Page 175

My heart slams into my throat. Ice floods my veins. I raise my hands slowly, the luxurious shirt suddenly feeling ridiculousagainst the terror spiking through me. On lead legs, I move into the hallway, bare feet silent on the marble. He keeps the gun trained on my back, close enough that I can feel the threat of it. I think of my mother and Esther. Where are they? Are they safe? Or are they being taken too?

In the antechamber, the scene hits me like a physical blow. Blood. Everywhere. Six bodies lay sprawled across the floor in unnatural positions. The metallic smell is thick enough to taste. My stomach lurches again, but there's nothing left to throw up.

One of them?—

Oh no.

Oh God, no.

Brick lies closest to the elevator doors, on his side, eyes open and glassy, with a large hole that took most of the back of his head out. That's the only way they could have gotten him. From behind. Cowards.

Blood pools beneath him, dark and glossy. Real panic crashes over me now, sharp and suffocating. Brick was supposed to be guarding us. Gabe trusted him. And now he's dead on the floor like the others.

Louie prods me forward with the barrel of the gun, forcing me past the carnage toward the private elevator. My bare feet slip slightly in someone's blood. I bite back a whimper.

"Where are you taking me?" I whisper in a cracking voice. This is all too familiar. Flashbacks hit me from all angles. The way I was abducted from my work. The drive. Pete. The warehouse. His fingers.

Louie doesn't answer. Just shoves me harder toward the elevator. My mind races. Gabe just left. My mom and Esther are somewhere in this penthouse, maybe already hurt, maybe worse. And I'm being marched at gunpoint by one of Gabe's own men through a slaughterhouse.

The elevator doors are already open, and another man is standing inside, holding his side where blood is dribbling out. He seems vaguely familiar. I think he's been on duty here before, too. Louie pushes me inside, following close behind, gun never wavering. As the doors begin to close, I catch one last glimpse of Brick's lifeless body. Whatever game is being played here, the pieces are moving fast. And I have no idea whose side anyone is really on anymore.

The doors slide shut with that soft, expensive ding, and the world narrows to just me, Louie, the other man, and the gun pressed against my spine. My bare feet are sticky with someone else's blood. I can still see Brick's open eyes staring up at nothing.

My stomach heaves again, and bile tickles the back of my throat. This feels too familiar. Too much like the last time, the cartel's hands on me, the certainty that I was about to watch the man I married die. I was calculating then too, mind racing for any opening, any weakness. But this time the fear is sharper. Personal. Because the man who just left me with a kiss and anI loveyou is somewhere out there, and I don't know if he'll even know I'm gone until it's too late.

Louie's breathing is steady behind me. Professional. The other man's is hard and labored. Both are Gabe's own guards. That makes it worse. If these two have turned, then how many more have?

The elevator starts its smooth descent. My mind scrambles for something—anything—like it did the night I set the fire in the kitchen. I was cold then. Calculating. I can be that again. I have to be. I glance sideways at the panel. The casino level light is already glowing. It always stops there first unless Gabe overrides it. Maybe I can use that. There will be people, more of Gabe's men. The car slows. The doors begin to open.

Casino noise floods in, slot machines, laughter, the low thrum of a thousand people pretending they're winning. And there. Unobtrusive, but dressed in expensive dark suits, two of Gabe's floor security, big guys in dark suits that I recognize. I don't know if they're traitors too or not, but I've been taken before at gunpoint, and I'm not about to let that happen again without a fight. I suck in a breath and scream.

"HELP! HE'S GOT A GUN! LOU?—"

Louie's fist hits me over the head so hard, I see stars. My knees buckle. His grip clamps down on my elbow, dragging me forward. But it's too late. Heads turn. A woman in a glittering dress gasps. The two men's heads snap toward us, hands already going for their weapons. Chaos erupts.

Shouts. People scatter. The first gunshot cracks from one of the security men, silenced, but the sound still punches through the noise. Louie shoves me sideways, using my body as a shield while he returns fire. The elevator doors try to close; he jams his foot in them. Glass shatters somewhere behind us. A slot machine explodes in sparks. Screams rise like a wave.

I twist, elbowing him hard in the ribs, fighting desperately, viciously, no rules. My knee connects with his thigh. He grunts but doesn't let go. Another guard lunges for us. Louie fires twice, quick, precise. The man drops. Louie's partner shoots the first guard, but more come from all sides. In the madness, Louie drags me backward through a service door I never would have noticed,staff only, hidden behind a fake palm. His partner stays behind. The casino noise cuts off the second the door slams shut. We're in a narrow concrete corridor. Emergency lights buzz overhead. He's breathing harder now, but his grip is iron.

"Stupid bitch," he mutters, yanking me forward. "Keep moving."

I stumble, but I keep fighting—kicking, twisting—until he slams me face-first into the wall and zip-ties my wrists behindmy back so tight the plastic bites skin. The gun stays pressed to my temple the whole time. We move fast after that. Down a utility stairwell, out a loading dock I've never seen, into a black SUV waiting in the alley. No one stops us. The shootout upstairs is still echoing through the building, drawing every eye in the wrong direction.

The drive is a blur. I'm shoved into the back seat, zip-ties now around my ankles too. Louie doesn't speak. The city lights streak past, then give way to darker streets, leading into a part of Vegas no tourists ever visit. The landscape is eerily familiar. My stomach clenches. The SUV slows and turns into a familiar cracked parking lot, and my stomach drops like a stone.

No.

No.

No.

It's been over six years, but it looks exactly the same. The same peeling paint on the cinderblock walls, the same neon sign that only ever says BAR because nobody ever bothered to give it a name. Rows of bikes are parked up front like sleeping beasts, Harleys, mostly, with the occasional custom chopper. Razor's crew. The same dive bar they've always used as their clubhouse.

My heart is hammering so hard I feel it in my teeth. Every bump in the road jolts the fear deeper, but now it's laced with something even worse: recognition.

This is how it happens. This is how people disappear. I've watched it before. People dragged in, never to be seen again. Back then, I thought I was badass. Now I can only shake my head over the stupid kid I was. The more pressing question, though, is how the hell does Razor have the resources to have me brought here? To have Gabe's own men betray him?

Louie cuts the zip ties around my ankles before he hauls me out of the SUV by my bound wrists, and my bare feet hit thegravel. He marches me straight through the front door like I'm nothing more than delivered cargo.