Crap. We’d learned about ipecac syrup in one of the hundreds of hours of training we’d been through. It was, in and of itself, relatively harmless. It would cause vomiting and sometimes diarrhea. In larger doses, it could be fatal.
“She was fucking there?” I was about to lose my shit. I’d been there. I’d been watching the entire fucking place. There hadn’t been one thing that had stuck out. Not one thing. I had the woman’s face memorized. Hair too perfect a shade of red to be real. Dark eyes. Medium height. Small, oval face. It was the eyes you couldn’t really change—not even in a disguise.
I hadn’t seen her.
Self-hate rolled through me. I hadn’t protected Dani at all. You failed once and you got tossed out of almost any training as a SEAL. You had to be perfect. In sniper school, you had to hit ninety percent in impossible situations, or you got tossed out. I was batting zero for two now with Dani’s safety. I’d let the woman get close enough to place a knife in a chair, and then I’d let her get close enough to drug Dani’s drink. She’d said it tasted funny. That was the fucking ipecac.
But something at the back of my brain was niggling. A sixth sense I’d learned to rely on more than my sight or smell. A sense that was telling me I was missing a piece. A shadow that was looming that I couldn’t quite put into form yet.
“Was there anything else in the note?” I asked.
Marco took a deep breath. “It said, next time, she wouldn’t hold back.”
This was insane. There was no way I could protect them in these situations. Too many openings, too many people. It wasn’t a fucking excuse; I couldn’t make an excuse for not doing my job. But I also knew something had to change. Something drastic. Otherwise, Dani or Brady was going to be seriously hurt, and at this point, the gun was directed at Dani’s head. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I’d stick my dumb, big-ass body in between her and whatever was coming.
“We need to meet. All of us. We’ll be up in the penthouse in ten minutes,” I said curtly.
I hung up and looked at Dani. She was still pale. What she needed was rest.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Fiona was where?”
No hiding anything from Athena. She was too smart, caught on too quickly.
“At the restaurant.”
The hand that held the water bottle fell, tipping and allowing it to spill on the floor. I stepped closer and pulled it from her fingers.
“It isn’t the stomach flu?” Dani asked. “What was it? Is it something…”
She swallowed hard, jumped up, and headed for the bathroom. I followed, but it was all dry heaves now. She had nothing left to give. She sat back on the floor, legs crossed under her, the T-shirt barely covering her bottom.
“It was ipecac syrup,” I said, squatting down next to her. “They used to give it to people who’d swallowed poison as a way to get them to vomit. It isn’t life-threatening.” Unless you’re given too much. But I didn’t tell her that.
“I’ve never even met the woman.” Dani was shaking her head at the improbability of it.
“It’s easier for her to strike out at the person replacing her than the person she loves.”
Dani grumbled sarcastically, “That’s not love.”
I nodded. “It’s not, but in her twisted head, it is.”
“What are we going to do?” Dani asked, looking up at me with wide eyes. The planner without a plan. The person in charge without an answer. It wasn’t a role she relished. It wasn’t a role that fit her. It wasn’t a role that fit me either.
“That’s exactly what we need to discuss.”
My brain was already reeling with ideas, thinking three steps ahead to every move and countermove we could make with an unpredictable, wild woman on the loose.
Dani
THE ARCHER
“Dark side, I search for your dark side,
But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?
And I cut off my nose just to spite my face,
Then I hate my reflection for years and years.”
Performed by Taylor Swift
Written by Swift / Antonoff
I eyed the clothes I’d flung away in Nash’s hotel bathroom. I had no desire to put any of them on again. Just the thought of the smells made me want to return to the toilet. But I couldn’t leave the room in only Nash’s T-shirt.
He seemed to realize the same thing. “Stay here. I’ll go get your suitcase.”
“Is there a robe in the closet? I can use it to go to my room.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want you near a room with your name tied to it. Stay here.”
Then, he was gone, leaving me to my swirling stomach and thoughts of a woman I didn’t know putting poison in my drink. I pulled myself up to my feet and stared at my pale reflection again. Another fucking bathroom that wasn’t my own with someone I didn’t recognize staring back at me as I faced the fact I hadn’t wanted to face before. Faced the word I hadn’t ever wanted to tie to me. I was a victim. I’d been a victim a year ago, and I was a victim now.
I’d denied it, even when my therapist had held it out in front of me.
I hadn’t been afraid when Fenway first cornered me in the elevator at The Oriental. I’d just been annoyed. Frustrated that I was having to fend him off for the hundredth time.
I pushed at my lips, watching them move in Nash’s bathroom mirror, but I wasn’t seeing them. I was seeing him. Me. An elevator.
Fenway’s words, fueled by alcohol and lust, echoed through my head. “I was wondering when we’d finally have some privacy.”
“It hasn’t ever been on my must-do list,” I told him dryly with every ounce of disgust I could roll into the words.
“You’ve got such a goddamn mouth on you. Let’s
