This was not the time or the place for a panic attack.

Priya held her breath. Counted to three, then released—slow and easy. Her thumb and forefinger pressed together as she mentally chanted deeply relaxed, as her therapist had taught her back in her second year of law school. Beneath the wall of chest her heart still bounced and beat in an unnatural rhythm but the numbness was easing out of her fingers as the burst of panic slowly smothered in the iron grip of her self-control.

They didn't spring up on her as often anymore, but when they did—wow. She had minutes to reign it back in or face the consequences and dealing with the dizzying explosion that had erupted between them had pushed to the crumbling, terrifying edge. Left her defenseless and unable to do much of anything as Isobel stormed off in a righteous fury. Cait flounced after her, and Eshe decided to flee to her own corner of the hotel while Priya just stood there.

Breathing. Counting.

Shayne's voice jabbing at the edges of her focus in the background. She was on the phone with someone and, judging her tone, the conversation wasn't going well.

When she was sure she had her wits about her, Priya opened her eyes and crossed to the doorway of Shayne's bedroom in the large executive size suite.

Shayne stood by the bed, an arm banded across her chest and head down. She'd changed out of her leather pants, metallic cropped shirt and heels into faded sweats, billowy t-shirt and sneakers. Her back to the doorway. Every inch of her, rigid.

"I don't want to get into this with you," she snapped, "I told you I'm not going." Aggrieved at whatever the other person on the line had to say, she tossed the phone with a snarl and it bounced on the bed, activating the speaker.

"—believe you won't be there when I need you most," a male voice shot into the room and there was no mistaking who it belonged to. Though she hadn't seen him in close to four years, Priya would know Marco's voice anywhere.

"Yeah, well, what can I say? I'm sorry. Probably better for you if I'm not there, anyways. Ask Abuela, I'm sure she'd agree."

He answered the statement with a weary sigh. "I don't care what she thinks, Shayne. You're my sister. I need you with me."

"I can't, Marco. I can't be around all of that." Gone was the heat and flames and in their place was the cool whisper of desperation.

Hearing it, Marco softened. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just doing what I do best, bro. Disappointing everyone. Only a matter of time before I failed you, too."

"What was that all about?" Priya asked as Shayne reached for the phone and cut her brother off, ending the call. When it started to ring again, she shut it off with a groan and tucked it away in her back pocket.

"Clearly you heard, so don't make me repeat myself."

At the bite in Shayne's voice, Priya leaned against the jamb, crossed her arms. Her instincts cautioned against pressing any further—of her Sisters, she understood Shayne best and had known her the longest, but sometimes doing the right thing meant doing the hard thing. "He needs you."

Shayne lanced her with a sharp glare. A look that promised violence. She'd scrubbed the makeup off her face but some remnants of it clung around her eyes in a dark smear that only made her more ominous. "Back off."

"I can't, babe. You know I can't. Because I love you and you're sabotaging yourself. Why? Why are you pushing us all away?" Anger. So much anger, but more than that—hurt. Blazing and bright, swelled in her gaze, pulled at the hard lines of her mouth until it trembled.

This wasn't simply Shayne having a mood. This was something she hadn't seen in her in a very long time. This was heart break. And Priya's own heart cracked wide open for her.

"Babe...talk to me."

But her words were dashed aside with a vicious swipe of Shayne's hands as she stalked past her—out of the room and towards the door. And even though Priya called her name, urging her to stop, she kept walking and didn't look back.

#

The great thing about hotels—expensive hotels? Their gyms. Open round the clock, and right now, a stroke away from midnight, it was blissfully empty. Shayne finished lacing up her sneakers that she hadn't bothered waiting to put on when she'd scooped them up in a hurry, and started with light weights and high reps. The idea was not to burn out, just burn and keep burning.

To lose herself in the aching numbness of the grind.

