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address to the deed. He needed to call Hawkins and tell him to batten down the hatches. It didn’t take a decoder ring to figure out what Red Dog 303 meant, and wherever Royce was, Smith didn’t think it would take the bastard too damn long to sic somebody on her tail—somebody mean and out for blood.
    The girl loved trouble, beyond a doubt, the kind of trouble she could dish out, which Smith had a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation for. But this kind of trouble made him wish Hawkins or Travis would lock her up until Tony Royce was either dropped into a bottomless pit in Leavenworth , or dead.
    Preferably dead.
    The guy was sick in a bad way, especially when it came to women, which made Smith walk a little faster. The cupcake wouldn’t last five minutes in Royce’s company. Not that Smith had seen Royce around, and given the lax attitude of the guards, leaving the grounds to harass a woman, he doubted if Royce was in residence. The ex-CIA agent had a reputation for brutality that extended beyond his twisted inclinations toward the fairer sex.
    Arturo and his gang were mid-street when Smith pushed through the doors of the Palacio—just in time to see a flash of white with red polka dots disappear beyond the first landing of the staircase.
    Geezus. She couldn’t possibly be staying at the Palacio. The place was a dump, even by his standards, which he could guarantee were lower than hers.
    He cruised by the hotel clerk with a short wave and started up the stairs. Casual, that was him, genetically disinclined to panic under any and all circumstances. Still, he was taking the stairs two at a time.
    Behind him, he heard Royce’s men entering the lobby, which despite everything, surprised him. Harassing a woman on the street was one thing. Following her into a hotel, even one as run-down as the Palacio, was another.
    He cleared the first landing and looked down the length of the second-floor veranda. Palm trees from the overgrown courtyard shielded part of the walkway from view, but he still saw her elegantly mussed French twist, the curve of her hip, and one of her platform heels disappear around the corner of the outside staircase, heading toward the top floor.
    What in the hell was she up to, he wondered, and where in the hell was she going? There were only two suites on the southern, top-floor wing of the Palacio, his and the Salvadoran honeymooners’ next door to him.
    Below him, he heard Royce’s men entering the courtyard, and behind him, he heard someone coming up the stairs, fast, which for some damn reason, some damn reason in the Heroism for Dummies handbook, meant he had to really put his ass on the line here.
    Christ . Climbing onto the rail of the veranda, he grabbed the top-floor railing and swung himself up—and landed smack-dab at her white-platformed, spike-heeled, bow-tied feet.
    She gasped and froze like a bunny in the headlights, all five feet and practically nothing of tanned legs, tight dress, dangerous curves, and blond hair.
    He decided on the spot that unbeknownst to him all these years, candy-apple-red toenail polish was his favorite—something he might have been inclined to contemplate a little more deeply, except for the shouting coming from the courtyard and the sound of feet pounding up the outside stairs.
    “Come on,” he said, wrapping one arm around her waist and his other hand around her upper arm, which left her with very little weight on her feet, which he most definitely used to his advantage, hustling her toward the door to his room. He had her inside before she could even begin to protest, let alone struggle. He quickly closed the heavy door, shot the top and bottom dead bolts home as quietly as possible, and pressed his ear to the wood, listening.
    And that’s when he heard the unmistakable sound of somebody racking a round into the chamber of a semiautomatic pistol—except the sound was coming from behind him, not from out on the veranda.
    Fuck.
    He didn’t move