This is it. I’ve really done it this time. One last job and I managed to fuck it all up. Now the one person I love—other than Skye, other than my brother who’s god-knows-where—is being used as leverage again.

Part of me knows she will understand. Part of me has known this was coming for a long time. “Living,” after all, is a strong word for what she’s been doing for the last two years that Rich has held me under his thumb.

But still. I can’t help it. Despite what I know I need to do, where I know I need to go, I make one last detour. After all, this may be the last job I ever perform on this earth. I’m about to go to the Revel alone, no Skye, and tell Rich that she escaped.

He won’t take this kindly. Especially not after I told him I’ve attracted police attention in the process. But I see no other option. I won’t take her to him. Not knowing what he’ll do to her.

I pull aside at the hospital on the outskirts of town. The woman at the desk waves me through without so much as a glance at my ID. We’re friends by now. Hospital friends, the kind who don’t ask too many unnecessary questions.

I walk the corridors by memory, the way I have for years now. On holidays, on weekends, any quiet day I can get away. I pause outside her room and take a deep breath. Then I step into the dim, private suite where my mother lives.

Or, continues to breathe, I should say.

I take a seat beside her tiny form. She’s even smaller now than she was a year and a half ago when she finally drifted into this sleep. Her hand is light as bird bones in mine, when I cup it gently.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. When I agreed to work for Rich, it was because he said he could help her. Pay for her medical bills.

For the first six months I worked for him, she received regular treatments—treatments she thought were provided by an anonymous benefactor that she thought was a fan of my fighting. She talked all the time about the nice man or woman, bless their soul. She prayed for them every day and all I prayed was that she’d improve. That she’d live.

The seizures had other plans. They’d led to the coma. And a few months after that, the doctors had said a handful of words I’d never wanted to hear: permanent loss of brain activity

The irony of that bites deep. She left thinking Rich was a saint. She had no idea the kind of depravity he’d hired me to carry out in his name, dangling her life before me like bait on a hook, blackmail for any time I got squeamish.

We’d agreed I would work do thirteen jobs for him in exchange for helping her. This should have been it for me. The last job. The last time I had to fuck over someone to line his pocket. After this, he’d promised, he would keep everything the way it is now. He’d continue to pay for the private room, the doctors and nurses who monitor her, even though I know she won’t return.

She’s been all but gone for a long time, even though I’ve held on tight.

The miracle isn’t coming. I know that now. If I let her go now, she’d understand. She’d understand that I’m doing it for Skye—my sweet innocent Skye who’s got her whole life ahead of her. My mother would want me to save her.

Rich may be a devil, may have dragged me toward hell with him, but I can still fix this.

“I’m so sorry, Ma.” I bend over to kiss her forehead gently. Her body is warm, her breathing steady and mechanical, her pulse the same it’s been for months, years. “I’ll try to make you proud. I promise.” I squeeze her hand one last time.

Then, I turn from the room.

* * *

It takes me less than half an hour to make the drive to the Revel. As I pull up in the parking lot, I notice more cars than usual. All gaudy SUV types. Some kind of Man Bun meeting? Backup for Ian’s arrival tomorrow? Or for mine, right now?

I wonder how much Rich has already guessed. How quickly he’ll try to kill me. He knows I won’t go down without a fight and I clench my knuckles around the steering wheel and grit my teeth.

I wish I’d have kissed Skye one last time, but she had stood beside her brother at his car, curled in on herself, arms crossed, cheek turned away, and I could tell she was not willing to kiss me in front of him. Or maybe at all.

At least we had last night. One last night together. One last happy memory, which I can relive if I go down. Her skin on my skin, her body writhing beneath me, our lips colliding, hips bucking, my cock deep inside her, the wild spasm as I came in her again and again.

I hold onto that memory as I climb out of the car and go in to face Rich.

The entrance of the Revel is still under heavy construction. Beams everywhere now and enormous packages full of slot machine parts and gambling tables waiting to be assembled. I push through the wreckage and up the steps to the office.

Knowing him, he’ll probably be fucking a stripper while he orders his Man Bun army to take me out.

Reaching the door, I find it unlocked so I turn the knob. Rich is at his desk, thankfully surrounded by a couple of his thugs and not any hookers this time. To my surprise, his face breaks into a wide smile when he sees me. My whole body tenses, on alert for whatever shit he’s pulling now.

But he only spreads his arms wide in welcome. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Xander Stone.”

I swallow before I can form a reply, and even then, my voice comes out throaty and scratched. “Had what in me?”