Deciding to keep the lights set to low, she worked through arms and back, chest and legs, then finally into a full body explosive cardio circuit. Jump squats, split lunges, burpees. Sweat poured, cooling hot muscles and though her body screamed and her chest ached, Shayne pushed harder until she fell away into the hammering pulse, blind and deaf to anything expect this.

"Why the hell are you working out in the dark?"

Shayne skidded to a stop and all the adrenaline careening inside of her slammed into the hard wall of inertia. Winded, she braced her knees, sweat dripping down her nose. "What'd'ya want, Asher?"

Asher jerked a shoulder, hands in his pockets. Hair tied away from his angular face—clean shaven for the event. It stripped years off him and made him appear barely thirty instead of his actual mid-forty.

"Came by your room but your friend said you got yourself in a mood. Figured you'd be down here to work it off." When she straightened he tossed her a towel. "Did it work?"

Shayne dragged it across her face, her neck and shoulders, looped it around and held the ends. "What do you think?"

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Nope." She dropped the towel. "You divorced yet?"

He approached slowly, dark eyes sparking with awareness. "Why do you think I came by your room?"

A smile flashed across her face, dark and wolfish as she caught him by the neck of his shirt and jerked him forward. "'Bout fucking time."

His mouth was hot and hungry, and she welcomed it.

The sharp whip of thrill to spike in her blood. His teeth dragged over her lip with the same ruthless pull as his hands over her body. Familiar and knowing in their exploration. Unbothered by her sweaty state, he'd had her like this a dozen times before, Asher drove her back against the hard concrete wall, dragged her down to the floor. Her body pinned between him and the cushioned workout mat, pushing hand held weights out of the way. Hooking her leg around him, Shayne arched her hips and spun, reversing their positions.

He flattened beneath her with a solid thud of surprise that made her grin.

"How's for ground work?" She set her teeth to his throat, nipped hard as he laughed, at least until her hand dove between them and then that laugh bled into a hungry moan.

#

Hot water streamed over her head, poured into her eyes. She was obliterated. Her body sore and aching in both bliss and misery. Every now and then she heard the soft rumble of Asher sleeping in his bed. They'd tackled each other like wild animals in the gym, then ventured back to his hotel room for another scorching round. Afterward she'd hauled herself out to the balcony, cracked open a bottle of scotch and watched the sky until the sun throbbed along the horizon like an old bruise.

Asher had been wise enough to leave her to it.

Turning off the water, Shayne wrapped herself in a large white towel and streaked a hand across the mirror. Her phone sat on the vanity, the screen blank. She hadn't bothered to turn it back on after speaking to her brother.

A cowardly move to evade whatever voice mails and messages and texts—she couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.

She wanted sleep. Then when she got up, with her anger completely out of the way, Shayne knew she had some serious ground to cover with Isobel if she was going to set things to rights.

The ring of the hotel phone jarred her from her thoughts, shrill as a lifeguard whistle. Clutching her towel with a curse, burst out of the bathroom as Asher stirred awake. Hair falling in a dark web in front of his face as he picked up the phone with a snarl, "I thought I said I didn't want to be dis..." Asher's voice faded into silence and the temper slid from his face. "Yeah. Sure. Shayne," he held out the receiver. "It's for you."

Hostia puta.

It had to be Priya looking for her. Probably spent the whole night pacing their shared hotel room waiting for Shayne to show up so she could pounce on her about Isobel and fixing their mess. Utterly exhausted and in no mood to deal with any more personal drama heaped on her back, Shayne took the receiver from him with a snarl. "Someone better be dead or dying if—"

A watery sniffle silenced her cold. "—Shay..."

With that single syllable, anger evaporated and fear coalesced, swirling in her belly and spiking down to her toes. Her fingers. A looming sense of foreboding that left her cold, hot and numb all at the same time. "Eshe...?" Throat tight, Shayne forced the words out in a grating whisper. "Did someone die?"

Another wet breath. "The news. Turn on the news."

**AN**

And the hits keep coming. I hate to leave you guys in suspense, but would love to hear what you think could be coming next.