Page 45 of Love Loathe Devotion (Tightrope #3)

The second I see the hotel, my stomach drops.

It’s sleek, modern, and glass-fronted. Too clean.

Too quiet. Four hundred rooms. Hundreds of doors.

Any one of them could be holding her. And I don’t have time to knock politely.

I park the SUV half-cocked by the curb and throw the door open, Nico already sliding out beside me.

The sun is rising now, casting pale gold through the mirrored glass. It’s calm. Serene.

Fake.

We push through the lobby doors. A young woman behind the desk blinks up at us, her smile freezing the moment she recognizes me.

“Oh my God, are you—?”

“Where’s your security office?” I snap. “I need access to the CCTV. Now.”

Her smile falters. “I—sir, I can’t—unless there’s an emergency, or the authorities are—”

Nico steps forward before she finishes.

Calm. Measured. Deadly.

“Move.”

Her eyes go wide as he comes around the desk, all six-foot-something of cold precision. She stammers something as he brushes her aside with as much care as he might give a lamp.

“You can’t go in there! Sir, you can’t—!”

But he’s already past the door, disappearing behind a wall marked Staff Only.

I follow, fast.

We push into a small hallway, then into the security room—walls lined with monitors, screens flickering in grainy black-and-white.

A guard stands from his seat, wide-eyed. “Hey, what the hell—?”

Nico draws a weapon from inside his jacket. Not a threat. Not a flourish. Just quiet, efficient steel. The barrel rests against the side of the man’s neck.

“Sit down,” Nico says. “Pull up this morning’s entries. Access logs. Card swipes. Show me Randy Calhoun’s room.”

The guard is already trembling, hands flying over the keyboard. “O-okay, okay—”

I pace behind them, fists clenched, pulse thrumming like a war drum in my ears.

I can feel her.

She’s here. I know it.

“Got it,” the guard blurts. “He used a staff-access key—VIP clearance—about 8:27 a.m. Room 1807. Elevator logs confirm it.”

“Name?” Nico demands.

“Guest record shows it’s in the name of Jay Rhodes. But Calhoun swiped in with that card.”

Nico jerks his chin toward the screen. “Lock the elevators. Disable the keycard. Now.”

The guard stares.

“Now.”

The guard scrambles to obey, sweat pouring down his face, especially when Nico grabs his security badge and I.D.

“I would highly suggest you don’t call the police, Gerry Loomus, because if you cause me problems you will regret it.”

The guard nods, as if sensing Nico is some other kind of predator that normally only works inside the shadows, rarely venturing out into the daylight.

I’m already turning, heart crashing in my chest.

Room 1807.

Laney. I’m coming.

Room 1807.

I repeat it over and over like a prayer. A curse. A goddamn war cry.

Nico and I hit the elevator, but the doors flash red—locked, just like he ordered. We don’t waste a second. We pivot, storming toward the emergency stairwell.

The door slams open and we climb—two, three steps at a time. My lungs burn. My legs are on fire. But I don’t stop. Can’t stop. Not while she’s in this building and I’m still on the outside of whatever hell she’s in.

Nico’s ahead of me by a step, methodical, quiet, his hand on the grip of his weapon.

Eighteen floors feel like a thousand.

When we hit the top of the stairwell, I shove through the door into the corridor, breath ragged, heart pounding.

The hallway is long. Silent. Pristine.

Too pristine.

I scan the gold room numbers as we move—1803… 1805…

I stop. My blood surges. This is it.

“Stay behind me,” Nico says, voice low, calm like a surgeon right before a cut.

I shake my head. “Not a chance.”

He doesn’t argue. Just reaches into his coat and pulls something from the inside pocket. A narrow black tool—some kind of breach bar.

“On three,” he says. “We go fast. If she’s in there—”

“She’s in there.”

His eyes flick to mine. Then he nods.

“One.”

I draw in a slow, sharp breath.

“Two.”

The world narrows. All I hear is the blood in my ears. All I see is her face.

“Three.”

Nico kicks the door and the lock shatters.

We burst into the room—

And everything stops.

The curtains are half-drawn, the morning light bleeding across the bed.

Laney.

She’s there.

Tied.

Blood covering her face.

And Randy.

Hovering over her.

His head jerks up, wild-eyed, wearing only a towel around his waist, red across his knuckles.