Then one of the men in the corner shifts to the side, and my whole world spirals to a halt.

On the couch, where I watched Rich get a foot job just a day ago, her hands bound behind her back and a gag wrapped around her perfectly shaped lips, is Skye.

Fuck.

They’re all staring at me, but I can’t form a sentence right now. It feels like someone just sucker-punched me and I can’t catch my wind.

Luckily Rich cuts in, since he can never keep his mouth shut for long. “Smart move, Stone. Having the girl come alone. I don’t know what you said to make her do it, but it seems to have thrown the police off your trail. I always knew I could count on you,” he adds with a slick, toothy smile, as if he was some benevolent friend who trusted me to get the job done all alone, and not the fucking asshole who was threatening my mother’s life on the phone less than a couple hours ago.

Skye’s eyes lock onto mine, and she’s all I can look at. The one person I swore to protect in all this. The one I would do anything to save. The woman I’ve just led to her doom. Her eyes widen, her mouth tightens at the edges, and though she can’t mouth anything to me now, with the gag in her mouth, I know what she’s trying to say.

I’m sorry.

She came here for me, I realize. She heard me on the phone this morning. She knew something would happen if I didn’t bring her in. She’s here for her brother, yes, but for me too, and I can’t ignore that. This is my fault. Whatever happens to her now—and sickeningly, horrifyingly, I have a pretty good idea of what that might be—it’s on my head.

“What else do you need from me?” I hear myself asking, though I still can’t tear my eyes from her. It’s killing me that I can’t just run across this office, wrench her off that couch and cut her ties. Then I’d strangle every last man in here who put her into that position with my bare hands. But I know Rich by now. The second he realizes I care about Skye, she’ll be in even more danger than she already is. He’ll have her killed before I get halfway through beating up anyone in this office.

I have to play this cool. Smart. I rip my gaze from Skye and look at Rich instead, my expression passive. Calm. Annoyed, almost. “I did what you asked,” I say.

“That you did.” He purses his lips, studying me. I don’t let my gaze waver, not by an inch. Let him believe I’m completely unfazed by this. Let him think I don’t give a shit about her. “Out of curiosity,” he says, and my heart sinks into my stomach, “how did you convince her to come to us? I’m just wondering. For posterity, you know.” He smiles, and it’s all edges and knives. He knows he’s cutting me.

Or he thinks he knows. Luckily I’m a better liar than Rich Tomlinson will ever be. “The bitch thinks I’ve fallen in love with her,” I reply simply, and that does it. He and his thugs all crack up in laughter, Man Bun in the corner tearing up he’s laughing so hard.

Skye’s eyes glitter too, catching in the light of the overhead, though she refuses to let any of the tears fall. I can’t make myself look at her for long. Can’t think about what I’m doing right now. I need Rich to believe I don’t give a shit about Skye, and I need her to believe she should hate me. If she believes that, she won’t give up.

Angry Skye. Vengeful Skye. I need the Skye who wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t spilled my fucking guts last night.

One more glance at her hot, burning eyes, and I’m positive I’ve accomplished that.

“She’s as stupid as her brother,” Rich finally says, shaking his head. His expression goes hard almost immediately, any laughter he had an instant ago vanishing. “As we agreed, this was your last job. Now that Banner won’t have any other choice but make the drop, I’ve got no more use for you. A deal is a deal.”

Panic lights in my gut. No. “You don’t need help with the drop?” I ask, before I realize my mistake. Shit. He didn’t tell me about changing the date, did he?

Rich’s eyes darken. “That’s not your concern any longer, Stone.”

“No. You’re right.” It will look suspicious if I beg him to let me stay on this job. Not when I’ve spent years making it perfectly clear exactly how little I think of him, or how ready I am to throw this job and his fucking insanity behind me. “I just want to see it through,” I say. “Make sure you’re not going to pull me into anything last-minute, unprepared because you’ve changed your mind. Our deal still stands, does it not?”

He’ll pull the plug on my mother after all these years. Leave her to gasp out her last breath alone, because this motherfucker sure as hell wouldn’t tell me when he planned to cut funding. I’ve said my goodbyes—I know that she’s gone—but it still doesn’t stop the ache that spans my chest.

“Our deal stands, Xander.” He offers me his hand. “Thank you for your service.”

I never thought this day would come. I never thought that when it did, the last thing in the world I would want to do would be to walk out of this office once and for all. But I have no other choice right now. I grasp his offered hand, shake once, hard, and force myself not to look at Skye as I turn and leave her behind.