“And my men. Occasionally, I imagine, even me. With a smile.” He looks her up and down, slo-mo. “You’ll look good in the uniform. Do we have a deal.” In typical Ryodan fashion, his voice doesn’t rise at the end of the question. He knows they have a deal. He can read Jo like a book with see-through covers.

My chains rattle as I test them with everything I’ve got. He is not putting Jo to work in the kiddie subclub. She’s got the kind of face that’s so delicate and pretty that she can wear really short hair like she does and look totally hot. Even those stupid glasses she wears when she reads just make her look good because they make her bones seem even more dainty. She has something ethereal. She is not wearing a short plaid skirt, tight white blouse, socks, and baby doll heels. She will not be waiting on him and his men! Chester’s will swallow her up like a tasty morsel and spit out blood and gristle.

“No, Jo,” I say flatly. “Don’t you dare.”

“We have a deal,” Jo says.

He unchains Jo, hands her the “application” and a pen.

She flattens it out on the wall and signs it without even reading it.

He folds it up and hands it back to her. “Take the elevator back up the way you came. Lor is waiting for you there. He’ll get you a uniform. You start tonight. You have a single priority—make my patrons happy.”

“Lor is waiting for me,” Jo says. She pushes a hand through her short dark hair and gives him a look that kind of surprises me, it’s got so much balls in it. “I thought you said your men expected you to kill us.”

“If you don’t hand him the signed application, he will. I suggest you make sure he sees it the instant you get off the elevator.”

“What about Dani?”

“She’ll be up soon.”

“She comes with me now,” Jo says.

“Never. Tell. Me. What. To. Do.” Ryodan’s talking soft again, and I don’t know about Jo but it gives me a shiver when he speaks like that.

“Get out of here, you stupid fecking sidhe-sheep!” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’d have been finer if you’d never showed up!” He owns her now. He’s got some kind of spell on her. It pisses me off so bad I’m shaking.

After Jo leaves, Ryodan glides toward me in that weird fluid way he has. He didn’t move that way in front of Jo. He walked all slow-mo when she was here.

I see the glint of a silver knife in his hand.

“Dude, no need to cut me. I’ll sign the fecking application. Just give me a pen.” I have to get out of here. I have to save Jo. She put herself on the line for me. I can’t stand it.

“Kid, when will you learn.”

“You’d be amazed the things I know.”

“You might be able to thrash your way out of a spiderweb, but thrashing in quicksand doesn’t work. The harder you fight, the more ground you lose. Struggling merely expedites your inevitable defeat.”

“Never been defeated. Never will be.”

“Rowena was a spiderweb.” He touches my cheek with the hand holding the knife. The silver glints an inch from my eye. “Do you know what I am.”

“A great big pain in my ass.”

“Quicksand. And you’re dancing on it.”

“Dude, what’s with the knife?”

“I’m not interested in ink anymore. You’re going to sign my contract in blood.”

“Thought you said it was an application,” I say pissily.

“It is, Dani. To a very exclusive club. What’s Mine.”

“Ain’t nobody’s.”

“Sign.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Or Jo dies. Slowly and painfully.”

“Dude, why are you still talking? Unchain me and give me the fecking contract already.”

There’s a guillotine above my neck. I hear it swishing as it slices through the air. There’s a name carved into the shiny blade: JO. I see it in my periphery with every step I take. It’s going to make me nuts.

After I sign his fecking contract—I got a paper towel in my fist because my palm’s still bleeding where he cut me—he lets me go. Just like that. Unchains my other arm and legs, offers to heal me, to which I say a great big kiss-my-booty, then escorts me to the elevator and tells me to go wherever my current version of home is.

I expect him to tell me I have to move into Chester’s so he can watch my every move, like Barrons did with M—TP.

I expect him to go all control-freak on me.

I don’t expect him to give me my sword back and send me on my way with a casual reminder to show up for “work” tomorrow at eight P.M. He says there’s something else he wants me to see.

I hate this.

He’s not reeling off one thousand and one Ryodan commandments like I thought he would.

He’s giving me all kinds of rope to hang myself with. I tie knots with rope. And I move really fast. It’s inevitable I’ll get tangled up in all that rope somehow, with a loop or two around my neck.

How am I going to get Jo out of this?

Four of his big scarred dudes are waiting for me when I get off the elevator. I glance warily around for Barrons and TP as I wave my contract big and noisy at Ryodan’s men so they don’t give me any grief before they take it from me to put it wherever it is Ryodan plans to keep it and I’m going to have to eventually steal it back from. I’m out of protein bars and not in the mood for a pissing contest. Fortunately, TP is nowhere to be seen.