A breeze stirred Lars’s hair against the nape of his neck. He swiped a hand through his hair, settling it.

“Fucking idiot,” he said under his breath. “You could have been out of here already.”

God, now he was talking to himself.

Someone breathed against the back of his neck.

He spun around, pistol already in his hand, eyes wide. The leaves of a nearby tree shivered as a breeze toyed lazily with them. Jesus, he was jumping at shadows. The garden was empty—it wasn’t as if someone would sneak up on him.

Would they?

But that hadn’t been a breeze. He’d felt warm air, even a suggestion of lips touching the skin at the base of his skull. He turned, and looked straight into the sardonic smile of a skeleton. His heart beat once, hard, against his breastbone and then went still.

A statue. That much was obvious. Realistic as fuck, but still a statue. And it was grinning at him like the fucking maniac he was. He turned in a casual circle, hoping there wasn’t anyone following him who might have seen his yellow-belly display.

Which is when he caught sight of the shoe that lay in the middle of the path.

It hadn’t been there when he’d walked past that exact spot not a minute ago. He glanced over his shoulder at the smiling skeleton.

“The fuck you smiling at?” he said, shrugging his shoulders to stop his skin from creeping over his shoulders like a caterpillar. He went and picked up the shoe. And then glanced up and caught the vaguest suggestion of movement. A pair of shadows slipped into the opposite hallway and disappeared behind a wall.

Lars blinked. “Fuck my life,” he muttered, and then started forward again at a brisk pace. He didn’t want to risk running into anyone who might be waiting for him to round that corner, but he didn’t want to lose sight of what might have been Cora.

The only person he could think would be with her right now—

Milo.

But wouldn’t Cora have been limping? Those two shapes had been a blur, both running.

Not running…escaping.

Or maybe it hadn’t been Milo.

Lars moved faster, crouched, and swung his upper body around the corner aiming at—it turned out—nothing. Just more shadows. They were deep and well defined this late into the day; even blacker for the stark sun.

Lars rushed down the hallway and rounded the next corner. There were three doorways leading off this one and an archway that led, from the fall of the light, into a room that must have been open to the garden.

If he’d stayed in the garden, he might have caught a better glimpse of them.

This villa was a fucking maze. No wonder Javier didn’t care about a rival cartel finding him; they’d get lost and die of starvation before they found their way out of this labyrinth. Were the servants running this place issued a map and a GPS device on their first day of work?

The first doorway led into a room with the sole purpose, it seemed, of housing towels. The second was a guest bathroom.

And Jesus, it did have fucking gold-plated faucets.

He sneered at them, and left again. The archway led back to the garden, but not before opening into a sun room that dazzled and wafted warm, jasmine-scented air over him. The interconnecting glass door was closed, and didn’t look it had been opened recently judging from the butterfly that flitted against its surface, searching for the sweet-smelling flowers inside and not understanding what the hell barred its way.

Which left the last door. Which opened to a service hallway, narrow and bleak. The far doorway stood open, letting a bright slice of sunlight fall inside.

Lars ran, slowed, crouched, and stuck his head around the corner. He’d assumed there was a door, and had chosen the side of the exit that made the most sense.

But there wasn’t a door. The hallway opened straight into a small courtyard. And when he peered around the corner, assuming his back would be protected by that half-open door, something his science teacher had once said came back to him big and bright.

Assume…and you make an ass out of u and me. He’d highlighted the parts of the words as he’d said that mantra.

When something hard connected with the back of his head, Lars heard that crotchety old man’s voice in his head, loud as day.

Ass. You. Me.

It hadn’t been a killing blow, thank fuck. Had it been harder, more accurate, he’d have been kissing an angel in heaven right now, or, more likely, squeezing a succubus’s ass in hell. But it had been enough to disorientate him. Lars fell forward, landing on hands and knees with his pistol spinning out of reach, and scrambled forward an instant later.

There came the unmistakable thump of a brain-mashing implement striking paving stones instead of his head.

He spun around. And then stopped moving, breathing, fucking thinking in case the man standing next to Cora with a gun pointed right at that pretty face of hers thought he was doing something undesirable.

Cora looked pale. She leaned on her good leg, and that seemed to press the pistol harder into her temple, denting the soft flesh into that dimple of her skull.

“Easy, buddy,” Lars said.

He recognized the guy. It was the one that had brought the message from Zachary West. Angel, wasn’t it?

“Don’t move,” Angel said. He began retreating with Cora, sliding an arm around her throat and dragging her after him. The young man—he probably had less than two years on Cora—threw a look over his shoulder and made for a doorway that looked sturdy enough that it possibly lead out of the villa.

Cora’s eyes begged for help above the bloodstained bandage gagging her.

But when Lars shifted an inch just to get a better balance on his feet, Angel cocked the pistol.

Jesus Christ, if that fucker tripped…Cora’s brains would have to be washed off the nearest wall.

