Page 33 of Redemption

Just as he turns to rejoin us, something catches his eye, and he waves us over.

“That’s hers,” he says, pointing to a heart shaped gold locket on the end of a broken chain that’s caught in a crack before the ramp. With my eyes, I follow the movement of his head and notice the security cameras mounted from various angles.

“There are two other cameras along this hallway,” Roman says, poking his neck back through the doorway.

“Should we call the …” I stop talking when I see the look in Ford’s eyes.

“Doesn’t King know the head of security here?” Vector asks. “Let’s track her on the feed.”

Ford starts moving, stopping abruptly to look between Vector and me, as his hand reaches in his pocket, retrieving a keycard. “Vec, can she sit in my room? In case Grace is just …”

“Yeah, man, of course. Roman, you stay with Sloane,” Vector immediately replies, looking between the three of us as he puts together a plan. “Like fucking glue, until we have this figured out. Babe, call me if you think of anything or if she shows up. I’ll be with Ford.”

I nod, then before he can turn to follow his friend, I throw my arms around his neck and briefly press my lips to his. “I love you.”

“Me too,” he whispers against my mouth. “Keep your eyes open.”

I feel like I’m in a daze as Ford and Vector get moving and I don’t even try to keep pace with them.

“You okay?” Roman asks from directly over my left shoulder.

“We were just right there,” I say, needlessly pointing to where we had parted. “I should have insisted on waiting for her.”

“We don’t know that anything’s wrong.”

There’s no sense in pointing out that the look on his face says differently.

Getting upstairs to their suite, I wander through both rooms more to burn off some of the adrenaline rushing through my veins than to be nosy, then I pull open the drawers, looking for any items they might have left behind.

“I don’t think they planned on staying last night,” Roman tells me, but then shakes his head and crosses to the closet and punches a code into the safe and opens that, pulling out the purse Grace had with her at the craps table.

“How the hell did you know their password?” I ask, completely dumbfounded by how quickly he guessed it. I spent a few minutes thinking up a personal code for the one in our room.

“Factory reset. Hotels rarely ever bother to change that, so it’s the same all over,” he tells me with a smirk, and I can feel my face fall.

“But … but …,” I sputter, trying to wrap my head around the fact that while a factory reset makes sense, it also destroys the confidence I’ve felt leaving my winnings in that little box.

“Guess what?” he continues, leaning forward like he’s about to disclose a huge revelation. “Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”

I almost jump out of my skin when I feel my phone vibrate.

“Hi,” I sound breathless as I hit the speaker button to pick up Vector’s call.

“Babe, I’m sorry, but we’re all going to head out. Can you start packing …”

“Grace’s purse is here,” I interrupt him, his tone telling me there’s no time to waste on niceties. “Roman and I will head downstairs and then I’ll get you and me packed up. What else do you need?”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you in our room.”

With that, he disconnects, and I look up to see Roman making another sweep of the room.

“This is my fault,” I whisper, more to myself than to Roman.

“Knock that shit off,” he growls, as I punch my floor number. “No one thinks that, and we don’t have time for anything except the facts.”

His words are a splash of reality over my pity party, and I take a deep breath to calm myself down. Which does absolutely nothing to help. I’m still terrified for the woman I was just getting to know.

Vector is opening the door to our room as we approach it and he reaches for the bags Roman is carrying, allowing his friend to go get his own things.

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