Jax resecured her earpiece. “Report,” she said as she walked slowly back to the Green Room.

“Go ahead,” Shane said.

“Cross and I made a deal. I take out his mark for the night and he makes an introduction to Lazarus.” She didn’t tell them what else Cross wanted. She’d find a way out.

“The mark?” Dante asked.

“Grace Rowland, and he wants proof of death.”

“Jesus!” Shane hissed.

“I can’t believe it!” Dante said. “Do you still believe he didn’t 86 that girl in Blalock’s apartment?”

Her answer was irrelevant. “For the record, I do.”

“Let’s meet in five,” Shane said.

“Let’s make it fifteen. Cross is back in the Green Room. As soon as the senator and his family make their appearance and he sees Sophia Rowland, if he knows who his mother is, he’ll know it’s her and put two and two together. I’m betting he isn’t monster enough to eliminate his sister.”

“That’s a big gamble, Cassidy,” Dante said. “I’m going to go ahead and formulate Plan B. We make it look like she’s been hit, and go from there.”

“Roger that,” Jax said as she picked up her pace toward the Green Room.

---

Marcus was coming apart at the seams.

He needed succor.

Now.

Her blood was like heroin. An immediate high. Instantly addicted. He wanted more. He wanted to sink his fangs into her carotid artery and fuck her at the same time.

His body ached. His bones, his muscles, his heart, his groin pulsed with a need so violent that he teetered on the edge of sanity. He wanted to mate, to spend countless hours, days, weeks and months between her thighs as he drank his fill of her.

A thousand times would not be enough.

The ache in his body exploded into fury. Since his change, he had become a creature of instant gratification. If he wanted it, he took it.

Now, with this enigma of a woman, he could not. Because as much as he wanted inside of her body, he needed inside of her head more. He was no fool. He didn’t buy for one minute she was doing background on Rowland and his family. His instincts screamed she was the product of a very specialized organization. One that could potentially harm The Solution’s purpose.

Yeah, she was tied to Rowland all right. He needed to find out how tightly. It would be damn convenient if he could read her thoughts, but he could not, not unless he changed her. A thrill wracked through him at the thought. As her maker, he would own her. What they could do together boggled the mind. The thought quickly evaporated.

Her demand to become a Solution operative was laughable. The only way she could compete at his level was to be turned. Lazarus would destroy her. As coven leader, Lazarus decided who was made, who was destroyed and they all played by his rules. They had no choice. If any of them killed their maker, they would die for the effort.

Taking a deep breath, Marcus smiled grimly as he strode into the congested Green Room. He’d find out just how far she’d go to get an audience with Lazarus, an audience that no matter what she did, she would never get. Because once she did Marcus’s bidding, and once he extracted the information he wanted, he would have her his way, on his time, and for as long as he wanted. He wouldn’t stop until his addiction has subsided and any drop of desire he felt for her had been obliterated.

His certainty calmed his savage mood.

Some.

His sharp gaze ran across the females in the room, processing each and every one of them for their desirability. There were several who had made their availability known. He could smell their want before they were even conscious of it. He might just grab one or two to take the edge off. Then he could concentrate with a more level head on the elusive brunette.

Why her, why now? What was so different about her? She had tits and ass just like any other woman.

He grunted in self-deprecation.

It wasn’t her, he told himself. As personal as his desire for her seemed, it was just the growing effects of his change. He was nothing more than a dead man fucking. His isolation and the emptiness inside him drove him to the extremes. Before his change, his libido had been healthy. Since then, it had heightened. Now, it raged.

He slowed his angry stride into the room when he realized he was knocking people over and drawing undue attention. He caught several harsh glares among the men, but none of them was man enough to confront him. No mortal was. Except that conniving little minx he’d just left.

She was smart. He’d sent her hair samples to a private lab, paid a fortune to find out she was a Jane Doe. The prints he’d lifted off the hotel room next to her, same damn thing. The people she worked for had gone to a lot of trouble to bury her. But even a corpse held secrets, and it was just a matter of time before those secrets were revealed.

His blood thrummed as he imagined what he was going to do to her when he got his hands on her. He would turn her inside out and upside down, and then he would fuck her until she screamed her throat raw with pleasure. He fought the animal urge to throw his head back and howl. He would mark her through and through, so thoroughly that no man would be able to touch her again. And then she would know what it felt like to live his flawed, empty existence.

Marcus swore vigorously. His thoughts had gone dangerously off course. Mentally, he shook himself and pushed her as far away from his mind as he could. His personal mission aside, he had work to do for The Solution. And that didn’t involve sex.

Grace Rowland, he reminded himself. That was why he was here.

