Travis waited for one of us to speak.
Mac cleared her throat pointedly.
“I was going to let you go,” I blurted out. “I wanted you to be safe, but none of you are because I can’t get anything right.”
Travis looked from me to Mac and back again. “Who’s not safe?”
“No one if I don’t get them the money.”
He grabbed hold of my arm, frustration oozing from his body. I could actually see the vein pulsing angrily in his neck. I focused on it because it was either that or the anger in his eyes. “Get who the money? Can one of you start talking some goddamn sense?”
“You can’t tell anyone, Travis,” I replied.
Travis let go of my arm and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Tell anyone what, dammit?”
His voice had kicked up a level, and I was starting to sense some impatience. “About the bad guys.”
Travis flared his nostrils dangerously, and Mac shrugged at me when I glanced at her. After drawing in several deep breaths, Travis spoke.
“You...” he pointed at me “...and you...” he pointed at Mac “...back to the hotel room right now.” Mac started protesting and he simply raised his voice over hers. “I will make sure the show is wrapped up and everything is packed away and dealt with.” Then he spoke into his speaker. “Sean, need you here right now. Mac and Quinn need an escort back to the hotel.”
My brows flew up because Sean and Travis were not best friends, and I somehow felt responsible for that. It seems that Sean, aka Wolverine from the Florence Bar, had quit his job and started working for Jamieson and Valentine Consulting. I had no idea, and really, why would I? It had nothing to do with me, at least until Sean met us at the airport for our Melbourne flight to form part of the security detail. I’d been busy throwing up in the airport toilet. Seems I wasn’t a good flyer and that was before we’d even boarded the plane. Lucy said it was a good idea for me to take a couple of sleeping pills to relax the nerves, but they just rolled around in my stomach, finding a friend in the nerves that were already there. Then the nerves and pills combined forces and there I was over the toilet bowl, making a drama out of an hour long flight.
When I made my way out of the public restroom, pale and shaky, I found Sean forming part of the Jamieson huddle. When his eyes caught hold of me, they rounded in surprise. Then he picked me up, hugging me as he spun me around, saying he’d been keeping an eye out for me and was disappointed I’d never returned to the bar. I must have paled further from being launched upwards in his big arms because he set me down hastily. When I teetered, Sean reached out in concern and I hung on.
Travis reached my side about the time Sean decided to ask why I never rang him. Travis slid his arm around my waist, tugging me close, at the same time glaring at Sean. My body leaned into Travis, and I simply told Sean it was because I wasn’t dating. His eyes glanced pointedly at the arm around me, and Travis glaring daggers at him, and I hastily tacked on that I was dating now. Dating Travis. Against all my better judgement, but I didn’t add that part. It didn’t seem the right time.
Not to mention my main focus was on my troubles. Now it seemed my troubles were going to become Travis’s troubles. I didn’t like that at all. It left the blood in my veins feeling ice cold.
Sean arrived and Travis let my arm go. “Take Quinn and Mac back to the hotel.” He faced the both of us. “You get there you do not leave that room. If I find you have taken one step outside that door before I get back and deal with this, so help me God, both of you will be f**king sorry.”
I flinched at the whiplash in his voice and the anger in his beautiful eyes. Taking a step back, I pulled out my phone.
“I just need to message Lucy so she can come with us.” There had been no holding Lucy back from coming to Melbourne with us after our little chat.
“Does Lucy know what’s going on?”
I nodded.
“Who else?”
“Evie too,” Mac added helpfully while my fingers tapped out a message.
He threw his hands up in frustration, and after Sean arrived at the side of the stage, Travis gave us his back and focused on doing his job.
Moments later, the three of us were in the car with Sean driving us towards what now felt like my doom, but he didn’t appear in any hurry, so that was nice.
“Did I stuff up?”
Mac didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“No, I mean, did I really stuff up?”
Lucy took hold of my hand. “The reasons behind your actions were noble, Quinn, and maybe if I thought as little of myself as you do of yourself, I would understand, but I just don’t.” My lips trembled and she added, “but I’m sure this can be fixed. Right, Mac? I didn’t know you’d planned on spilling your guts to Travis tonight. I mean, it wasn’t the best timing, but there’s never a good time to share bad shit, is there?”
Mac shook her head in agreement. “Don’t mind Travis, Quinn. He’s just shitty at being kept out of the loop. If you haven’t yet noticed, my brothers all have a knight in shining armour complex.”
“So what happens when they rescue their fair maiden, Mac? The knight complex doesn’t just disappear.”
Mac snorted. “You’ve met Evie, haven’t you? She’s a full time trouble magnet. Jared chose well.” She turned her eyes on me. “I’m starting to think Travis has too.”
At the front door of our hotel room, Sean ushered Mac and Lucy inside and held me back. “I’m in the room right next door, Quinn. If you need me, just yell, okay?”
