A man who feared nothing had either never stared into the black void of his future, or had and accepted what he saw there. For every risk I’d taken in life, I’d always accepted the consequences, the unknowns that most sought to avoid. They’d rather live in the safe corners, where fear was nothing more than a news report, or a dark room. A channel they could change in one click, with the urge to flick on the light and never have to think about it again.

For some of us, fear simply wasn’t an option, because every day was unknown. Like being locked inside a room with no light switch. Every day brought us one step closer to death. And when the body became accustomed to surviving, fear simply no longer had a purpose. I’d reached the intoxicating pinnacle of fear, staring miles down into the blackness with a smile on my face, knowing damned well whatever lay at the bottom was fated to be my end.

For the first time in my life, though, I dreaded the future. Without Sera there, I couldn’t stand to look beyond, to peer into that void without the shuddering reality that she would never belong to me.

I had no choice but to let her go.

As if my body was pulled by strings, I moved like a puppet, no feeling, no emotion, no desire anymore. On X-ray, my insides would probably show up as one big, vacuous hole—no heart, no lungs. Just hollow.

I set my pack on the bed, not surprised that my whole fucking life fit into one bag.

Three things I’d learned while living with my Uncle Hank—pack light, don’t get attached, and clean up your mess afterward. Yet, for being completely dead inside, I found myself struggling with the last two.

Living with him had taught me that, once you started a life on the run, you couldn’t sit still for any great length of time. Sera didn’t strike me as the type of woman who’d be content always running from place to place. She’d never leave Jo—that much I’d gathered just from watching her care for Eli’s mom.

I shoved bottles of whiskey, a couple waters, and some granola bars into the hiking backpack. Once I’d eliminated the last name from my list, I’d hide out until things settled. Maybe after, I’d reclaim the plans for Dubai and travel that part of the globe for a while.

Clutching the pack, I blew out a harsh breath and shook my head. Anger, like molten steel, crawled through my veins, and I threw the pack against the wall, watching the contents explode onto the floor.

I wanted Sera. I wanted her more than anything. More than watching that fat prick’s face twist in pain. More than my fury and the insatiable craving for revenge. I wanted her more than the fucked up life that awaited me—the blackness on the horizon promising death.

It wasn’t about her beauty, her smarts, her body, although those had certainly left their mark on me. I was drawn to her light. Her purity and innocence, as if I’d been buried alive in a cold dark tomb for too long, before being given one breath, one moment of warmth on my skin. I craved her as much as the air and the heat I needed to feel alive again.

A high-pitched screech ripped through my eardrum, rattling my spine, and I spun around to see the boy, mouth gaping. Eyes black as death watched me fall to my knees, my hands vised to my ears to block the screams that only seemed to grow louder, more intense.

“She’s mine!” I shouted, trembling at the piercing stabs that bounced over my eardrum.

The screams went silent.

I opened my eyes, lowering my hands to the chime of my phone.

The boy had disappeared, but I glanced around to be sure, then focused on the text popped up on my screen.

From Sera.

I pressed play on the attached video. The screen panned over a woman’s slim bare legs, while the cameraman reached out, running his hands over them. As it scanned higher, over her bra, my pulse thrummed at a murderous pace through my veins. He landed it on Sera’s sleeping face and, with a bruising grip of her jaw, zoomed in, setting off an explosion of rage through my muscles.

I breathed hard through my nose to keep from crushing the phone.

I have something you want. Meet me on the roof of the old Free Press building.

Free Press building. What the fuck was at the Free Press building? No doubt the text was a set up, but it didn’t matter. I had no choice.

The game had changed once again, only that time, someone else had stolen the first move.

And that someone was about to die a painful death.

* * *

Construction equipment lay scattered across the front of the Free Press building, and beside it, an enormous tower crane that stretched over two-hundred feet toward the sky. The handgun Hank had left me sat tucked inside my waistband, alongside the hunting blade he’d gifted me, snapped inside its sheath and clipped to my belt.

Same blade I’d used to cut out Trevi’s eyeball.

I hopped the fence in front and entered through the torn-away plywood at the front of the building. About fourteen stories spiraled above me, as I stared up the stairwell toward the roof. Flight after flight, I rounded each one, taking easy steps to conserve my breath, until I reached the top-most level of the building.

Dead pigeons lay scattered on the rusted paper-littered landing leading to the roof door, as if an apocalypse had come through, wiping everything out. Ear to the door, I listened for any sounds on the other side, and slid my Glock from its holster. Nothing.