The thought of eliminating an innocent girl put the kibosh on his raging libido. The thought of the brunette doing it turned his stomach.

“Our guest of honor,” a high-pitched male voice said from the small podium on the north end of the room. “Senator William Rowland, his wife Sophia, and thier daughter Grace.”

Marcus moved to the edge of the room keeping his eyes focused on the podium. Senator Rowland emerged, his politician’s smile frozen on his face. At his side stood a platinum blonde who—every part of him went still.

He raised his nose. His nostrils flared. That scent. Buried deep in his past. But never forgotten. His eyes narrowed. He took several more steps toward the podium. The scent was stronger now, floral feminine. Marcus’s world tilted, then righted as realization dawned. What was left of his heart thudded to his feet. Movement slowed. Air evaporated. Marcus could not take his eyes off the woman who had the same unusually colored eyes as his. It was the only thing good she gave him.

His mother.

He’d seen Sophia Rowland several times in the news, even pictures of her beside the senator. He hadn’t seen the resemblance. Maybe because he wasn’t looking for it. Until now. The last time he saw her he was twelve. She was a brunette then. Younger. Angry. She’d threatened to shoot him on the spot if he didn’t leave. When he refused, she called the cops. That was the day he turned on the world.

Rage so consuming he could barely contain it infused every cell in his body. He hissed in a breath. Next to the smiling woman was her miniature. Grace. His mark. Now the brunette’s mark. He shook his head. His—

sister.

He had a sister? Something moved deep inside him. Emotion he’d rejected even as a human clenched his gut and twisted with such ferocity that he nearly screamed from the pain of it.

He pushed away from the column he’d ducked behind. In the blink of an eye, he was out on the deserted loggia. Grateful for the privacy, Marcus paced the worn tile. The irony hit him hard. His next mark was his own flesh and blood. He could snap his mother’s neck without batting an eyelash. His sister? An innocent? She’d had no hand in the shitty cards dealt her.

Out of nowhere, a bite of betrayal tore into him. Betrayed by the woman who’d given him human life. Why chose Grace and not him? some part of him shouted. But even as he asked, he knew the answer.

Sophia was the daughter of American royalty. In her woeld he was a half-breed. Nothing to her but a dirty little secret. But for how long? He could, with a simple declaration, take everything she held dear away from her.

Abruptly, Marcus threw his head back and laughed. He relished the renewed sense of power. What would the senator do if he knew his wife had screwed a drunk-ass Indian and kicked the child she’d had with him to the curb?

In a moment of clarity, he sobered. Lazarus! Did he know? Such a rhetorical question. Lazarus knew everything. Why else would he have sent Marcus to kill the girl? It was the ultimate test. He wanted to know whether Marcus, for the greater good of The Solution, would kill his own flesh and blood. If he would give up every last vestige of humanity that had once existed within him.

He turned on his heel and stalked back into the Green Room, where he took up his post beside a column no more than thirty feet from the cozy little family. There, among the paying guests, he watched his mother and sister stand beside the man who was the lifeblood of The Solution.

A part of him snapped. Setting his jaw, Marcus stalked closer to the podium, not hearing a word the senator said. Marcus’s sole focus the bitch beside him. When he was no more than ten feet away from her, he stopped, staring hard. Willing her to look at him. The beaming teenager beside her looked at him instead. Her face glowed with youth and exuberance, with the hope of all the possibilities her idyllic future would provide.

Marcus narrowed his eyes. She had everything he’d never had. She was alive and he was dead. Privileged instead of barely existing. Loved rather than scorned. But she wasn’t stupid. She caught Marcus’s venomous gaze and shrank into her mother’s side for protection. Sophia barely paid attention, but finally she tilted her head in his direction. Her gaze slowly swept the room, not in obvious observation but casually, as if wanting to make eye contact with each of her husband’s supporters. When her gaze drifted past him, he stiffened. So, she didn’t recognize him? Why should she? The last time she’d seen him, his hair had been down to his waist, he’d been dirty and tired, could have used a few meals to fatten him up. The only thing they’d had in common had been their blue eyes. That and their utter hatred for each other.

Marcus caught the girl’s gaze again. He nodded so subtly that he wasn’t sure if he really had. Then he moved back into the shadows of the columns and waited.

“He just figured it out,” Jax said.

“Roger that, keep him in your sights, Cassidy,” Dante said.

“He’s not moving, just watching and listening to the speech from the fifth column down from the podium on the right,” Shane said as he easily maneuvered around the throng of guests.

