that’s what he would do.

“Do you remember when Regan was in trouble?” Alec asked.

“Of course I remember,” Aiden said. “She was being stalked, and you investigated. Once the nightmare was over, we were stuck with you.”

“At the time she was temporarily living at the hotel, and you posted a guard.”

Aiden nodded. “Yes, I did. I was worried about my sister.”

Alec was walking to the door as he continued. “You were upset, but you were in control. It’s different with Cordie, isn’t it?”

The door closed without an answer.

         • • •

Jenkins had been staying at an upscale hotel, but his room was a pigsty. There was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, letting housekeeping know they were not to enter. His clothes were on the bed, the chair, and the floor. There were a few items hanging in the closet. Wet towels covered the bathroom floor, and carryout containers spilled out of every trash can. They found a Glock hidden under the mattress.