Page 59 of Devoured By You

I rested my hands on my hips. “What does that mean?”

“It means that someone, or multiple someones, found a back door to the system and altered the coding, which took the badge scanners offline. Problem is, they’ve covered their tracks so well that I can’t find a trace.”

I jabbed a finger at him. “This is your only priority. Find out who did this and make sure, the second you do, I’m the only person you tell.”

“You got it, Mr. Kingcaid.”

My heart lodged in my ribs as I rode the elevator up to deck nineteen. There was only one reason I could think of for someone to meddle with the badge system. I put in a call to my head of security and demanded a full sweep of the ship before we left port.

If someone was on board who wasn’t supposed to be, I’d smoke that fucker out and ensure the police threw the fucking book at him—or her.

On the way to my suite, I passed Scarlett’s penthouse. I paused. As much as I despised playing nice with the woman, she was a VIP, and there was a high possibility I had some ruffled feathers to smooth after palming her off on someone else earlier today.

I pressed the bell. “Miss Rose?” I announced myself because, knowing Scarlett, she wouldn’t answer the door. “It’s Blaize Kingcaid.”

Silence greeted me. I shrugged. She either wasn’t there, or she was sulking. Either way, I had more important things to do. A security breach was a big fucking deal. A boulder-sized worry sat squarely across my shoulders, and talking it through with my brother might take some of the weight off. Jill wouldn’t mind. She had her girls with her, and there was enough alcohol in my suite to keep them entertained if Addison went ahead with her threat to throw a party.

I was about to leave when a noise came from inside. I paused. Unless I was mistaken, that sounded like a muffled scream. I pressed the bell again. “Miss Rose. It’s me. Blaize Kingcaid. Are you all right?”

This time, I heard nothing.

But my instincts had fired up. I fished out my wallet and removed a card, one I hadn’t had cause to use on this or any other ship. It allowed me to access every room. I hesitated. If this was nothing, I was about to piss off an influential customer with a vindictive streak longer than her career in showbiz.

I held the card to the badge scanner until the door clicked. I pushed it open.

It took a second for me to grasp the situation. Scarlett’s assistant lay on the floor, a gash on the side of her head. Scarlett was tied to a chair, gagged. And a man in a hoodie and scuffed jeans was ransacking the safe.

“What the—?”

The man whipped around. Scarlett’s muffled screams increased. He pointed a gun at me and fired.

Chapter 22

Jill

This is a living nightmare.

Twenty minutes earlier…

“This place is so rad!” Addison poked her nose into every room. “No wonder you’re not sleeping in ours, Jilly.” She fired a grimace at Aspen, who’d had us descend on her unexpectedly and had taken it in stride. “Sorry. That’s not to say our suite isn’t gorgeous. Because it is gorgeous. But this…”

“Yeah, Blaize designed it himself. He wanted a comfortable space the family could use.”

“Your cousin is multitalented.” Her eyes went to mine, and I braced myself. I knew exactly what was coming. “Come on, Jilly. Tell us about your day. I mean, you can still walk, so the man has work to do.”

I pointed my chin in Aspen’s direction and glared at my best friend. “Later.”

“Don’t hold back on my account.” Aspen grinned. “Although, maybe skim over some of the more… vibrant details.”

“I’m skimming over all the details because we are not having this conversation. Get your own sex life, Addison, and stop focusing on mine.”

She beamed, unoffended by my rebuke. “My sex life is motoring along nicely, thank you very much. That doesn’t mean I can’t steal ideas from yours.”

I shook my head. Addison was like a ten-ton truck. Once she got rolling, it was almost impossible to stop her.

“Why don’t we make some cocktails?” Aspen got up off the couch and crossed over to the bar. “Cosmos all round?”

“Ooh, yeah. I’ll help.” Addison joined Aspen, grabbing the cocktail shaker.