We’re here,” Damon says.

I look around.

It’s dark here. It’s not even the kind of dark where the light poles are spaced too far apart to evenly illuminate the street but you can still kind of see what’s around you.

There are street lights lining up the street, yes. But none of them work. Did Damon get his men to break every single one of them or were they already broken before tonight?

The only way I know we’re in a residential area is because I saw houses—dark, empty, abandoned ones—before he turned off the headlights.

“Damon,” I say, grabbing his hand. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to be touched anymore. This is far too important. I can’t give up just because he yelled at me. “Please tell me what’s going to happen.”

“Justice is what’s going to happen, princess.” Damon opens the glove compartment and takes something out, then he grabs my hands firmly, pulls them behind my back, and ties them together.

The rope he uses is soft, and he’s not hurting me, but tears fill my eyes anyway, making it even harder for me to see where we are.

“Damon, please,” I beg him.

Damon says nothing. He just continues working on his knots as I start to sob.

As he reaches into the glove compartment again, his shoulder graze mine and we get close enough for me to smell his musky scent.

He looks exactly like the Damon I know and love, and he smells the same too. So why is he acting like a stranger? Maybe I never really knew him at all?

“I’m sorry, princess.” Damon wraps a long piece of cloth around my head and over my mouth, using it as a gag. “I promise you I won’t hurt you.”

I scream against the gag, but Damon doesn’t even flinch. He won’t hurt me? He’s hurting me right now. How is killing my dad not going to hurt me?

He may not have said it explicitly, but I’m not dumb. If he were planning to let my dad live, he would’ve said so.

My dad should’ve stayed home and not bother coming here to give Damon his demands. After all, this was entirely my fault. I was the one who came to Damon of my own free will.

He didn’t even have to kidnap me or fight my bodyguards to get to me. What an idiot.

And now my stupidity is about to cost my dad his life. After decades of surviving the dangers of the mafia world, I’m about to become his downfall.

Is there really nothing I can do? Must I just sit here while my dad gets murdered?

As Damon opens the driver’s side door and walks out of the vehicle, I swing around to pull the door handle and kick it open. Jumping out of the car, I run as fast as I can along the sidewalk, getting away from Damon.

I can’t warn my dad not to come here. But I’m sure he’ll ask to see me before doing anything else. When Damon can’t show my dad he has me, my dad will know something’s wrong. I can buy him a little time.

My legs carry me down the street, the wind whooshing in my ear in the darkness.

I can do this.

The houses here are mostly dark and empty, but all I have to do is find just one that’s occupied.

As soon as I see lights turned on inside one of these houses, all I have to do is pound on the front door. They’ll call the cops for me. And then I’ll—

Wham!

My lungs collapse as I tumble to the ground, my knees scraping against the rough concrete.

As soon as I can breathe again, I scream as loud as I can. But even if there was someone who could hear me in this neighborhood, they’d only hear muffled noises. Definitely nothing that would prompt anyone to call the cops.

Tears run down my cheeks, seeping into the gag and dropping onto the gray, concrete sidewalk.

“I’m sorry, princess,” Damon repeats.

No! I won’t forgive you! I want to tell him.

But it’s too late. There’s nothing I can do now.

Damon tugs me up to my feet and grabs my arm. But when he tries to make me walk back to where we came from, I pull back with all my strength, putting my entire body weight behind it.

But Damon doesn’t budge. He just lets out a deep sigh before he leans down and effortlessly scoops me up onto his arms.

“You’re going to come with me one way or another,” he says.

I kick my legs and struggle, but Damon doesn’t even slow down.

With my head against his chest, I can hear his heart racing. Maybe he’s not as calm and in control as he seems to be.

But I can also feel how hard his body is, how big his muscles are. Hell, I’ve heard and seen him pound his sandbag every day I was in his apartment. He can take on three of me, and he’d still win.

I have no chance of escaping, not when his whole plan depends on me being there. And my dad has no chance of fighting him either. He’s fit and healthy for his age, but he’s so much older than Damon.

