A chill in the air, with the heavy blues of the night sky just starting to break, Luna ventured outside, her helmet under her arm as she locked up.

“No one should be up this early,” she said with her phone to her ear, though most of her grumpiness at being up so early in the morning had been sated by a nice cup of coffee.

“You catch the best waves at this time,” Skorpion replied, a smile in his voice, even as she heard the water crashing into the shore in the background. “And Soliel likes to collect shells.”

Luna couldn’t fight her smile even if she tried.

Having known Skorpion as long as she had, not to mention what he was capable of with a weapon in his hands, when he spoke about his daughter, the reverence he felt for her was clear.

She was what made him better.

“Then I’m doing this for her,” Luna said as she straddled her bike, switching the call from her phone to the Bluetooth in her helmet. “Definitely not you.”

“Whatever gets you here in the next half hour.”

“Only if I’m lucky,” Luna scoffed.

She hadn’t been in California very long, but the traffic was worse than what she experienced in the city in New York. No matter which way she tried to go, every street imaginable was packed.

“When’s Nix getting back?”

“You know, I’d think you still worked for the Kingmaker with the way you keep up with them.”

During his previous position as Uilleam’s personal guard, Skorpion had picked up a few of his traits, notably the way he kept people around who were a vital source of information.

And in a city like Los Angeles, it was probably important for him to keep contacts.

“Don’t worry,” she said merging lanes. “I’ll have adequate time to spend with you and Soliel before we’re leaving.”

Before we’re leaving …

They were going home—to their home—not her to Vegas (though, at some point, she would have to go back to pack up her condo) and him to whichever of his properties he was staying in. They were going to be together, and she was sure, without a shadow of a doubt that things were going to be good between them.

Better than ever.

They already were.

“Yeah, all right. I’ll see you when you get here.”

After a quick goodbye, she ended the call, focusing her attention on the road and the quickly approaching red light. Despite the traffic, there was one good thing about Los Angeles, and that was the ability for motorcyclists to drive between cars.

Not a lot of people knew that, but Celt had given her the heads-up—he had a habit of giving out random facts.

And maybe, had she not been distracted by random, useful facts, she might have noticed the unmarked black van—though this one was made by Mercedes and didn’t have the sketchy quality about it—but she drove past it too late to notice that something was off about it, and even with all the training in the world, nothing could have prepared her for the back door to crash open and men in plain black ski masks jumped out, assault rifles in hand as they aimed in her direction.

For a split second, she was frozen in surprise, at least until the first crack of a gunshot, the answering screams of people in their cars, and the sharp screech of tires on asphalt before all hell broke loose.

A driver veered in front of her before she could turn, forcing her to brake hard, sending her flying over the handlebars as the bike crashed into the side of the car. She landed on the hood with a jarring impact, the pain making her breath catch a moment before she hit the ground and rolled.

But even with the pain that flared to life, adrenaline dulled it.

Shuffling behind a car left abandoned by its terrified owner, she unsheathed her guns in rapid succession, clicking off the safety with a touch of her thumbs.

Waiting until there was a break in their shooting, she sprung up, firing off a multitude of rounds. She didn’t take a moment to take aim and get her targets in sight as she’d been taught—she fired blindly in the direction they shot from.

The first grunt of impact had her ducking back down, breathing in heavily through her nose as she tried to center her thoughts, but she was panicking whether she wanted to or not.

She could do this.

She could do this.

She could do this.

… At least until she saw another van screech to a stop, the doors opening as more men jumped out with her in their sights.

She was outnumbered and outgunned.

And with her helmet crackling with static filling her ears, there was no way she could call anyone for help—not that they would have been able to reach her in time anyway.

She needed to get the fuck out of there.

Luna didn’t think, taking off across the street for the alley, bullets whizzing past her head, but she didn’t dare slow her momentum.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t know the streets of Los Angeles that well, or that she could hear them giving chase, she was smaller and lighter on her feet.

Reaching the clearing, she veered left, then made another sharp right as she entered another alley, braving a glance back. They were only seconds behind her, their heavy feet loud as they ran.

But she had just enough of a head start to make it around another corner, and if she was lucky, she could lose them inside one of the many buildings that lined the street.

Almost. Almost. Almost.

Her fingers just wrapped around the knob of a door handle when a searing pain shot through her, locking her every muscle, her body seizing with the intensity of the volts of electricity shooting through her veins.

The last thing she saw before the black spots in her vision overwhelmed her was Elias’ smiling face.