Jax had been too mesmerized by the cacophony of emotions playing out across Marcus Cross’s face to hear a word of the senator’s. His realization of who Sophia Rowland was had torn her apart. And with that realization had come the next one. Gracie. He had a sister. Each time a different emotion had flashed across his features, Jax felt his anguish. His anger. His frustration. The depth of his emotion surprised her. He was a cold-blooded killer. Why the confusion? He didn’t know Gracie. He was not the type to care. It didn’t matter, she told herself. He’d carry out his mission if she didn’t. It was what he did.

If he could read her thoughts, he’d know she’d do everything in her power to stop him. Grace Rowland was not going to die tonight. Jax was, at her core, still a cop. But deeper than that, she was a woman with a deep-seated instinct to protect. In the end, it was what had driven her to ultimately kill Montes. Not revenge, not anger, not retribution. Just simply destroy him before he destroyed more innocent lives.

The senator’s short speech ended. With his wife and daughter on either side of him, he made his rounds, thanking each and every person for their support. On high alert, Jax debated engaging Cross again, in effect giving him the opportunity to call her off. Ultimately, she decided against it. It would show indecision, and indecision equaled weakness. She backed off.

The room had warmed to uncomfortable with the surge of movement among the bodies and the clash of copious scents. “I’m heading out to the loggia for some air, then we’ll meet,” Jax quietly said.

“Roger that,” both Shane and Dante said.

As she stepped out into the cool air, her hair stood straight up on her neck.

“Eighty-six the hit—I have other plans for you,” Cross said from behind her.

An immediate sense of relief hit her but was followed quickly with trepidation. What exactly were his “other plans”? She turned to ask him, but he was gone.

“Get in here, Cassidy,” Shane said in her earpiece. “Something’s going down.”

“Copy.” Jax sprinted into the Green Room to see the senator moving toward the anteroom fast, while his immovable circle of security and staffers surrounded him. Shane weaved his way around from the south end behind her.

“What’s going on?” Jax questioned.

“Not sure,” Dante said. “Stick with them, Cassidy. I’m staying close to Goldielocks. Not taking any chances this is a ruse to draw us out.”

“Roger that,” she softly said and hurried across the crowded space to catch up to the men. Just before the door was about to close, Jax called out, “Senator Rowland?”

Rowland jerked and turned to look at her. He was pale. Sweating. Abruptly, he motioned her inside the sanctum of the anteroom, then held up a manila envelope that was clearly marked Family Values? in big black bold letters.

She looked at the senator. “Where—”

“It was at one of the tables. On an empty seat. Right next to the governor’s wife!”

Jax clenched her fists and thought of Cross. Damn bastard. “We didn’t see—”

“Obviously you didn’t see. With you and your team’s sloppiness, I’m surprised he didn’t step up to the podium and join me.” Hands shaking, Rowland ripped open the envelope and removed a color eight-by-ten photo. As Jax watched, his face turned to ash. “Oh . . . God,” he whispered.

Jax looked over his shoulder and saw what he held in his hands. Damn. Gracie Rowland was not so innocent after all. Even as she cringed, instinct drew her to the open window behind him. Sure enough, a rope was tied to the balustrade. Just hitting the ground two stories below was a man clad from head to toe in black. Her first thought was Cross, but she quickly nixed it. He wouldn’t run; he’d stay and watch. Besides, this guy was half Cross’s size. He took off without looking back.

“Stay here!” she ordered, then grabbed onto the rope and swung herself over the balustrade. Despite the hindrance of her dress and heels, she rappelled down the two stories and was on the ground in seconds. As she did so, she spoke into her mic. “Need backup at the anteroom. I’m in pursuit of a male who went out the back window. Secure the senator and the envelope he has.”

Jax kicked off her Jimmy Choos and took off barefoot after the bad guy. She continued to call out her location, but as she ran down Van Ness, she lost sight of the guy. His scent lingered in the air, and amazingly, she was able to follow it. As she did, she was quite aware that with the exception of the knife strapped to her thigh and her deadly jewelry, she was unarmed and that with each step the neighborhood was getting less and less affluent. And darker.

Still, her vision was surprisingly keen. Scents swirled around her. Some good, most nasty. Garbage, sewage, unwashed bodies. The bad guy’s scent began to fade. She wrinkled her nose and slowed her gait to a jog.

Her vision was sharp, her senses on overload. It felt like more than adrenaline. It felt like she was on some kind of supersensory drug. What the hell was going on?

“Cassidy?” Shane shouted in her ear, “where the hell are you?”

She looked up. She’d been so focused on the chase that she had not given out her location. Bad cop. “I’m headed west. Alley off of Van Ness.”

As she followed the fading scent of the bad guy down the quiet alley, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She was not alone. She felt eyes, everywhere, watching her. If she turned around, she’d be at their mercy; she could only go forward.