I nodded and slipped through the door, shutting it behind me, and blinked at the utter chaos.
“You’re not Evie,” a drunk guy pointed at me with a frown. Two more of those were busy partying up by the corner bar in the sitting room. Mac and Lucy were yelling and trying to hustle them towards the door.
“Wow, you’re quick, aren’t you? And what the hell are you doing in our room? And how the hell did you get in here?”
He held up his hands and winked. “Whoa with all the questions. Waiting to meet the band of course,” he slurred. “And Evie.”
I took off the bulky, black jacket that Travis gave me and flung it towards the couch. Drunk guy number one followed it with his eyes, catching the big white lettering on the back. “Jamieson Security?” He turned back to me, his eyes roaming over my tiny stature with disbelief. “Times must be tough. You gonna throw me out?”
I pointed towards the door. “No. You’re going to walk out.”
He laughed. “Good one. Come on.” He indicated for me to rush him, and it was honestly tempting, but my self-defence lessons from Travis had been exactly that—there was no lesson on how to initiate my own attack. Drunk guy, tired of waiting, rushed me, and it seemed so easy to just take a step to the side and watch him stumble over his own feet. When he turned again, I remembered Travis telling us to be resourceful, so I grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a chair.
Narrowing his eyes, he took a step towards me, and in a panic, I flung it towards him and yelled, “Fire!”
The chair missed and crashed into the wall behind him—the legs breaking off carelessly and denting the plaster. Everyone paused for a moment to watch the splinters scatter across the floor.
“Fuck yeah!” yelled one of the guys. “Rock stars know how to live the f**king life!”
I caught a bottle of rum getting thrown, and it smashed across the floor. Mac started dialling on her phone, but it was snatched from her hand and sent to join the rum.
Then I was tackled to the floor, hard. Feeling winded and hurt, I grabbed the packet of Pringles that landed on the floor beside me, ready to bean the closest drunken idiot I could see when a gunshot ricocheted in the room. It wasn’t loud, but having watched every action movie in existence, I recognised the popping sound. So did everyone else by the looks of it because it wasn’t just me that froze—even the drunk and disorderly realised that shit just got real.
“As fun as this is…” all eyes swivelled to the voice “…Quinn and I need to have a chat. So if you’ll just excuse us.”
A man stood just inside the door, lean but built. Sunglasses covered his eyes and a baseball cap was lowered on his forehead. He faced where I lay panting on the floor from the scuffle and nodded towards the door. “Let’s go.”
Recognising the voice as the Money Guy, I carefully placed the Pringles container on the floor and replied, “I still have two days.”
He shrugged and shifted the gun to his other hand. “Two days, two weeks. Whatever. Move.”
I didn’t move.
“Now!” he snarled at me and pointed the gun at Mac. “Or I’ll shoot her.”
“Oh you so did not just do that,” she snarled and took a step forward.
“Mac!” I shrieked.
“Relax, Quinn. I got this.”
“You got this? You got this? What the fuck, Mac!” I yelled in panic. “Who do you think you are? Jackie Chan?”
I stood up and inched towards the door. “None of you have got this, because I do.”
“So help me, Quinn,” Lucy ground out, getting up off her hands and knees, her face pale. “If you take one more step towards that door, I’ll—”
Mac scrambled and then all of a sudden she had a gun in her hands and was aiming it towards Money Guy by the door. Lucy paused and her eyes went as wide as mine. All of a sudden our hotel room had become the wild west, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see tumbleweeds start rolling by.
“Holy shit,” I heard Lucy mutter.
“Never again,” were Mac’s words of ultimate steel. “You take one step towards Quinn and I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
Of that I had no doubt. Her eyes were flat and cool, and she looked completely badass. I was relieved she was on my side, but he didn’t appear to be backing down.
“How on earth did you smuggle that thing on the plane?” Lucy muttered.
“I didn’t,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “I hid it inside the truck that transported all of our equipment. You drunk fucktards on the floor, I suggest that now is a good time to leave.”
Faced with a real threat from both sides of the room, they didn’t hesitate, slinking out of the room without a backward glance.
I inched closer to the door. “Mac, just put the gun down, okay?”
“Yeah, Mac.” The bad guy smirked. “Put the gun down.”
“Who the f**k do you think you are?” she growled.
“That’s of no concern to you, princess. I’m here for Quinn.”
Lucy and I stood there, our eyes swivelling between the two of them.
“Yeah, well f**k you, because Quinn’s not going anywhere.”
“Mac,” I called out. “Maybe I should—”
“No, no,” she said. “You keep out of this.”
When I was halfway towards the door, Sean was suddenly there, slamming into Money Guy from behind. He took the blow full force, his body dropping forward. The gun flew forward and it must have been loaded, cocked and ready to go because it let out another pop, ripping a hole in the wall across the room.