Page 13 of Blood for Blood

“Not a problem.” I smile at her. “Thank you for your time.”

Turning and leaving the hotel, I make my way to the trunk of my car and grab the small bolt cutters Mateo keeps back there. Once I’m back in the hotel, I avoid the front desk and take the stairs to the second floor. There is nobody in the hallway on this floor, so I go up another level. On the fourth floor, I finally find a cleaning cart in the hallway. I’ve only been waiting for a few seconds when the cleaning lady comes back to the cart.

“Is there anything I can get for you, sir?” She asks, politely.

“I actually need a towel.” I laugh. “I forgot to ask for fresh ones this morning.”

“No problem at all.” She smiles at me. When she bends down to grab the towels from the bottom of the cart, I gently unclip her key card from her uniform and slide it into my pocket. “Here you go.”

“Thank you so much!” Grabbing the towels, I make my way to the elevator and push the button for the sixth floor. Once I’m outside room 682, I swipe the card and wait for the light to turn green. It flashes and I’m not surprised that the chain lock is in place when I go to open it.

Smiling to myself, I pull the bolt cutters from my back pocket and cut the chain, shoving the door open the rest of the way. Her backpack is on the bed, and I hear the water running in the bathroom. Her sobs reach my ears, and I push the bathroom door open to find her on the floor of the shower in one of her trances.

“FUCK!” I shout, turning the water off. Throwing a towel around her, I pull her out of the shower and carry her to the bed, sitting down with her on my lap. Sometimes she gets too overwhelmed with a flashback and it shuts her down. She’s crying, but it’s like she doesn’t hear, see or feel anything that’s going on around her.

We sit like this for almost twenty minutes before her sobs stop and she looks up at me.

“What are you doing here?” She jumps from my lap. “How did you find me?”

“What happened to your face, Luna?” I ask in a calm tone, even though I’m anything but.

“You answer my fucking questions first, Enzo!” She stomps her foot like an angry toddler.

“Where is the fucking tracker?”

“There’s one in your phone and in the cars.”

“Quit lying!” She screams. “I don’t have my phone OR one of our cars, yet here you fucking are!”

“I tracked your Uber driver down and paid her a lot of money.” Standing from the bed, I push her hair back over her shoulders. “Then I had Silas hack into the security system at Walmart. There are cameras all over town.”

“How is Rory?” She sits on the edge of the bed. “I feel like a giant piece of shit for leaving her like that.”

“Don’t feel bad about it, Luna.” I sit in the arm chair across from the bed. “Mateo was out of line for the way he spoke to you. If Aurora was awake for that, she would have left with you. She is in the hospital, awake, but groggy.”

“Can we call her?” She looks at me with pleading eyes.

“Of course we can.” Sliding my phone from my pocket, I tap the screen a few times, dialing Mateo’s number.

“If you ever hang up on me like that again, Lorenzo, your ass is going to be sore for the next forty-eight centuries.”

“Well, hello to you, too!” I mock him. “Luna wants to talk to Aurora.”

“I need to apologize to her, Enzo.”

“You’re on speaker phone, she can hear you.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I lean back in the chair.

“I don’t want to talk about that right now, Mateo.” Luna cries into the phone. “You fucking hurt me, I only want to talk to Aurora.”

We can hear whispers coming through the speakers before Aurora’s voice comes through.

“Hey, Luna. I’m alright, I promise.”

“God, Peach, I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize you were drugged!” Luna sobs, “I should have known better.”

“Don’t worry about me, Luna.” Rory pleads. “What about the guy? Have you figured out who he was yet?”

“What guy?” Luna retorts, her eyes narrowing on the phone.

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