Slamming my shoulder into the hard steel cracked it open enough to slide through. The rooftop greeted me with the sounds of traffic below and the crane, whose boom hovered over the north side of the building. Lights from the nearby buildings offered enough visibility to see in the darkness. Midnight had settled on the city, casting shadows across the gravel. Watching for any sign of movement, I rounded the small roof access to the south side, coming to a stop at the sight of Dane’s gun pointed at me.

My gun pointed at him.

I’d already resigned myself to the possibility that I’d be ambushed, but seeing Dane standing over Sera, who lay slumped, passed out on the gravelly rooftop in nothing but a robe and boots, served to fuel my desire to kill the motherfucker.

“That’s close enough.” Dane’s smug grin had my fist curling, and all the ways he could’ve already violated her played like the set up for a slasher flick through my mind.

Bruises on her legs and jaw had my blood pumping like liquid iron, ready to rain hell.

“Where’s the ledger?” he asked, his question failing to draw my eyes from Sera, even if the surprise momentarily broke my thoughts.

Jesus Christ, she’d gone after the ledger, anyway. The distraction didn’t last long before my current situation yanked me back to attention, and I focused on how exactly I’d go about killing the little cocksucker.

“I’ll start with your fingers,” I told him. In my mind’s eye, I pictured slicing my blade through them like butter, seeing how many would fit inside his mouth before I taped it shut. “For touching her.”

“So sweet. Emotions must come as a surprise for a psychopath like you.” He chuckled and lifted the gun higher. “That’s why I’m not letting you near me, or her, let alone my fingers. See, I’ve done some homework about you. And I’m pretty sure Sera here is in deeper shit around you than she is with me.”

“I’m going to sever your femoral artery by stabbing your thigh as many times as it takes to cut through, and watch you bleed out,” I continued, ignoring him.

“Or you can answer the fucking question before I take the first shot.” Gun trained on me, he stepped behind Sera, backing himself to the wall of the railing. He sat down and pulled her limp body over top of him like a shield. “Doubt you’d take the chance.”

Sera’s eyes blinked open, and she stared up at me from below her brow. Her tongue swept across her lips, and in the next breath, she knocked the gun from his hand, rolling onto the ground beside him.

As he reached for his fallen weapon, I nailed the first shot in his shoulder, striding toward him.

“Motherfucker!” He gripped the wound, still clawing after the gun, and I hammered my boot into the back of his palm. Took less than a second to draw my blade, and I stabbed his index finger.

Dane howled in agony, while I pushed on the hilt of the knife, slicing clean through the tip of his finger.

A sting struck the back of my calf, where he bit down into my flesh, and I speared the knife into his thigh, the small trickle of blood telling me I’d missed my target. Dane screamed a second time, and at the crack of a gunshot from behind, he quieted to a whimper.

I twisted to find a portly man in a business suit, lowering his gun from the air, a tiny wisp leaking from its barrel.

Only he didn’t aim the gun at Dane or me. He held it steadily toward Sera.

With my attention fixed on Sera’s father, I didn’t notice Dane snatching up his own gun again until he had it pointed at me, and I alternated between aiming mine at him, and the man I had every intention of killing before night’s end.

“I thought you were in New York until Tuesday.” Sera’s voice, though tinged in disgust, quivered with fear.

“I was. Until my alarm system notified me that someone was in my house, and I watched you break into my safe.”

“I didn’t break into anything. You gave me access.”

“I did. Though, admittedly I didn’t give you credit for having the smarts to figure out what it belonged to. I also didn’t expect you’d come back home any time soon.” His fat lips stretched into a smile I’d have blown off his face, if not for Dane’s barrel pointed at my skull. “You must’ve felt nostalgic sitting in that office again.”

Though he spoke to her, his eyes remained on me, no doubt waiting for me to take the first shot.

“Fuck. You.” The venom in Sera’s voice told me something had happened in that office, only solidifying my plan to put a bullet in his brain.

“Step out onto the scaffolding behind you, my dear.”

“What?” Sera grabbed the edge, her eyes wide .

A spasm of pain struck my skull as I ground my teeth.

“Step out. Onto the scaffolding. Now.”

In the seconds she waited, he took a shot, kicking up the gravel beside her, and she hopped to the side with a scream.

My muscles flinched, finger tapping the trigger. Kill him, my head taunted. Kill him, and end it.

Her whole body trembled as she slid along the railing of the building, and the moment she looked over the edge, her fingers curled around the top of it. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“Let her go. I know where you’ll find the ledger. Let her go, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“That’s … romantic. But no. I’ve got plans for both of you.”

Another shot just missed her leg, pinging as it ricocheted off the concrete behind her.