That means there’s only one outcome tonight. Whatever Damon wants, that’s what’s going to happen.

* * *

I feel like I’ve been sitting against the wall forever. But I know they’re supposed to meet up at seven, and my dad is always punctual, so it must’ve been half an hour at the most.

A single emergency light sits on the floor in the middle of the room—if this space can be called a room.

The front door has come off the hinges; it’s leaning against a wall. The paint has peeled off the walls, and the tiles on the floor are broken into small, probably sharp pieces.

Damon has been talking to Sunglasses (although this place is so dark even Sunglasses has taken his sunglasses off). They speak in hushed voices, too busy to pay much attention to me.

Teeth must be with my dad right now, bringing him here from their meeting place.

I’ve been shifting up the wall inch by inch, my fingers fumbling around behind me, trying to find just one piece of ceramic tile I can use as a makeshift knife to slash the rope around my wrists.

I got my dad into this trouble, and now I’ll do my best to get him out. Maybe it’s too late, but I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t do anything.

I rest my butt on a patch of uneven concrete, and my heart starts beating faster. This could be it. If I’m sitting on a patch of floor with broken tiles, I might find my weapon here.

Then I hear the hum of a car engine. Looking through the broken windows, I see a car stopped right outside. It’s a black sedan. I can’t make out what kind it is, but it could be one of my dad’s. Or maybe Teeth’s. There are two dark silhouettes in the car.

Damn it. There are pieces of tile all over the room, but I can’t find any in my corner? Did Damon clean this area before putting me down here?

My heart pounds so hard I start shaking as a man steps out of the car. I don’t need any lighting to tell who that dark silhouette belongs to. I’ve seen it almost every day of my life.

Dad.

Even though I know it won’t do much good, I try screaming again. I want to tell him to run away; Damon won’t hurt me anyway.

He’s no saint, Damon. But as the daughter of a man who hurts people for a living, I know that even criminals will protect what’s precious to them.

But of course, my dad can’t hear what I’m trying so hard to tell him. Even if heard my muffled screams, he’d probably interpret them as cries for help.

“Damon.” My dad’s voice. The soles of his Italian leather shoes tap loudly against the floor and cause a ghostly echo.

Watching him walk inside the abandoned house makes me want to cry again. It’s so weird to hear his familiar voice in this completely unfamiliar environment where he doesn’t belong.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be anywhere near Damon.

“Enzo,” Damon says. “Good to see you made it here.”

Tears well up in my eyes and quietly roll down my cheeks as Damon and his men take their places. My dad faces Damon, who has his back to me. The other two men stand behind my dad.

My dad glances at me but quickly looks back at Damon. He’s guarded, as he should be. It’s so unnatural, my dad not being in a position of power. I never thought I’d ever see him like this.

“Is she hurt?” my dad asks.

“No,” Damon says.

“Let her go.”

“Show me what you’ve got first.” Damon shakes his head.

My dad puts a black suitcase on the floor. “All the paperwork is in here. Signed. The money too.”

“Good,” Damon says. “Now open it and show me what’s inside.”

“Give me my daughter first,” Dad insists.

As the two of them go back and forth, the suitcase falls on its side with a loud thud.

Heads jerk to face the source of the noise. Hands reach into jackets.

“It’s just the uneven floor,” Sunglasses says as he takes his hand out of his jacket.

Uneven flooring and broken tiles. That’s right. Stop crying, damn it, I tell myself. This is not the time.

The atmosphere is tense as the men eye one another, noting where they keep their guns as my dad crouches down to open the suitcase and show its contents to Damon and his men.

I flinch as something sharp pokes my finger. Is that . . .?

Carefully, I touch the thing again. It’s a small piece of ceramic with sharp edges—just the thing I’ve been looking for.

Keeping my eyes on the men, I saw the tile back and forth against the rope that’s wrapped around my wrists. I fold my legs so my heels are pressed against my thighs, hoping my knees will help hide the movements of my shoulders as I work on my restraints.

