I stared at it. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Not even f**kin’ close,” Noah replied

My cell in my back pocket quit ringing just as the phone in the room started ringing. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it as Noah grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room. The door closed behind me, shutting out the sound of the ringing phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Noah answered.

He didn’t know?

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean I don’t know, shut up. We’re takin’ a ride.”

We were walking toward the elevators, Noah’s hand on my arm pushing me in front of him. One elevator dinged, it opened, Matt walked out and halted when he saw us. His body went tense and within a second Quick Draw Matt had a gun. I didn’t even see where he got it. He just had it trained on Noah.

Eek!

“Let her go,” Matt demanded and any normal person would obey him mainly because he sounded scary, not to mention he had a gun. This surprised me because I didn’t think he had it in him to sound that scary. Sure, he was a hottie with a great body but he didn’t seem as badass as the rest of the boys. At his tone I realized I was wrong about that. Way wrong.

Noah had his gun pointed at my back. When he saw Matt’s gun, he moved it to my temple.

Uh-oh.

“Back off,” Noah said.

Matt’s eyes were at my temple, his mouth went tight, he took two steps back and we took two steps forward.

“Call the elevator,” Noah ordered and I suspected he was talking to me mainly because he still had my arm in his hand and he shook me. I tagged the elevator and it opened immediately.

Matt didn’t take his eyes off us and I didn’t take my eyes off him as Noah backed us into the elevator all the while turned to face the doors.

Matt stood outside the doors, eyes on me and they were active which I took as a good sign mainly because, at that point, I was holding on to anything I could get.

The doors closed.

Shit!

Noah took the gun from my head and put it to my back again.

“Noah, this is a bad idea.” I told him.

“I think you know by now, Ava, that my name is Walt,” he replied.

“Okay then, Walt, this is a bad idea,” I repeated.

“Got no leverage. They messed up Kurt, they messed him up bad. Motherfuckers. They aren’t gonna mess me up. Fuck that. You’re the only leverage I got. They won’t come near me if I got you.”

I wasn’t certain that was true. “Noah, I mean Walt, I’ll talk to Luke. Just let me –”

“Time to talk to Stark was after I taped you to a post.”

“I tried, Luke didn’t feel like giving up. He’s not big on that kind of thing. Maybe I can be more convincing this time.”

“You had your chance.”

Shit a-fucking-gain.

The doors opened, we stepped out, Noah stopped, jerking me to a halt and he went still.

I was looking at the floor. My eyes came up and I saw Ren, Sissy, Dom and Uncle Vito standing there, looking like they were waiting for the elevator.

What the f**k?

“Hey guys,” I said, trying to sound casual.

They all had their eyes on Noah.

“Are we having the family meeting?” I asked, still trying to sound casual.

“We were,” Dom replied, his eyes hadn’t left Noah.

“I’m kind of busy right now,” I told Dom.

At that, Ren’s body moved but he halted when Noah put the gun to my temple.

“Move back,” Noah said.

None of them moved. They changed but they didn’t move. Sissy’s face went pale, Ren, Dom and Uncle Vito went solid.

“Move back!” Noah shouted, getting nervous and people turned to stare. I heard a few audible gasps and a small scream when eyes hit us.

I didn’t think Noah getting nervous was a good sign so I said softly, “You guys, please move back.”

“This ain’t a good idea, son,” Uncle Vito advised Noah.

“Move back,” Noah repeated.

“She’s a Zano,” Uncle Vito went on.

“She’s not a Zano,” Noah flashed back.

“She’s a Zano,” Ren said firmly.

For goodness sake, were we going to go through this again? Now?

“It’d really help me out, say, not to get my brains splattered across the Hotel Monaco lobby, if you guys would step back!” I shouted the last part.

“What’s the breakfast hold up?” Shirleen was trundling up. She skidded to a halt, my eyes went to her and hers were wide. “Shit! Is that Noah?” she asked me.

“My name is Walt,” Noah corrected.

“Whatever. You crazy, boy?” Shirleen asked, her gaze moving to Noah.

“Everyone, get out of our way!” Noah demanded, now not only nervous but losing patience and I guessed this was a very bad sign.

“Yeah, you’re crazy. Do you know you got a gun to the head of Luke Stark’s woman?” Shirleen informed him and then continued to share. “He ain’t gonna like that much.”

“Shirleen –” I started.

“Ava…?”

That was my Mom.

Hell.

And.

Damnation!

Mom peeked around Shirleen. “Ava!” she shrieked when she saw me.

“Mom, calm down,” I said.

“What’s happening…? Holy crap,” Marilyn had arrived, Sofia at her side.

Did I already mention my… life… sucked?

“Everyone, get f**king back!” Noah yelled.

“That’s my sister,” Sofia told Noah.

“I don’t care, get f**king back,” Noah clipped.

“You have a gun pointed at my sister’s head!” Sofia screamed.

“Take that gun away from her head, right now, you jerk!” Marilyn shouted.

“Guys, you aren’t helping,” I told them.

“This is outrageous. We’re in the lobby of a nice hotel. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in the lobby of a nice hotel,” my mother snapped. “Not to my daughter anyway. Put the gun down.”

“Ava, get rid of these people,” Noah said in my ear.

“Folks, can we all just –” I began.

“Has anyone called Luke?” Mom asked, she was digging through her bag. “I’m calling Luke. Who has his number?”

I’ll ask again. Why me? Why me? Why me?

“Please, everyone can you just –” I began again.