DARIO

Dario hung up the phone, letting out a frustrated breath. The heat signatures on the first warehouse had come back. Live bodies inside, and that was enough to cause a full monopoly of their attention. The agents were now coordinating with local SWAT, a process that had gotten him escorted to the door, thanks to his civilian status. He leaned against the back wall of the police station and scrolled through his phone, working through a new plan.

“Hey.”

Dario looked up, recognizing the blond friend of Bell’s. Lance. Beside him stood the other one. “Hey. No word yet.”

He wasn’t surprised to see them, his eyes moving past them and to the large Humvee taking up a spot and a half. Some mental gears clicked into place.

“Anything we can do to help?” Rick asked.

A gate to the left opened, a SWAT van slowly rolling out, followed by a second vehicle. The men watched the action, looking to Dario for clarity.

Dario nodded slowly. “They’re headed to a potential location, one that might hold some of Hawk’s pets.”

“And Bell?” Lance asked.

In the tone of those two words, Dario heard all that he had suspected. This man, probably both of them, loved her like a sister. They were as afraid as he was. As invested and frustrated as he was.

Dario tucked his hands into his pockets. “Maybe. We don’t know. I’m hoping that the woman who took her is connected to the warehouse in some way. Otherwise—”

Otherwise, they didn’t have shit to go on.

Otherwise, the chance of saving Bell was nil.

Rick flipped his keys over in his hands. “You know where they’re going?”

His eyes met Dario’s, and Dario nodded.

“Then, let’s fucking go,” Lance said.

“Wait.” Dario reached out and grabbed Lance’s arm. “They’re going to their best prospect. But there is another option, a different place she might be. They didn’t have the manpower to hit both locations, so they’re going to the most likely first.”

It was a risk to get involved with them, bringing them into a scenario that he was still figuring out for himself. But the men didn’t hesitate.

“We’ve got guns. Vests. Rocket launchers. Pretty much anything they have in there.” Rick offered. “If you know where the second location is, let’s head there. Cover all possibilities as quickly as possible.”

Dario gave them a final lifeline. “The Feds aren’t going to like that, us using their intel to break into private property, weapons drawn.”

Lance scrunched up his face, looking up at the sky as if to consider the ramifications. Then he dropped his gaze back to Dario’s and shrugged. “Checked, and nope. No fucks given.”

He glanced over at his friend. “Rick? You? Any fucks given?”

The man grinned and slapped his hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Nope. Let’s do this shit.”

Dario, for the first time in four hours, felt his own mouth curve into a smile.

“Good. I’ll make a few calls. I have some resources we can call in.” Hang on, Bell. Please, for the love of God, be strong and hang on.

It was night in Vegas. A clusterfuck of photo-taking tourists and restaurant-seeking locals. For the first time in a decade, Dario cursed his premiere real estate locations, set in the heart of The Strip. He was in his own version of Lance’s Hummer, a Land Rover Defender that hadn’t been off the showroom floor but could crawl over a wall if need be. He pulled out of The Majestic’s parking garage followed by six company SUVs, each one packed with the best private security that Vegas offered. There was a reason retired Special Forces gravitated to Vegas. Pussy and pay. He had always paid the most, and they could trip over pussy leaving work each day. Now, with fourteen ex-military bad-asses behind him, they rivaled anything the LVPD was sending to the other location.

She had to be in one of these two locations, safe and waiting for him. He couldn’t handle any other possibility.

“You’re leaving The Majestic unprotected.” His head of security shifted in the seat, pulling the phone away from his mouth to deliver the opinion. “Someone comes in, wants to clean us out? Now would be the time to do it.”

Dario shrugged. The Majestic was the last thing on his list of concerns. He got onto the highway, his throat tightening at the knowledge that they’d pass the location, just a few miles ahead, where Bell had been put into a car and taken away.

Was she in pain right now? Was she scared? Each minute that passed felt interminable. Who was this woman? And why the fuck, of all things to do, would she take Bell?

Tire track analysis had put the bitch’s vehicle as a large SUV. A Yukon, Suburban, Escalade or Expedition. It was a classification that barely narrowed things down, especially in this town. His phone buzzed and he reached for it, opening the incoming text message. It was from Laurent.

—Landed. Where do you need me?

Dario swallowed the emotion that unexpectedly thickened in his throat. Sometimes, the people you didn’t call were the ones you needed the most.

BELL

This bitch was crazy. I hadn’t taken her opinions into consideration when I’d written the letter to Dario. I’d been thinking only of his mindset, and how he would feel and react if I died. I was trying to calm his fears and lessen any guilt. I wasn’t thinking about her reading it, and certainly hadn’t expected the reaction it created.

