Page 124 of Pink

Not in the slightest.

As was standard whenever they entered the hotel from the front instead of the side or rear entrances, they headed for the bank of elevators to the right of the check-in desk. Todd stepped away to speak to the receptionist, passing over a thick, white envelope that she suspected held cash but didn’t have the guts to ask.

Not that they would have told her anyway.

The silence leading up to Gigi’s floor during the elevator trip only added to her growing frustration and the unanswered questions poking at the back of her mind. She knew nothing; not what had happened back in that parking lot to bring this on, what might happen now, or what she could do about it.

No, she was just moved. From one place to the next. Like a doll without a mind of her own.

Lev was going to get a piece of her mind the first second she had her phone back in her hand, or he was standing in front of her. Whichever came first, she wasn’t picky.

Lost in her swirling, angry thoughts, Gigi barely registered the elevator coming to a stop on her floor. She didn’t even think before stepping out behind the enforcers who always headed the team of security now. Running on autopilot, she simply followed. Because that’s what she was supposed to do.

“See,” the guy to Todd’s left muttered. “Glen fucked off. Just like I said.”

Though it was hard to see beyond the broad shoulders of the enforcers ahead of her, Gigi could tell that Glen—the enforcer they kept running off at the mouth about—wasn’t standing post at the door. If he wasn’t downstairs, then he should have been up here waiting.

“Has anybody talked to my mom since we left?” Gigi asked.

The enforcer who stayed posted at the hotel checked in every twenty minutes with the rest of the team. Had he mentioned her mom leaving, maybe to grab lunch? Was that why he wasn’t standing at his usual post?

Todd shot her a look over his shoulder. “Job is you, kid.”

Kid.

Like she said to her fans.

It didn’t feel the same.

Gigi bristled. “I’m not a k—”

“That’s blood.”

“What?”

“Blood—on the fucking door, Todd, look!”

The words were barely out of the man’s mouth before another man on the team grabbed Gigi by the collar of her jacket. He wasn’t kind about the way he yanked her backward, making her stumble over her own two feet. At the same time, the men up ahead pulled guns from the holsters beneath their blazers, barrels pointed straight at the door of her hotel suite when they both stepped forward together.

It was then that she saw what they did.

The thick streak of crimson that coated the doorknob and keypad entry to the room. How the blood had been smeared on the doorjamb and even dripped down to make a pool on the floor underneath the handle.

That was a lot of blood.

“My mom,” Gigi said, gasping the words out because her throat tightened like a noose was choking her silent. She tried to go forward despite her heart screaming for her to stay back. Not that it mattered. Her bodyguards just pulled her backward as if she was a child throwing a tantrum and not a grown woman spiraling into the worst panic attack of her life. “My mom! Where is my mother? Let me go!”

Her fear came out in rapid-fire questions and broken shouts. Each one sent more tears spilling down her cheeks when silence answered her back. They said nothing and opened the door. The bloody body just beyond the threshold was plainly visible.

That’s when everything went black for Gigi.

• • •

Gigi finally had her phone back.

It didn’t help.

The man she kept trying to call and text—Lev—wasn’t answering her back. Nothing beyond a simple I’m sorry when her messages became progressively more panicked that he wasn’t picking up the phone for her calls.