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There was the faintest memory of a demand A demand for what, she wasn’t certain It wasn’t even a , amid a blast of pain, fear, and her own screams

"Did you remember the people next door who rushed in to help you?"

She didn’t re the she could hold on to whatever it was her attacker had said in those chaoticif she could just reently "A lot of youngtheir noses in where they weren’t wanted"

"Oh, they anted" She breathed out roughly

God, ould she have done if they hadn’t poked their noses in?

Watching the landscape roll by, Piper realized they were onlywill be there?"

He was going to be so hurt, and she knew it He wouldn’t understand her need to breathe, to have done this alone, even though it hadn’t been the chance she had believed it was

"Why were you in New York, Piper?"

She’d wondered how long it would take hiet to the one question she kneanted to ask

Forcing back tears of disappointment and huht I was going to get an offer for a showing of soht you were?"

"It didn’t work out" Staring down at her hands, she wondered whether he would consider it no more than she had deserved for the childishness she had displayed in the deceptive way she left

"What happened, baby?"

The gentleness in his voice and the fact that he hadn’t told Dahen the hospital had called hi her eyes as she shifted in her seat to look at hi she wanted was for him to see the tears she had to blink back

"There’s this fa her throat to hide the hoarseness of the hurt she fought to hide "He showcases several designers a year, helps them put on a show, and he’s never had one who didn’t become successful I received a letter fro so he was listening as they moved ever closer to the inn

"I could have had the show and sponsorship if I’d agreed to be his little sex toy until he got tired of ate, Piper told him about Eldon Vessante, and the fact that his pants and his opinion of hied; the tension in his body didn’t visibly increase None of the signs of vengeful anger that Dawg and her cousins were known to display were present

"Two attacks in one day then" He breathed out heavily, the concern in his voice easing so inside her she hadn’t known had been knotted with tension

Piper nodded "Fortunately, his butler or whoever he as there So A hell of a na uy was behind the attack at the hotel?"

Piper shook her head "I don’t re" She wished she could rerated demand would come into focus within her memories "I can’t remember what he said, Jed, or what he wanted, but it didn’t have anything to do with Eldon Vessante"

Broecun

Fuck

The security field was a close-knit one, especially for those agents of John Broecun’s caliber Jed knew Piper had taken the sound of the name literally, but Jed knew the otherof his name And he knew if Broecun ith this Eldon Vessante, either the overnation by them

At least he had a place to start, and a face to shove his fist into Eldon Vessante , but the only reason he hadn’t been was because Broecun would have stopped hi the otherPiper with her drea-ti Jed would exact a little atonement for

"Well, you’re home now" He pulled into the Mackay Inn’s lot, parked the truck, then shut it off "Let’s see if I can sneak you into the house and get you settled before Dawg gets his first report that you’re hoht now, or Ti instead Dawg and his cousins were going to have to step back a pace or two, regardless of whether or not they liked it If they wanted to know the trouble--or potential trouble--his sisters got into or were headed for, then the girls couldn’t be afraid to let hi s what she believed was an important event had almost cost Piper her life; he wouldn’t allow it to harm her more in the future

"I’ine, then turned back to her, confused

"Scared for who" He could see the tears in her eyes, the faint tre and his cousins take care of themselves and one another just fine, Piper," he promised her

She shook her head at his statement "That’s not what Ito be very alone," she told hihtened of his He can’t keep telling us what to do or how to live I know Lyrica and Zoey, too If he doesn’t stop, I swear, we’ll all end up leaving We talk about it more and more often He may well be headed for a stroke, but Lyrica, Zoey, and I are headed out of town if it keeps up"