Miguel’s pistol clattered noisily over the concrete floor. It went straight through Santa Muerte’s bony feet, and slammed into the grate. Cora’d followed its progress across the floor and, when she looked up, Santa Muerte was less than a foot away from her.

She would have screamed if she wasn’t being strangled to death.

There was nothing in those empty eye sockets. But the smell of Florida water—that familiar lavender and lemon—came off the robed figure in waves. Strong, noxious, yet strangely comforting. She extended one bony finger and drew a cold, hard line down the underside of Cora’s chin.

La Flaca leaned in, putting her skull close enough that Cora could see the pitting in the bone, a hairline crack down the forehead, and the three missing teeth on the same side of that skull.

Me llamó, Cora.

She’d summoned the saint? How? When?

The man behind her ducked for the gun, and for a sweet, blissful moment, air poured into her. And, as if that oxygen had banished La Flaca, the saint bled away into the shadows again.

She gasped, greedily inhaling as much as she could, and then the cold muzzle of Miguel’s pistol was against the back of her head.

“Slow,” Angel said.

The gate began sliding to the side. Opening. She hobbled along, aware that pain was starting to return to her injured leg.

It wasn’t important.

What was important was that she was still alive. La Flaca wasn’t dragging her to hell today, and that was what mattered.

The cloth around her throat was released, and she brought both her hands up to cradle her neck. Her skin burned where it had chafed, but it felt intact. She took another huge breath, coughing hard and almost doubling over.

That pistol muzzle followed her as if it had been glued to her head.

Footsteps. Soft, as if made on bare feet. And then the subtle warmth of a body. Hard muscles, warm breath. The smell of dried blood and the musk of a man who’d been left to sweat in the dark.

“Tie him up,” Angel murmured into her ear.

He couldn’t have been more than an inch or two taller than her. And, had she not had only one leg to stand on and lungs that still ached from the memory of near death, she could’ve elbowed him hard enough to make him drop that gun.

But her body shook, and she barely had enough strength to keep herself upright. Whatever adrenalin she’d had earlier, it was gone. She could have lain on the chilly concrete floor and gone to sleep forever.

She stumbled forward when Angel thrust his hips against her to get her moving. Miguel backed up but then stopped, his face ashen.

“Por favor,” Miguel murmured. “No hacer esto.”

“Take his belt,” Angel said to her. “Tie him up.”

She stuck out her hand, and Miguel looked both embarrassed and terrified as she fumbled at his waist to undo his belt. This close, he could have used the baton at his side to strike a killing blow to Angel’s face—would he have the same fracture she’d seen on Santa Muerte’s skull? The same missing teeth?—and they’d be done with this.

But Miguel was probably too terrified of hurting the illustrious Eleodora Rivera to do more than make pitiful sounds in the back of his throat as she tugged his belt free and used it to bind his hands behind his back.

Her captor told Miguel to go inside the cell. He did so, reluctantly, and slammed the cell door closed behind him as instructed. Then he went to his knees and put his head against the grate, murmuring, “Por favor,” and “Perdóname,” as her captor began dragging her away.

Never get taken to a second location. It was something Bailey had drilled into her from his first training session with her. Do whatever you have to to escape.

Sometimes, death was preferable to what happened once you’d been relocated somewhere safe…and private.

But what choice did she have? Her head was foggy, her body heavy and clumsy. The pain from her injured leg had multiplied, and became even worse as the man behind her forced her down the passage toward the distant stairs.

And if she pissed him off, he might just shoot her anyway. How was he to know how damn precious a commodity she was? He might only be keeping her close until she became useless to him, and then he’d shoot her in the head.

Except…he could have killed Miguel.

“Please,” she said in Spanish. “Don’t hurt me.”

It sounded weak and pathetic, but Angel had to know that she wasn’t about to launch an attack on him. That she was terrified. It might make him discount her just enough so that she could break free and make a run for it.

Would he shoot her in the back?

She pushed away the unhelpful thought and focused on keeping her legs under her. He had obviously realized she couldn’t put much weight on her left leg; he switched arms so the gun was pressed to her right temple, and grabbed her around the waist again, propping her against him.

They turned the corner. The long hallway leading to the stairs she’d bumbled down in search of water was empty apart from that one lonely table and chair.

Why the hell weren’t there more guards down here? Why’d they leave just one man to watch over these prisoners?

Because Javier obviously hadn’t expected his pseudo-niece to wander down here and upset the goddamn donkey cart, had he?

Angel pushed her across the floor, pausing for a few seconds at the foot of the stairs. He craned his head past her to look up the stairs. She caught a brief flash of ebony eyes, wild eyebrows, and a smooth face. But then he was behind her again, the gun pressing into her lower back.

“Up,” he said. If his voice hadn’t been so hoarse, it might have been a nice one.

