“Tashi.” Orion stepped closer, his eyes locked on mine. “If we call off the gala, they win.”
“That’s not as important as your lives.”
“It is,” he said gently. “They’ve spent months trying to undermine us. Every crisis they created was designed to make us shut down, retreat, and look weak. Tonight, we do the opposite.”
Ares and Neville joined us again. Neville slipped his tablet under his arm. “I’ll take care of those details,” he said quietly to Ares. “I know what to adjust.”
Ares nodded. “I’ll check back with you later.”
With that, Neville headed toward the stairwell door, already typing.
Ares waited until the metal door clanged shut, then turned to Leo and Orion. “We need her downstairs. Too many eyes up here.”
Leo touched my lower back, steering me gently toward the elevator. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get inside.”
I didn’t argue. I was too busy hearing the wind echo against the metal vent, imagining the thin line between what we were planning and what could still go catastrophically wrong.
The elevator doors closed around us, sealing off the rooftop, the vent, and the chilly air conditioning. Orion pressed the button for our floor and exhaled, tension bleeding off him only slightly. “This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to back us into a corner,” he said, not exactly to me, not exactly to his brothers—almost as if saying it out loud made it more real. “And it won’t be the last.”
Ares braced himself with one arm along the rail, keeping weight off his injuries. Leo watched him with a quiet, tight concern he didn’t try to hide.
When the elevator reached the executive level, they didn’t take me to their offices.
They took me home.
Or what had quietly become home.
My suite.
As soon as we stepped inside, Orion locked the deadbolt and Leo pulled the privacy latch. Ares checked the corners out of habit.
Only when all three seemed satisfied did they turn toward me—three sets of eyes, three different shades of worry, intensity, and fierce protectiveness.
“You won’t be alone today,” Ares said.
“And while we work,” Orion added, “you stay here. No wandering. No detours. Someone will always be with you.”
Leo sank onto the edge of the bed and patted the spot between his knees, voice softer. “Come here.”
And for the first time since we’d stepped onto that rooftop, I let myself breathe.
The men formed a protective wall around me, Orion kissing my hair, Leo brushing his lips on the nape of my neck and Ares pressing his hand against my breast. How did I get so lucky?
Then an insistent knocking at the door jolted us all, and the men tensed.
Ares went to the door, looked through the peephole, and sighed. “Come in, Marta,” he said. I caught the annoyance in his voice.
“Whoa! Look at all of you! Be still, my heart. But chop, chop, Tashi. Time to get your spa day on.”
“What?”
“You don’t think I’d let my bestie arrive at the hottest party in Vegas without getting a complete makeover, do you? I’ve got it all planned. Massage and sugar scrub over your entire body,facial, hair, and nails. This hotel has everything! Girl, it will take all day.”
“And I suppose you’ll be right there with me?”
“Don’t you know it.”
Leo laughed. “This is perfect. Ares, please ensure that a security guard is posted discreetly nearby.”
