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I should have known.
Samantha’s words, which had at first stirred only a whisper of unease in the back of Cassidy’s mind, suddenly clanged louder than a firehouse alarm bell. Serge hadn’t told Samantha about Ryan’s future because Ryan didn’t have one.
Serge had also never seen a child as a consequence of Dominique’s day-walking.
I should have known.
A chill raced up her arms. Her hand moved to cover her belly in a protective gesture. Should she know not to force the issue about traveling into danger with Dominique? Would she lose the child if she did? But how could she not go?
A knock at the door made her jump.
“Maintenance,” someone called from the hall.
“Time to go,” Jackson said, apparently eager for the excuse to stop the torrent of words from Francesca.
“Maintenance?” Cassidy wondered. It must be a code word Jackson and Garrett were using. Though that didn’t sound like Garrett.
Before she could question it, Jackson had opened the door.
The guy on the other side was two heads taller than Jackson and three times as wide. He wore what could well have been the official uniform of the hotel’s maintenance staff, but instead of stating his business in an apologetic, Canadian manner, he simply walked in—along with two other, only slightly smaller men.
Jackson put up a hand. “Just a second.”
The maintenance crew shoved Jackson aside and swarmed through the suite, tearing open doors and prodding under furniture.
“What the hell are you doing? What are you looking for?” Cassidy cried. A small part of her still clung to the idea that this was all an innocent misunderstanding.
No one bothered to reply.
Jackson grabbed the arm of the first giant through the door. “You need to leave right now, buddy.”
A meaty fist arched around toward his face. Jackson ducked just in time and landed a solid punch in the guy’s gut. The mountain of a man swayed, but remained upright.
Francesca screamed.
Cassidy went mute with shock.
An attack. This was an attack. The empty eyes and single-minded pursuit of these men reeked of compulsion. They were looking for a sleeping vampire who had had the good sense not to be here today.
But that wasn’t all they were after.
The giant scooped Jackson up in a crushing hold that took his feet clear off the ground. Cassidy was about to rush to his aid when a hand came down hard on her shoulder. All the martial arts training Dominique had insisted she do kicked into autopilot. She reached for the wrist and whirled around, twisting, holding nothing back. Tendons popped beneath her fingers. With a strangled cry, her would-be assailant crashed to the floor and smashed his face into the rug.
Francesca improvised a weapon from her sizable designer bag. With ear-piercing shrieks and a flurry of French outrage, she swung it at the head of the man trying to gain control over her.
“Fucking son of a bitch,” Jackson snarled. Somehow he had gotten out of the hold he was in and turned on the bear of a man who still staggered, off balance.
The guy Cassidy had leveled crawled on the floor, only to get clocked again when Francesca’s bag-cudgel sailed past and toppled a table lamp on him. Francesca’s screams became agonized. Her attacker had her hands trapped behind her back and jerked them up high between her shoulder blades.
With a wild shriek, Cassidy vaulted onto the man’s back. Her arms snaked around his muscular neck, her legs around his middle. She squeezed, intending murder.
Francesca, released, fell forward. Her assailant, now top-heavy with Cassidy on his back, spun around, gasped, and teetered. His arms waved wildly, grappling for balance.
Something thin and long glinted in his hand.
Shit.
“Drop the knife,” she shouted over a calamitous crash behind her. If that was Jackson who had just hurtled into that desk, and if there were more weapons about to appear, this battle was all but over. “I said drop the fucking knife!”