She startled again, and I lurched forward, stopping at the sound of Dane racking the chamber of his gun. “Shit!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

Tightening her robe, Sera lifted a shaking leg over the edge of the wall and, on wobbly legs, climbed onto the scaffold, gripping tight to the metal frame attaching it to the building. The whimper she let out told me she’d begun to panic.

Kutscher swung his gun toward me. “Now put down your gun, or I will surely put a bullet in her chest, and she will fall—what? Almost twenty stories to her death?” The way he spoke the command so easily told me Sera meant as much to him as a wad of fucking gum stuck to his shoe.

“You’re a heartless bastard. You’ve always been a heartless bastard,” she gritted out as she sobbed. “That’s why you threw Shawn away, right? Handed him over to some sick piece of shit that you defended in court!”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but it failed to peel his stare from me.

“Shawn. You mean … the one who cut your face and tried to kill you? Now why would you hold even a small measure of sympathy for him?” He glanced toward her and back. “Oh, that’s right. You have no self-worth. It’s why you ended up with Romeo over here.” He waved his gun toward me. “Who I’ll ask to put down the gun one more time, before he makes me do something impulsive.”

With two weapons trained on me, I lowered mine, my mind scrambling for a solution.

“Now walk.” Kutscher jerked his gun, motioning me toward the north side of the building.

Dane swiped up my gun as I passed him, holding both barrels pointed at me like some gimp cowboy as he hobbled along.

We came to a stop beside an empty oxygen and acetylene cage. My gaze trailed to the top, where the crane’s hook had already been attached to the lifting eye, and their plan crystalized before me. The only building in the city with a tower crane—the reason Dane had chosen to meet there.

A pop from behind ripped through my bicep with a burn, and I looked down to where Dane had shot me in the arm. The pain felt like the white hot flashes of slag I’d endured when welding.

“That’s for shooting me in the arm, fucker.”

“Dane, if you would …” Kutscher tossed something through the air, and it landed beside Dane, who kept his eyes and gun on me as he lifted it from the ground.

I only caught a glimpse of the key, before he swiped it up and nudged me into the cage. Once I was inside, he slid the lock in place on the outside, trapping me within.

Dane took off toward the roof access, stumbling along with his gimp leg and missing fingertip.

Minutes ticked off in silence. Karl paced in front of me, while my mind raced to figure out how to Houdini myself out of the fucking cage.

His pacing stopped, and he looked around, almost casually. “I know you probably had some elaborate scheme to kill me. In some way, I’m almost curious to know how you planned to do it.”

“Cage. A hole. And a drill bit.”

Arms crossed behind his back, he nodded. “Creative. I’m feeling a little shown up by this .” He looked up to the crane and back. “Not quite as theatrical. Though, I did make a point to add a little tension. Literally. The cable on this thing is quite frayed. I’m not sure exactly how much weight it’ll support before it snaps. Of course, I did have Dane thin it out a bit more, too.”

“Why? Why did you do it? Why kill Eli?”

He snorted a laugh, and paced again, coming to a stop in front of me. “Why, indeed. Perhaps the first question you should ask is why he continued to accompany his mother to my home? Strange, don’t you think?”

The implication of his words kept my jaw locked in rage. “Sera is the only reason.”

“Yes, of course. Sera. And do you see my dilemma? Why would I allow a dirty street rat anywhere near my daughter? An insolent little prick like him.”

“Don’t act like you did this for her,” I gritted out. “You don’t give a shit about her. You never did.”

He stared back at me, a feigned troubled expression on his face. “You’re right. I never did. You want to know the real reason I killed Eli?” A crack sounded, seconds before his body slumped to the ground, revealing Sera standing behind him with a shovel propped into the air.

“Happy Fucking Father’s Day, assho—”

Before she could finish her moment of celebration, the cage lurched on a creak and rattled as it lifted up off the ground.

Eyes wide, Sera rushed forward, her fingers brushing the bottom of it as it lifted skyward. My body felt light, flying up about fifty feet higher than the building, and it jerked horizontally, until I was dangling over Lafayette.

It came to a stop there, hovering over the traffic about three hundred feet below.

From inside the crane’s control cab, Dane waved, before he stepped out onto the ladder. He dangled the key I’d seen earlier and tossed it.

My heart caught in my throat, as I watched it land on the jib’s catwalk.

“Fuck!” I shook the cage and felt it lurch again, the screeching sound of the frayed cable telling me it could break any moment.

“No!” Clutching the edge of the building, Sera stared across from me. The worry etched in her face matched the grim thoughts in my head.