The gun was finally back in his hand.

Relief.

It lasted until the sound of his name screeched through the air from Kalani. He traced for the source, not her horror-stricken mouth, but the reason behind Kalani’s blood curdling scream: A man standing behind her. Standing too close, with his right hand down behind Kalani’s back. A pronounced stiffness in that back, a particular discomfort, painted the picture for him. It was like x-ray vision, seeing through, seeing the threat.

Another hostage. That time, Kalani.

A gray-haired man stood behind her. A man who looked entirely too familiar, thanks to a sneak peek at Macy’s memoir. He’d been a cop once, back in St. Louis, before he’d worked for Blackwoods. Fuck. “Everyone just relax,” he said. “Just hold it right there.”

The guy under Ethan’s knee, some younger military guy in olive drab, finally stopped his struggling. He seemed to know the hostage-taker.

“Nothing’s changed,” the man in the suit said. “This doesn’t change anything. Lea, come here.”

Lea appeared, half frozen. She was sniffling, crying.

“Let’s go, Lea.”

Lea began to scream, too, and then turned, running back to the hangar. Ethan only found out why when someone’s arm rose behind Suit and Tie’s shoulder, then struck down all the way to his wrist with as much force as possible to knock the gun away.

Logan!

Wherever the fuck he’d come from, he’d snuck up from behind and was wrestling with the man. Ethan looked around wildly. Had DARC arrived? Was anyone else waiting in the shadows? Would they be on their side or Blackwoods’?

It was Kalani’s turn to reach for the gun, having been freed by the latest surprise, her hands grabbing around on the pavement for it.

She held it in two steady hands and gave the briefest glance to Ethan. She looked lost but calm. That was okay. Calm was good. Calm would get them both through it.

From the ex-cop’s pocket came the glint of a knife. He reached down and pulled out a switchblade. He wielded it before Logan, ready to strike.

By the time Ethan took aim, careful aim so as not to get Logan in the shot, he heard the cracks of three tight shots. He saw the ripple in the man’s clothing and flesh, shockwaves expanding out. Some kind of mist in the air, mixing with the man’s gasp as he fell to his knees, then onto his side. Kalani was screaming the whole time, screaming at the ex-cop, then at Ethan, then at nothing.

Logan kicked the knife away from him. But even if the man had a knife, he was no threat to anyone anymore. He went limp and still.

Logan rushed over to Ethan to help subdue Olive Drab, holding him facedown on the ground, hands wrestled behind his back. He had stopped using words. Only grunts came out.

Kalani’s white running shoes approached and stopped just in his peripheral vision.

“I think they drugged me,” Logan said. “They fucking drugged me.”

“Where were you?” he said. “How the hell did you . . . ?”

“The trunk,” Logan said, his voice sounding distant and hollow. Ethan could hear the dry terror in both of their voices, and he was glad when Kalani joined in with, “You were in the trunk of my car?”

Ethan remembered hearing the thumping. He thought about his own wake-up from the drug-induced sleep. He was still groggy and half sick from that. It was a surprise he could even hold the gun properly.

Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t taken the shot.

A good thing for Logan, too.

A good thing he had Kalani.

“I woke up and it was pitch black in there,” Logan said, resting his knee onto Olive Drab’s back. He was breathing hard, trying to catch his breath from the excitement. Ethan could smell the sweat of fear on him. “I woke up all fucked up and I just started going crazy in there, kicking at everything I could. I must have broken the seat, because I crawled through and—”

“He’s dead,” Kalani said, her voice monotone.

“I know,” Ethan said, looking up at her. “Good shot.”

“Where are we going to put this one?” Logan said, nodding over to Olive Drab.

Kalani, with a blank expression on her face, said, “In the straitjacket.”

Logan grinned. “And the trunk.”

His grin died quickly at a distant whining sound. A prop engine starting up. Then a solid rumble as it got up to power.

Kalani ran to the car, opened the driver’s side door, and pulled out the radio, yelling the tail numbers into it. Ethan was amazed she’d remembered them. Her own little magic trick.

Tansy took seconds to set up monitoring for the flight, Jackson muttering something about having to get the authorities involved now, damn it, but all Ethan could hear was the groans of Olive Drab as they stuffed his limbs into the straitjacket.