---

“I don’t understand why we’re still having this conversation.”

Fang sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. He watched Aidra climb out of bed, disappearing into the closet with her face screwed up in anger.

He should have known better than to bring it up again, especially after their last argument about it, but Fang had never been one to hold his tongue. Honesty was a strict policy of his.

Even if it hurt.

“Nix is a big boy,” Fang said as he pushed the sheet off his legs, twisting so he could put his feet on the floor though he made no move to get up. “He’s already said that you don’t have to shadow him everywhere.”

“Since when did you start having a problem with my job, Fang?” Aidra asked, reappearing in the doorway with a dress in hand as she quickly stepped into it and zipped it up.

“Since there was a chance that you could get hurt because of it.”

She wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her doing what she did—he didn’t want her sitting at home all day doing fuck all while he handled all the dangerous shit—he just didn’t want the fucking legion of enemies with a vendetta against their boss to target her when they couldn’t get to him.

It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before, but back then, they hadn’t been a thing, and he didn’t think it was his place.

But now … shit was different.

“I can take care of myself,” she said, twisting her hair up.

“When was the last time you had to?” Fang shot back, watching and hating the way her head jerked back as though he’d offended her. “That’s not me saying you can’t. I’m just trying to be realistic here. If shit ever did go down, you’re assuming your hand-to-hand will save your life. But fast fists aren’t going to stop a fucking bullet, babe. Jesus, you don’t even carry a fucking weapon.”

“Because—” But she stopped herself, her lips pressing together.

It was too late, though—he already knew what she had been about to say. “Because Nix would be there, right? He could protect you. And if he wasn’t, there’s me or Tăcut, fucking Invictus or Thanatos, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be there either.”

“Fang—”

“Not to mention we are very rarely on the same assignment. It’s just you and Nix, but if something happened to him, what then?”

“So you don’t trust Nix now?” Aidra asked, her gaze glacial.

“I trust him with my life.”

“But you don’t trust him with mine?”

Fang stood, crossing the floor in a few quick strides to prevent her from walking away. “Don’t twist my words.”

She tilted her chin up a fraction, defiance shining in her eyes. “You can’t have it both ways, Fang. Either you think I’m incapable, or you think Nix is.”

“Why do we have to fight about this, babe?”

“Because I don’t need you to protect me from anything. I can take care of myself.”

More frustrated than he had ever felt in his life, Fang stepped back, running his fingers through his hair as he grappled with the tornado of emotions swarming inside him.

“Why the fuck does it always have to come down to that with you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m fully aware you can take care of yourself. I’m not saying you can’t, but that doesn’t mean you have to take unnecessary fucking risks.”

“How am I—”

“He doesn’t need you. What’s the difference between sitting behind a fucking desk and standing one step behind him while he does all the talking and you stand there like a child?”

Fang knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back. And he knew an apology wouldn’t fix it.

Aidra had already shut down. Her stance relaxed, and her expression may have cleared, but her eyes told him everything her mouth didn’t.

“Bye, Fang.”

She wouldn’t even look at him as she grabbed her purse and shoes and disappeared out the door—she didn’t even slam it, though he almost wished she had.

Maybe then he would think she cared about what he was saying.

He didn’t mind her anger, or her frustration, or sadness, but when she gave him nothing … that bothered him the most.

Standing there, Fang weighed what to do in his mind, whether to leave her be and wait for her to calm down—that worked best usually—but then again, she had never been this pissed off at him.

Fuck it.

If she was going to be pissed, she would at least be pissed in here where they could work the shit out.

Grabbing his jeans he’d left abandoned on the floor the night before, he shoved his legs into them then tugged on his boots as he raced out of the hotel room, heading for the stairs instead of the elevator.

Once he reached the lobby, his gaze scanned the main floor, ignoring the way curious glances looked him over since he was half-dressed and probably sported a number of bruises—not to mention the rest of him.

She couldn’t have made it far, not when the elevators were slow as shit, and there was hardly any room to walk.

Moving through the lobby, he searched for her, but he found no sign of her. Tugging his phone from his pocket, he dialed her number, putting the phone to his ear and waiting for it to ring.

It clicked over to voicemail far sooner than he would have liked. “I’m sorry,” he said as he headed outside, scanning the street but still finding no trace of her. “I need you to talk to me so I can apologize in person, yes?”

He hung up, already dialing again, knowing that if he called enough—or annoyed the shit out of her enough—she would eventually answer, if only to tell him to fuck off.

That would be better than nothing.

