Page 120 of Victorious: Part 2
The guilt is still there, of us being here, in Vegas, living it up while everyone at the club is fighting a war back home. But I push it down, because hopefully we’ll go home soon. We’ll face Maverick’s anger and the club’s judgment and whatever the Cartel has planned next.
But right now, I simply want to enjoy being a newlywed.
I’m lost in thought, absently stroking Dracula’s fur, when he suddenly tenses. His ears prick up, and he lifts his head toward the door, every muscle in his small body going rigid.
“What is it, boy?” I whisper, but he jumps off my lap, racing toward the door with his fur standing on end.
My heart skips in excitement—Phoenix must be back with breakfast.
“You better have brought enough bacon to share,” I call out with a grin, pulling the sheet up to cover myself. “Because your cat has expensive tastes and—” The door suddenly slams open with such force that it bounces off the wall. I jump from the shock, not expecting Phoenix to enter with such violence.
But it’s not Phoenix storming inside the hotel room.
It’s three men.
Big men.
Dangerous-looking men.
Men with the kind of dead eyes that tell meexactlywho sent them.
The Cartel.
Terror slams into me like a freight train. I clutch the sheet to my chest, my mind racing as the three of them fill our small hotel room. They’re dressed in black, moving with the kind of practiced efficiency that tells me they’re not here to simply chat.
“Well, well,” the largest one says, his voice heavily accented with that particular mix of menace and amusement that makes my blood run cold. “Clover Cadell. You’re even prettier than those pictures that gave us your location. You know, for a club brat, they didn’t teach you very well about keeping a low profile.”
Shit.
The Instagram photos of the wedding told these assholes where we were.
I’m such an idiot!
Dracula hisses and arches his back, trying to make himself bigger as he stands between these fuckers and me. One of the men kicks at him, and the cat yowls, scurrying under the bed.
“Don’t youfuckingtouch him,” I snarl, my protective instincts overriding my fear for a split second.
The man who spoke laughs, a sound like broken glass. “Such spirit. Javier said you’d have fire in you. Seems he was right.”
Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!
I’m trapped in this room, while Phoenix is across the street trying to take care of me, completely unaware that his worst nightmare is happening.
Thatmyworst nightmare is happening.
The window is too small to climb through, and these men are blocking the only exit.
But you can be damn sure I’m not going down without a fight.
“What the fuck do you want?” I demand, trying to keep my voice steady even though my heart is hammering so hard I can barely breathe.
“You,princesa,” the second man says, pulling somethingfrom his jacket, a cloth. “Javier wants us to have a conversation with you about what the club knows about the Cartel.”
I snort out a laugh. “There’s a reason I’m here and not at the club, dipshit. They want me away from this war. I don’t know their plans. And if you hurt me, well, the club is only going to fuck you up even more than whatever it is they already have planned for you and yourstupidboss,” I snap, looking for anything I can use as a weapon.
The lamp.
My phone.