She shoved to her feet, holding the page out, the wide-lined page trembling from her outstretched fingers. Night had fallen and taken most of the light with it. I peered at her through the dimness and tried to understand the rigid set of her body. I think she was angry. I thought back over my letter, trying to see what I might have written that would have caused that emotion.

Then, I thought over what she had said to me.

“We were so close,” she had whispered. “All you had to do was die, and everything was going to be okay.”

The we of the statement had stuck with me, almost as much as her mention of her father, his disappointment, his death… it had all pointed in one giant arrow to Robert Hawk. The devil. Who, possibly… passed his evil down to this woman.

Or, she was delusional. Or, just as likely, both.

“It’s cute that you think you love him. But Gwen… Gwen loved him too.” Her dark outline stepped closer. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, but her voice was a mix of amusement and disgust. In her question, Gwen’s name stood out as if it was printed in Las Vegas neon. Her one-syllable name had been said with reverence, the sentence arching up to that finish, as if no one should dare to offend GWEN.

This was personal. Whatever dynamic I’d entered into when I’d first kissed, touched, and fell for Dario … the girl had been part of that dynamic. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe Hawk hadn’t ordered the hit. Maybe this girl had had her own agenda, her own role that had played out in this disaster.

“We were so close...”

She reached forward and I saw the glint of the knife in the moment before she scraped the blade’s tip along my outer thigh. “Listen, you spoiled slutty Vegas whore. You don’t get to love Dario Capece. And he doesn’t get to fuck around without having serious consequences brought down on his shoulders.”

I could see the white flash of her teeth when she smiled.

“Robert,” she drawled. “Before he died, before you all TOOK HIM FROM ME…”

The blade bit into my thigh, her weight toying with the pressure, and I gasped at the pain, my mind scrambling for time, for a way to distract her with conversation. “I know you killed her.”

It was a wild card, and probably untrue, but it worked. The knife stilled, the pain dulling, and the dark shadow tilted her head. “You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’ve been through. What I’ve SACRIFICED.” She moved closer, her breath hot on my face.

I had bought a few seconds, nothing more. I kept my right hand still, hidden by my side, and hoped she had forgotten about it. I needed to do something. Right now. Something to stop her.

I thought of the martial arts lessons I took freshman semester. Tried to find something that my free hand might be useful for. Box her on the ears. That might give me about five seconds of time. Cup my hand, swing it around, putting the force of my body into the motion … she’d fall to the side and experience a few seconds of disorientation.

But a few seconds was useless when I was chained to the wall by my other hand. I tried to remember what she had done with the handcuff key. Had she returned it to her neck? Was it over in the bag? Was it still hanging from the handcuffs? I couldn’t risk looking, broadcasting my search, especially not right now, with her staring at me, waiting for me to respond to her psychotic dialog.

I couldn’t think, couldn’t come up with something to say. She was right. I didn’t know what she’d done. Or been through. Or sacrificed. I’d say this. I was raped by two men when I was fourteen and had managed to maintain a normal life. She was in a warehouse full of prisoners, shoving a knife into my thigh. I was going to guess she had been through hell and back to fall to this point.

She prodded, unhappy with my lack of response. “You think you KNOW ME?”

She pushed on the knife, and it effortlessly cut deeper into the muscle, severing nerves and lighting my thigh on fire. I screamed, the pain blotting out my vision, the intensity worse, so much worse, than the initial penetration had been.

“Please.” I wheezed out the word, my chained hand gripping my thigh just above the place where the knife jutted out of it. Blood bubbled around the blade, running down my muscle. Too much blood. Didn’t I have a major artery somewhere in my thigh? The femoral? What if she hit it? I could be minutes from bleeding out. Minutes from death.

“You think I killed Gwen? Please.” She stood. “YOU killed Gwen.” She lifted one boot and hovered it gently in the air about the knife. “Think I can get it to go all the way through? One hard stomp, I think it’ll do it. Can we at least try? I’ve always wanted to try.”

She giggled, then stopped, her silhouette suddenly illuminated in bright red light. Her head twisted around, the long blonde strands spinning out, and eyed the overhead bulb that had illuminated. I watched her boot carefully, my heart in my throat as the heavy black rubber sole swayed above the wooden handle. The light began to blink, dousing the room in black, then red, then black, then red.

Her head snapped toward the light and she paused for a moment, watching it flash. “Shit.”

There was a crash, a deep engine revving, and the terrible grind of metal against metal. I looked in the direction of the sound, trying to gauge how far away it was, hoping that it was somehow tied to the red light.

When I looked back, she was gone and I was alone in the room, the knife still protruding from my bloody thigh. I locked my free hand around my thigh and tried to staunch the bleeding.