“Disengage, Cassidy. Return home,” Dante commanded.

Jax slowed her pace and looked over her shoulder. At least half a dozen gangbangers fanned out thirty feet behind her. “Ah, that’s a negative. I have company at six o’clock, they look like they might want to party.”

“Heading your way, Cassidy,” Shane said. She could hear his heavy footsteps in her earpiece as he ran frantically to locate her.

She eyed her surroundings. It was dark. Dank. Dirty. A perfect place to kill. “The buildings are two-and three-story. They look like a mingling of commercial and apartment. It smells like rotted food, so I must be near a few restaurants.”

“Mamacita, you gonna be in heaven in a minute,” one of her admirers called out. He was closer. His cloying scent of cheap cologne, sweat and pot mixed in a noxious odor. Jax swallowed hard. Not because she was afraid but because he stunk to high heaven.

She cast a quick glance behind her. There were more of them now, and they were closing in. “I’m going to make a run for it, boys. I have too many unfriendlies gathering.” She took off. She was fast, but in bare feet, in a littered alley, her pace was stalled by broken glass and debris. Heavy footsteps thudded behind her. She broke at the end of the alley and came around to a street corner. She looked up at the sign to find it missing. Both ways. She darted across the street just as the blaring of a horn and headlights flooded her senses. Blinded by the light, Jax reacted instinctively and leapt over the swerving car.

No one was more surprised than her. What the hell? When had she become superwoman?

She didn’t stop to ponder it. Her adrenaline was amped up so high that she felt she could do anything, including outrunning the pack of hoods. She ran down the sidewalk and turned left. She ate up the sidewalk and almost closed her eyes at the sheer power of her arms and legs carrying her away. But then she turned another corner and slammed into a hard wall of chests.

Hard, callused hands grabbed her. She flung them off, but a hard ring of bodies circled her. Panic set in fast and intense.

The last time she’d been surrounded like this, Montes had pushed his animals aside and, with them watching, he’d violated her in the most terrible of ways.

She felt faint for the slightest second. Her pulse raced out of control. Her chest heaved so painfully she couldn’t breathe. Yet, somewhere in the deepest darkest reaches of her soul, a calmness overtook her.

Straightening from her crouching position, Jax snatched the knife from her thigh sheath and tossed it back and forth from hand to hand. They were straight up gangbangers. Nortenos by their red bandanas. “Ven con mama,” she taunted. In the air across her neck, she made a quick slicing motion with the knife. She had their attention. As she brought the blade across her jaw, she jabbed it at the guy to her immediate right. Jabbed it straight into his neck, yanked it out and kicked the thug closest to her with her right heel in the nuts. When he grabbed his groin, she stabbed the back of his neck. As she yanked out the blade, Jax whirled around in a crouched position moving menacingly toward the five who remained standing.

It was enough to evoke bedlam.

“Who wants to go next?” she softly asked.

She didn’t wait for an answer. Surprise and the unexpected were her biggest weapons. She grabbed the closest one with her left hand, yanking him right into her knife. He squealed like a pig. She shoved him backward and took two more out. The two left standing backed up. She tossed the knife back and forth and stepped toward them. “C’ mon, boys, you aren’t afraid of little ol’ me, are you?”

“Cassidy?” Shane breathlessly asked. “What’s your damn 20?”

Jax laughed. The two men who stood undecided in front of her looked confused. She tapped her right ear. “My partner’s all worried about me. He wants to know my location. Should I tell him to just look for your carcasses?”

Inexplicably, Jax did not want to be found. She was high. High as Mount Everest. On top of the world. Undefeatable. She didn’t want the adrenaline rush to end. She wanted to exact justice. She looked at the two thugs standing in front of her. Normally the gangsters carried.

“No heat?” she asked.

They looked at one another, then at her. “We were told no heat,” the smaller of the two said, shaking his head.

“Shut the fuck up,” his buddy warned.

So, this was no random meeting, was it? “Told? By whom?”

“No way, puta,” the bigger one said, shaking his head and stepping back until he hit the wall of the building.

Jax moved in. “I really don’t care for that word.” In a lightning-quick move, she jabbed the big one in the throat with the heel of her hand. He dropped, gasping for breath. That left the little one with the answers. She moved in on him, pushing him back until his back hit the wall of a building. He did not try to fight her. He just stared wide-eyed at her. When his stare lifted past her right shoulder and he turned white, then crossed himself, mumbling, “Dios mio,” Jax crouched and turned.

Her own heart felt as if it had dropped twenty stories to the ground. She too crossed herself. “Holy mother of God,” she mouthed. And wondered if this night could get any worse.