She gritted her teeth, grabbed the railing, and hoisted herself up the first step. It took a lot more effort going up that it did going down. Every time her left leg bent even a little, pain shot up her leg and ground itself in her pelvis. Her jaw ached by the time she could see the landing—the villa’s ground floor.

Angel crowded them against the wall beside the landing so he could peek out and check both sides of the terrace that led into the garden.

Jade trees and a sapphire sky.

Rubies adorning a nearby bush.

And Lars, head down and lips moving as if he was muttering to himself.

Look up!

But he didn’t. He ran a hand through his long, pale hair, tugged it, and went on muttering. Not once looking up. Not once bothering to notice her existence.

Boots thumped down the stairs behind them.

Her mouth was open for a scream, but her voice was immediately muffled by a wad of cloth. The same one Angel had used to strangle her with? She tried spitting it out, but he clapped that bandaged hand of his over her gaping mouth and shoved her forward.

Agony burst through her leg. That scream came out as a soft keen, but perhaps the people coming down the staircase heard because their boots paused for just a second before speeding up.

Angel shoved her behind the closest arrangement of shrubs, one of which had been trimmed into the suggestion of a woman’s curving body. Nearby, close enough to taint the air with the smell of water, was a small tinkling fountain. Cora struggled furiously, ignoring with desperate determination how much pain that whipped through her body, but then she was on her stomach with a knee driving more pain into her spine when it landed on her lower back.

She stopped, squeezing tears from her eyes and trying to straighten her bent left leg. Angel took a moment to unwrap a length of bandage from his hand, tear it with what sounded like his teeth, and thread it through her mouth to keep the stinking gag in place.

Saliva went down the wrong pipe in her throat. She choked and coughed uncontrollably, but if that noise reached the men hurrying down the stairs, they didn’t slow to investigate.

For all she knew, she sounded like a rutting pig.

Footsteps thumped past; muffled by the bushes. And then Lars was gone.

Frustrated tears dampened her eyelashes as Angel dragged her up. Obviously, he couldn’t see anyone around, because he yanked her across the garden’s winding center path without bothering to keep to cover. He moved so fast, was so fixated on their destination, he didn’t notice when she kicked off one of her shoes. It tumbled and lay in the middle of the garden path; bright white against pale grey cobblestones.

So easy to miss. It was pathetic how desperately she wished that slip of white would be noticed by someone.

The gun found its now familiar spot on her spine, and stayed there.

Her options were clear. Paralysis, possibly death…or letting this man take her out of the villa.

A memory flared then. A desperate, near hysterical prayer she’d whispered while her gelding flowed over the desert.

Please, help me, Santa Muerte. I’ll do anything. I don’t care if you send me an angel or a demon—I just want to see him one more time.

And then she smiled, because Santa Muerte always returned her believer’s prayers—especially when they were willing to trade.

Finn was halfway down the stairs when he heard sounds of struggle. He stopped immediately, ears straining. Then he sped up. It had to have come from the lower level of stairs. He passed the ground floor, cast a brief glance to the side, and saw Lars still headed toward him. But there was no time to run out to the man. Someone was in the stairwell, and he’d lose them if he didn’t hurry. The same intuition that had told him Javier had done something to hurt Cora told him he was close enough to reach out and grab her.

He thundered down the stairs, not caring how much noise he made. Whoever had her must have already heard him coming. He paused when he came into a long, empty hallway.

Finn loosened his grip on the pistol when the tingles in hand indicated he was cutting circulation from his fingertips. He stalked down the passage with his pistol aimed straight ahead. A brief scan took in a single chair and table with an empty glass and a few cigarette butts in a dented ashtray. They were so old, the place didn’t even smell of ash anymore.

He found the cells. Heard pitiful sobbing coming from one of them. He dropped the pistol a little, but not enough that it would take him longer than a fraction of a second to aim and fire at anyone he didn’t like the look of.

The first cell looked empty, except for a bundled shape on the floor that, in the darkness, could have been a dead body or a pile of laundry.

The second held a shaking, sobbing Miguel.

“What’s happened?” Finn snapped, but he already knew what Miguel had been about to say.

Knew, because the air smelled of Cora down here. More in that long hallway than in here—here blood and sweat and shit predominated.

“He take her. It my fault,” Miguel blubbered. “Por favor, lo siento mucho.”

“English!” Finn rattled at the grate, but it was locked. When he glanced around for the keys, Miguel began sobbing again.

“He take them!” the man cried out. “He take keys. He take Elle. El Guapo kill me…”

You betcha, came his beast’s snide remark. El Guapo don’t tolerate fuck ups.

Finn slammed his palm against the grate and ran back the way he’d come. He almost skidded in a puddle, but caught himself against the wall with a hand. There was a flash of pain—brick scraping off tender skin—but it was as distant as the sound of his beast’s claws click-click-clacking in the basement of his mind as it paced.

Readying itself for the coming violence.