Fang was too focused on his phone and what was directly in front of him to notice the speeding van heading down the street—maybe if he had, he would have seen the reflection of Aidra behind the glass, screaming for him before a black bag was shoved over her head.

---

Kit barely had his phone on before the device was chiming with new messages. He expected a few—there was always work to be done—but when he saw who a number of them were from, his alarm rose.

Ignoring most, he returned the one that mattered to him the most, and the call had barely connected before the man on the other line was saying, “Have you heard from Luna?”

“Not since I left,” he responded, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder before reaching for the other phone he kept on him. “Why? Wasn’t she supposed to be with you earli—”

“That’s why I’ve been calling—she never made it here.”

Though Skorpion had worked for his brother for many years, and the two were far closer than he and the mercenary were, Kit knew without a shadow of a doubt that Skorpion wouldn’t have called him unless he thought something was wrong.

“Where’s—”

“On his way to you,” Skorpion said before he could even get the question out. “He should be there by now.”

It was then that a sleek car came speeding into the hangar, barely stopping before the back door was flung open and Uilleam was there, a grave look on his face.

“Get in.”

Any other time, Kit would have given a farewell before hanging up on Skorpion, but his thoughts were on Luna and the reason why everyone seemed to be fucking panicking.

“What is it?” Kit asked the moment he was in the car, and they were speeding off. “Where the hell is she?”

Uilleam opened his mouth, but … hesitated. Hesitated. Which told Kit everything he needed to know and confirmed his worst fears.

“By whom?”

“Let’s not ask questions we know the answer to,” Uilleam said. “The serial number to her phone, we need it.”

It was then Kit noticed they weren’t alone in the car, that a girl no more than seventeen, was seated across from them with a laptop in her lap as she gazed at Kit with a mixture of fear and awe.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, the bite in his voice making her gaze dart to Uilleam.

“Winter. The hacker.”

She was no more than a child … “I have my own.”

Uilleam opened his mouth, but the girl beat him to it. “If it’s the same one you tried to use when you were hiding your involvement with Calavera, then, by all means, waste precious time when I’m the best there is.”

His gaze snapped back to her, surprised at her gall, but he remembered all too well the way Semyon had stumbled when he’d gone up against her.

Pulling up an app on his phone, he passed her the device, showing her the information. “Find her.”

Turning back to his brother and ignoring the way she glared at him, he asked again, “What. Happened?”

“I’m not sure. And before you interrupt, I know she was taken, that much I have. The question is which of them took her.”

“That’s not my question. I want to know where she is?”

“Calm yourself, brother, and think rationally. If we know who took her, we can better know where to find her.”

He was right, even if Kit didn’t admit this aloud.

Fuck. He knew better than anyone never to leave an assignment unfinished.

There was no such thing as being finished because one side had admitted defeat.

No, it wasn’t over until either he or the person he was targeting was dead.

“The options are pretty clear, no?” Kit asked. “Carmen, the sister, or Elias. It can only be one of the three.”

“The problem is that I can’t get near them.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“It’s com—”

“I’ve got the address,” Winter announced, tossing Kit back his phone.

She gave the address to the driver, and the man behind the wheel pressed his foot down a little harder, not caring that he blew through a stop sign and left a number of angry drivers in his wake.

Picking his phone up, he found Fang’s contact and called, tapping his thumb against his knee as he waited for the man to answer.

Just like with Skorpion, Fang was talking before Kit could get a word in.

“Aidra with you?”

A chill ran down Kit’s spine, but he pushed the trace of fear he felt to a distant part of his mind. He couldn’t focus on that now.

Withholding a curse, Kit asked, “Where was she the last time you saw her.”

“She was with me,” he answered immediately then said words in Romanian to Thanatos. “Things got a little heated, and she took off—I couldn’t have been more than a minute behind her, but she practically fucking vanished.”

Kit rubbed his eyes, the tension inside of him rising. There was no way the two events were unrelated.

“I’m texting you an address. Get there, now.” Kit ended the call before he could ask more questions, then told Uilleam, “They took Aidra too.”

“Once they’re home safely, I don’t care if it’s you, your Wild Bunch, or my mercenaries, but I want them all dead within twenty-four hours.”

They would be dead within seven.

---

“Can you shoot a gun?” Kit asked, pulling one of the Glocks he kept on him, ready to pass it over to Winter, but her eyes widened as she shook her head.

“She stays here.”

Kit didn’t bother questioning Uilleam, nor did he particularly care why someone under his employ didn’t know how to handle a weapon.

