“I’m pissed because you decided to take shots at some very powerful people,” I told her, finding my anger all over again.“And because the entire reason we’re here in the first place is because you were very nearly kidnapped—so forgive me if I’m trying to keep your ass alive until election by making you more cautious about who you piss off—”
My rant was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing.
“That’s mine,” Lennon said, her cheeks still flushed like she was still ready to go toe-to-toe with me.
Zeke, who was holding the ratty tote bag that Lennon insisted on carrying everywhere with her, stepped forward and wordlessly held it out to her.
She dug through it until she found her phone and read the caller ID with a frown.
“What?” I asked, noticing the immediate change in her demeanor but she waved me off, turning away and brushing her perfectly styled hair over her shoulder and answered the call.
“Agent Miner?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly. “What’s going on?”
Thirty minutes later we were struggling to keep up with Lennon who had kicked off her heels at some point after arriving back to the hotel and was full on sprinting down the hallway and back to the suite she shared with her brother.
The living room was already full of people by the time we entered through the door and Lennon pushed through the crowd wordlessly.
Carter’s entire security team along with a group of paramedics who looked as if they’d rather be anywhere else than standing in this room with what was clearly an NDA-signing waiting to happen.
“Where is he?” Lennon asked, her chest heaving with ragged breaths as she looked at Agent Miner with an emotionless expression.
“He’s locked himself in the bathroom, ma’am,” Agent Miner answered, not looking Lennon or me in the eye as Lennon took a step toward the bedroom.
“Hey,” I said, stepping in front of her for a moment. “Do you need us to go in with you?”
For a moment Lennon’s expression wobbled, her gray eyes shining with something that made my chest twist with an indescribable emotion. Then she gathered herself again and shook her head. “No, stay out here.”
Then she stepped inside of the bedroom by herself and shut the door.
“This is so fucked,” Brooks muttered when I joined them by the counter.
“You want to know what’s more fucked?” Dallas asked as he typed on his computer. “Traffic both positive and negative for Lennon has risen by thirty percent in the last half-hour.”
I groaned inwardly. “We’re going to need back up until it calms down, can you call Collier and make sure that goes through before tonight?”
“Tonight?” Zeke asked, surprised. “Do you really think she’s going to go tonight?”
“As of right now it hasn’t been cancelled,” I told him. “So act as if everything is a go.”
Truthfully, we could all see the writing on the wall of what was happening in that bedroom. I’d seen the way Carter had come in earlier and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the guy had been teetering on the edge of a relapse.
But as of right now that was none of my business. Lennon had been very clear about that.
So, instead, I got on the phone with our ground team and started making sure that the hotel where the dinner was being held would be secure for Lennon so she wouldn’t have to worry about that at least.
I was just finishing up plans when the door to the bedroom opened and Lennon emerged, stopping me in the middle of my sentence.
“Shaw, I gotta go,” I told the agent on the other end of the line, hanging up before he could answer.
Lennon was standing in the doorway looking shellshocked. She had a line of yellow vomit down the pink blouse she had worn to the omega center this afternoon and her hair was disheveled as the entire room seemed to freeze as they stared at her.
“You can go into him now,” she told the paramedics quietly who immediately jumped into action.
Then she turned to Agent Miner. “I’ll call my mother and let her know what happened, so can you please go with him to the hospital and make sure everything is discreet?”
Agent Miner nodded, seemingly relieved about not having to brief the president on her failing her job this afternoon, and followed the paramedics out with the rest of her team.
“Lennon?” Brooks asked, catching her empty-eyed gaze for a moment before she just shook her head and crossed the suite to her own bedroom and shut the door.