His eyes meet mine—and he freezes for a second before scrambling away.

I see her first on the bed. Blood on her face. Her hoodie torn. Her wrists red and raw.

Laney. I rush to the woman I love, my fingers shaking as I gently touch her neck feeling for her pulse. It’s strong, beneath my fingers as she groans in pain.

Everything inside me fractures. Then I turn and see him.

Randy.

And I go black.

He turns, barely managing a smug smirk before I slam into him like a fucking freight train. I don’t yell. I don’t speak.

I just hit him.

Fist. Jaw.

Bone meets bone and his head snaps back with a sickening crack as I ram him against the wall. His body bounces off the drywall, and I drive my fist into his gut, once, twice—hard—until he gasps like a fish out of water.

He staggers, and I grab him and drag him down with me, slamming him into the corner of the nightstand. A picture frame shatters on the floor beside us.

I’m not thinking. I’m not hearing anything but the pounding in my skull, the deafening scream of what if—what if—what if—

What if we’d been too late?

What if this sick fuck hurt her worse—

I punch him again, his lip splitting beneath my knuckles, blood spattering onto the carpet. “You touched her,” I snarl, my voice shredded. “You fucking touched her.”

Another hit. His nose crunches. He gurgles something I don’t care to hear.

“She trusted you once—and you used that to do this?” I grab him by the throat and slam him into the dresser so hard the mirror above it rattles. “You think you’re a man?” I roar, fists clenching again. “You think beating a woman makes you strong?”

I strike again.

And again.

Until he’s a mess of blood and tears and panic, no fight left in him—just a pathetic heap curled on the floor, whimpering and sobbing, trying to crawl away.

Nico’s voice cuts through the red fog in my head. “Eddie.”

I don’t stop.

He grabs my shoulder. “Eddie.”

I shrug him off, breathing hard, my hands shaking, blood on my fingers—his, not mine.

“She could’ve died,” I whisper, chest heaving. “She could’ve—she—”

Nico grips the back of my neck. Hard. “Go to her,” he says, low and fierce. “Go to her. I’ll handle him.”

I look back at Randy. He’s curled in on himself, groaning. A shell. A coward. Exactly what he’s always been.

He’s nothing.

I drop him.

Turn.

And finally—finally—I move toward her.

Laney.

Her eyes are half-open, wet with pain. Her face is bruised. Blood drying at the corner of her mouth. She’s shivering. Still tied up.

“Oh my God,” I breathe. “Laney—baby—I’m here, I’m here.”

My hands fumble with the zip ties, slick with sweat and shaking so bad I nearly drop the knife Nico tossed me. But I cut them.

One.

Then the other.

Her arms collapse into my chest, and I catch her as gently as I can, pulling her into me.

“I’ve got you,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

Her fingers curl into my shirt. Weak, but there. Present.

She’s alive.

I pull her into my lap, wrapping myself around her like I can protect her from the memory of everything that happened here. My heart is breaking with every shaky breath she takes, but I hold her tighter, grounding her in every beat of mine.

Behind me, I hear Randy sobbing as Nico drags him out of the room.

But all I care about now is the woman in my arms.

“I knew you’d come.”

Her words are raw and tear a hole inside my chest. So sure, so trusting. “I will always come for you, Laney.”

I lift her gently in my arms, noting the wince she tries to hide as she assures me she is okay.

“I can walk.”

“No way, you’re not leaving my arms for the next fifty years at least.”

She smiles but I’m deadly serious, I don’t think I’ll sleep again after tonight.

We move past Nico, who’s talking with the stunned security guard.

The man glances at Laney and a look of sympathy and anger comes over his face before Nico snaps his fingers in front of his eyes, then he drops his attention to Randy with a look of pure disgust.

So it looks like not everyone here is a piece of shit.

I feel soft fingers stroke my face as I head to the elevator and glance at Laney.

Fuck.

Her face is busted up pretty good, and it makes me want to turn around and finish what I started with that asshole, but she needs me more than I need revenge.

“Eddie.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Is Joey okay?”

God damn it, even now she’s thinking of someone else. “He’s doing well, baby. The surgery was a success.”

“Thank God.”

Every time I think I can’t love her more she proves me wrong and, if I have my way, she will be doing it for the rest of my life.