They arrived at the park no more than two minutes ago, and Kit’s gaze was already searching the sprawling grass for any sign of Luna or Aidra, but if they were out there, he couldn’t see them.

“Her phone is pinging off the East tower,” Winter said before they stepped out of the car. “That’s on the other side of the lake.”

Kit’s mind raced with possibilities as he stepped out, his steps hurried as he walked across the park, gaze searching, senses on high alert, but as they neared where Winter had told him Luna should be, he didn’t find his wife there.

He found Elias instead.

The man wore a knowing smile as he held up Luna’s phone, giving it a little shake for emphasis before setting it on the bench beside him. “I knew you wouldn’t keep me waiting.”

Kit didn’t care to play word games. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe … for now, but if you want her to remain that way, I’m going to need something in return.” His gaze shifted to Uilleam, the malice in his expression deepening. “And let’s not do with your threats, Kingmaker. This doesn’t involve you.”

“Understand me,” Uilleam said without preamble. “Should any harm come to her, there will be nothing that won’t stop me from hunting down every single thing you care about and destroying it. I vow that.”

“He’s never done well with listening, has he? But I suppose we wouldn’t be here if he knew how to stay in his place.”

“What do you want?” Kit asked through gritted teeth.

“I want you to do what you do best.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a scrap of paper. “At this address, you’ll find a man by the name of William Tremaine. If you ever want to see that lovely wife of yours again, or your assistant, he needs to die at precisely 7:15. Not a minute before, not a minute after.”

“And how will you know once it’s done?”

“The man has a pacemaker, one that an associate of mine is monitoring. Once his heart stops beating, I’ll know.”

Kit glanced down at his watch. “How do I know they’re still alive?”

Elias picked up his phone, making a call of his own before turning it over to Kit.

His heart thundering in his ears, he blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but the cameraman, whoever he was, was very careful, making sure that only Luna and the plain background behind her was the only thing in the frame.

Her arms were shackled above her with heavy chains, a strip of duct tape covering her mouth, but there was no fear in her eyes as she glared at the camera. There was a calculated gleam there, one that said should the man get any closer, she would find a way to get free.

She was safe … for now.

The call dropped abruptly, making him feel like his heart had dropped, but he didn’t let that reflect on his face—he wouldn’t show weakness.

“And Aidra …”

Another call.

Another video.

But unlike Luna, Aidra was inside a clear tank, her wrists and ankles taped, but whereas there had been nothing but defiance in Luna’s gaze, Aidra’s had actual fear.

Someone else was in the room with her, someone who threw a bucket of water over her head, adding to the water already in the tank.

They couldn’t have known she had a fear of drowning … No one knew that. It wasn’t a fact she often shared.

But that didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to let that happen.

“William Tremaine,” Kit repeated. “Once he’s dead?”

“You will receive a call from my associate with an address.”

“D’you think I’m just going to let you walk away?” Uilleam asked, barely concealed rage in his eyes.

A part of him might have genuinely been upset that Luna was targeted and kidnapped, but Kit knew it was more because he had been outmaneuvered … especially by a man he considered less than him.

“I don’t see that you have much of a choice,” Elias returned. “You can probably guess what will happen should any harm come to me—they’ll be dead before my body gets cold. We both know Nix here would never let that happen, don’t we, old boy?”

Kit didn’t answer—there was no need.

“You’re playing a dangerous—”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Kingmaker. I’ve long stopped playing the game. You see, I never understood why there was ever an order in place that you were not to be harmed. You’re a nuisance and a constant source of annoyance, I would have had you put in the ground long before now had she ever allowed it.”

Kit’s thoughts immediately went to the mysterious woman Luna had met with and everything she’d shared. It had never been about him, he had come to learn, but Uilleam.

Even as that sinking feeling in his gut increased—because his doubts that Karina was Belladonna were fading with each new piece of information he learned—he was more concerned with the fact that an enemy was obviously out there who knew far too much about them.

And Uilleam was helpless when it came to her. If there was ever someone who could topple everything they had built, it would be her.

“But it’s been a long time for me,” Elias said, brushing his hands along the front of his pants. “And my God, I think I’m finally enjoying myself.” Tapping his watch, his gaze flickered to Kit. “Not a minute before. Not a minute after. You may need to get a move on, lest you lose your window.”

Though everything in him rebelled at the idea—he had never been one to back down from a fight—Kit had no choice.

Grabbing his brother by the arm, he turned his back to the man they both hated, grinding his teeth as Elias’ laughter echoed behind him.