The hall ended and she rounded the corner, to a winding staircase that ended in a foyer of travertine marble, the front door so massive it could have been a drawbridge. And this home might as well be a castle. She was trapped inside with the king and his guards, and at the king’s mercy. She gripped the banister, and as she took the steps one at a time, the packaged poncho gripped in her other hand, Ellie felt as though her soul had departed her body, felt as if she were watching her corporeal self trudge reluctantly downstairs, heading to her doom—a prisoner on her way to meet the firing squad.

Even with her limited time as a street cop, Ellie had seen the myriad ways people hurt and killed one another, and yet there had always been a part of her that clung to the age-old belief that good always found a way to triumph over evil. She remembered something someone had said about how when you found yourself in hell, the key was to keep going, and for a reason she couldn’t fathom, let alone explain, she felt a momentary calmness. She would get through this. She had to get through this in order to find her brother.

That fragile, scraped-together calmness shattered when she reached Anton.

The odors hit her first—wet, coppery blood and the unmistakable stench of excrement. Anton, stripped of his clothes and bloodied and beaten and God only knew what else, sat in the center of the main living area, bound to a high-backed dining chair with plastic cuffs that had cut into his wrists and forearms and ankles from thrashing in pain against the restraints. His head hung forward, and he was drooling blood and saliva, his face unrecognizable. There was no question it was him. She recognized the tattoos—the ones that weren’t covered in blood. His blood. God, there was so much of it.

Her stomach lurched and she looked away, across the room at the perfect blue afternoon sky lying beyond the windows and French doors. A man with thinning hair and wearing dress pants and a blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up, stood by the door, hands folded across his chest, a nine strapped inside a leather shoulder holster. Sebastian pointed at the man as he charged past her and said, “The hell’s wrong with you, Jack?” The room was empty of furniture; Sebastian’s voice echoed through the wide, cavernous space. “You want my guest to pass out? Open a couple of windows, will you? Get some fresh air in here.”

The man named Jack opened the pair of French doors for the large viewing deck that overlooked the ocean. Ellie could see only the sky, but she could smell the ocean, the salt and seaweed, riding on the cool breeze blowing from the water—bright, clean, and peaceful scents that belonged in this vaulted room, with its beautiful architecture, and now suddenly didn’t.

Sebastian turned to her. “Come, come,” he said, beckoning with a hand. “He’s not going to bite, I promise.”