He followed though. As slow as treacle in snow, but he followed. At first, Angel didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at the door handle as if wondering which third hand he was going to use to open it with.

“You don’t need her,” Lars said. “I can get you out of here. Take me.”

“Quiet,” Angel snapped. He’d begun to sweat, and it could have been from the afternoon sun blinding them both, or from exertion, or the wound on what looked to be a very puffy hand.

A delirious, trigger-happy Mexican. Just what he fucking needed in his life right now.

“Come on, buddy. What good is she? She can’t even drive. I can take you anywhere you need to go.”

Angel grimaced at this. Then he took a few hurried steps to the side and tipped his chin toward the door. “Open.”

Lars moved cautiously, hands raised, and tried urging his brain to think of anything except how fucking close that bullet was to Cora’s skull.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d lost a cool head over this girl. Her eyes shone like bronze coins, but she wasn’t crying. Because she’d cried herself out, or she was too terrified for tears?

Lars opened the door, and it was an inch ajar before he realized he could have told Angel it was locked.

Get a fucking grip!

He took a quick glance outside. Nothing but dust and scrub.

“Move,” Angel said, and Lars stepped aside so the young man could haul Cora out through the door.

Finally, something in his fucked-up mind congealed into a thought. “Hey, Angel?”

The guy looked back. Shifted his grip on Cora and the gun, making sure it was tight against her temple. Cora flinched and pressed her eyes closed, as if she could already feel that bullet splintering her skull.

“Listen, it’s probably not my place or anything, but just how far do you think you’ll get?”

Angel frowned, and then gave a small shrug. “Far enough.”

“Yeah?” Lars pointed at Cora with a limp hand. Fuck, but his head hurt. Did he have a concussion? “With her? Banged up as she is? She looks about to pass out.”

Let Cora get the fucking message. Dear lord, let her get the message.

Cora swooned against Angel. The guy grappled her, almost let her slip to the floor, and then yanked her up by the belt of her jeans.

Damn, that must have hurt.

“She is fine,” Angel said.

“And when you reach the wall? You did see the wall coming in, right?” Lars cocked his head and took a slow step closer. He reached up with a hand, blinking when it made the world tilt. “Big. Pretty fucking tall. Hard to miss, that wall. You gonna climb it?” He glanced at Cora. “You gonna drag her over?”

Angel’s mouth paled as he pressed it into a thin line. “I leave.” He had angry spots on his cheeks now. “What comes, comes. But I leave.”

Lars put his hands out again, like someone trying to soothe a nervous horse. “Look, if you go easy on her, I can help.”

“How can you help?” Angel snapped, but he looked uneasy now. His eyes darted over the landscape, perhaps noticing for the first time how much land there was to cover. And both of them barefoot, Cora—apparently—barely conscious. “How?” he asked again, urgently this time.

“There’s a car,” Lars said, pointing to the villa and where he guessed the drive might be in relation to their position. “We were meant to be leaving in it right now. It’s ready and waiting. I can use it to get you out of here.”

Cora had begun sliding down to earth again, and Angel hitched at her belt to get up. Maybe she had fainted, because she didn’t seem to react to that jarring motion. “A car?”

“God as my witness,” Lars said. “Ready to go. We were about to leave. Then, well…” his eyes slid to Cora. “Then all this shit happened.”

Angel glanced around, mouth working in that thin line as he considered his options.

“Si.” Angel nodded vigorously, got a better grip on Cora, and glanced around. “You bring here.”

“The truck?” Lars pointed at the door they came through. “Uh…just wondering, did you notice the size of—”

“Drive around!” Angel yelled, waving what Lars assumed was Miguel’s pistol at the corners of the villa. “You bring car. Or I kill her.” He pushed the gun hard into Cora’s skull again, and she whimpered.

She actually fucking whimpered.

The sound did something to Lars. Okay, it did several things to him. It fucking pissed him off. It made him want to tear Angel limb from limb. And it made him want to slap Cora for making that noise in the first place and grabbing a hold of his heart right through his ribcage.

He couldn’t care about her right now. Where Milo’s mistake had been to obsess to the point of idiocy, he of all people, especially now, had to keep a clear fucking head.

Which was really difficult when his heart felt like it would burst from fear any second.

“You have one minute,” Angel said. “And I see someone, not you, anything but car—” he glanced left and right, indicating the sides of the villa, “I shoot.”

“That’s cutting it a bit—”

“Fifty seconds,” Angel said, being a completely unreasonable ass of a kidnapper.

Lars turned and ran, ignoring the way the world rocked under him. He cut through the passage and sped into the villa’s central garden like his feet had wings. There he paused, hunting for any sight of movement.

Like a mirage, Finn darted up from the stairs and came to a halt on the ground level of the villa. And then, like a fucking demon, Javier appeared on the other side of the goddamn garden.

And, for some reason, judging from his contorted face, utterly fucked off.