Page 31 of Call Sign: King
The man responsible for shooting two of the most important people in her life grabbed her by her hair, yanking her up with a velocity that pulled a chunk of hair out. A fury she’d never felt before consumed her as she kicked and clawed at the man as he tried to pull her out of the room.
Khloe flailed wildly, doing her best to avoid being captured. When her arm knocked over her make-up mirror, she picked it up by the handle, swinging it around and slamming it into the side of the man’s head. His howl of pain was oddly satisfying.
She had a split second to run, but she only made it as far as the bed before being tackled from behind. As she crashed to the carpet, she again reached for anything to use as a weapon, pulling the covers off the bed as she tried to use them as leverage to pull herself away from the madman’s hold. Red smears of Trevor’s blood stained the white fabric.
Slow things down.
She needed to at least keep the intruder here, in her suite. The other members of Ryder’s team who had been downstairs were coming. She just needed to hold out until they got there to help.
“You’re a real hellcat. I like that. It’s going to make breaking you even more fun.”
Chapter Nine
RYDER
“Why don’t you fly back to The Ranch? We can send Thunder up to Toronto to pick up the Queen and team this weekend. You’re gonna drive yourself crazy sitting in that shithole of a motel for the next four days,” Axel warned.
Ryder suspected his friend was right, but that didn’t mean he was going to listen.
“I know I can’t stay at the Hyatt with her, but I’m not leaving town. I want to stay close… just in case.”
“In case, what? No one is stupid enough to make a move with the kind of security you’ve put in place.”
His brain knew Wrath was making sense, but his gut was screaming that something was wrong. He’d checked in with Reaper and the Royal Guard a half dozen times already that day and was resisting checking in again.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll be able to take calls and get some paperwork done from here.”
“At least stay in a better place. That airport motel you picked has terrible reviews.”
“I’m not here for amenities,” Ryder argued. “Now, can we finish talking about the cake order that just came in for Torch and his crew? It’s bad enough we have one team out of commission up here on my job, but we need to get the second crew busy or we’ll fall behind.”
“If that’s the way you want it. I’m pulling up the… wait… I have an alarm going off. That’s weird.”
“What?” When Axel didn’t answer, Ryder pressed again. “What’s weird?”
“Ricky. He’s activated his panic button.”
Ryder’s ears started ringing, the first sign of his rising blood pressure.
He looked back at his phone, checking for messages and relieved at finding none.
“Hold on, let me call Trevor.”
He pressed the number for McLean. He didn’t care if the Royal Guard got pissy about him checking in too often. He needed to know all was well.
When the call went to voice mail, he pushed to his feet, pacing across the threadbare carpet.
It wasn’t until he heard Torch’s voice yelling at the other end of the secure line that Ryder’s legs collapsed under him, sending him falling to his knees in the middle of his shitty motel room.
“They activated a Code Red!”
Ryder’s mouth went dry. Words wouldn’t come. A panic unlike any he’d ever felt crushed him.
“What’s happening?” he managed to get out, crawling the few feet to his briefcase. With trembling hands, he pulled out his laptop and opened it up. He spent the long seconds waiting for it to boot up listening to Torch and Wrath at the other end of the phone.
“Reaper… this is Torch. Come in.” Seconds passed before another try. “Royal Guard. Tank… somebody answer me. We need a status update here.”
Ryder could hear Axel’s furious typing even as he logged into his own computer. The long delay in connecting through their secure EVN network was like torture, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to tap onto their comms feed without it.