Satisfied with what’s in the suitcase, Damon gestures at his men, who once again reach for the guns in their jackets.

“Thank you for bringing everything I’ve asked for, old man,” Damon says. “Now it’s time for you to meet your maker. Any last words?”

“I thought you were a man of your word,” Dad says calmly.

“And I thought you were. So we were both wrong, weren’t we?” Damon’s eyes are cold as he stares at my dad. “And my parents were wrong about you too. Their mistake cost them their lives, and now you’re going to lose yours as well.”

“It was just business. You know how it is,” Dad says. “I always liked your dad. He was a good employee. Too bad things had to end the way they did.”

I watch with disbelief as the men talk about what happened to kill Damon’s parents. It was one thing to hear it from Damon but another thing entirely to hear my dad admit it.

He may be an asshole, but he’s my dad. He’s family. I can’t just let them kill him.

But I should’ve known my dad’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. If anything, he may be too good at it.

I frantically rub the edge of the tile in my hand against the rope, trying my best not to drop it on the floor. The men are too absorbed in their own tense negotiation to pay much attention to me now, but as soon as they hear something, they’d search me and find my little secret.

“You think I would’ve come here without insurance?” my dad asks, chuckling.

I’ve never seen my dad like this. Frankly, it scares me. And I’m not even the one he’s threatening.

“I know the way you work,” Damon says. “I don’t care about your fucking insurance. Whatever you do, if I shoot you first, you’re dead.”

Dad shakes his head. “You could’ve walked away with all that money and two of the best clubs in the city. And now you’ve gone and ruined it.”

Damon laughs—a strange sound devoid of mirth and tinged with bitterness. “I thought you still had a heart, at least when it comes to your own family. But you’d even risk your own daughter’s life.”

“I’d do no such thing. I’m just taking a calculated risk that I know will pay off,” Dad says. “Now, take the suitcase—you and these two idiots—and walk away. Leave me and my daughter alone.”

“Why should I do that when I can kill you and take the suitcase?” Damon asks through gritted teeth. The fluorescent light casts a blue glow on his face, making him look ghostly.

“Because as soon as anyone points a gun at me, you’re all dead.”

Damn it. These men and their stupid games!

I fume as I cut the last few strands of rope that keep my hands tied behind my back. Almost there . . .

Am I going to lose at least one of them no matter what happens? When I walk out of this place, must there be the blood of someone I love spilled all over the broken tiles?

“Damon,” Teeth says. He takes nervous steps toward Damon, his eyes trained on my dad. He whispers, loud enough for Damon (and me) to hear but not for my dad. “Is there really someone hiding somewhere, waiting to kill us?”

“Is there a problem, boys? Did Damon not tell you how dangerous this gig is?” my dad asks loudly. “You don’t go up against Enzo Guerriero and expect things to end well. If Damon continues to be reckless, none of you will be alive when I walk out of here.”

“Damon,” Teeth says more urgently.

Damon ignores his associate and reaches inside his jacket.

I flick my gaze toward my dad. He’s glancing out the window. He really does have someone outside about to shoot Damon.

Damn it. I walked in here thinking I was going to save my dad. But I’ll hate him forever if he kills Damon.

I don’t care what happened in their past. I’m not letting these two men kill each other.

A bright dot appears on Damon’s jacket. Red on black.

It’s about to happen.

I pull on my restraints and break the last remaining strands of the rope, then I jump up to my feet and push Damon aside with all the strength I have, just in time to hear a loud bang.

“Elena!” I hear someone shout.

My dad? Damon? Both of them?

I search for the source of the voice, but why can’t I . . . Why won’t my eyes look where I want them to?

The floor—the uneven floor with the broken tiles—grows closer and closer. It only stops when something hard hits my cheek.

But it doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel any pain in my body.

In fact, I feel nothing. Nothing except cold. Like warmth is pouring out of me.

Something red . . . Some kind of a liquid spreads across the floor.

Blood?

Whose blood?