She looked at him as he stood up—his knees, his spine unfolding, extending impossibly, twenty . . . thirty feet tall. A Norse god. He wasn’t real. None of this was real. Then Kitty looked at the box again and saw Angelo Gallo’s black curls poking out over the top. She found a fraction of her voice and husked something. Not a word. Not a scream. Just a weak, frightened hiss.

Johan pulled his cell phone from the front pocket of his jeans. His thumb tapped across the screen, texting someone, and without looking at Kitty he said:

“We need to talk.”

“Hsssk,” she said.

Johan returned his phone to his pocket. He walked over to Kitty. She tried getting to her feet, but he knocked her down and planted his foot on her chest.

The intercom buzzed and Kitty jerked beneath Johan’s foot as if a gun had been fired. He reached down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and dragged her across the floor toward the apartment door. Kitty, who still hadn’t found her voice, found some fight, at least. She popped to her knees and stumbled along beside him, lashing out with her fists. Johan absorbed her blows—they thumped harmlessly off his arm and thigh—before responding with a strike of his own. It was a crisp backhand slap that came from beyond his shoulder and whipped across her face. Her head snapped to one side. She felt the inside of her cheek split—the taste of blood splashed across her tongue—and the lights in the apartment dimmed for a long second.

Two more yanks, and Johan had reached the intercom. He didn’t speak into it, only pushed the button that unlocked the main door downstairs, using his knuckle so that he didn’t leave a fingerprint. This small detail fell like a raindrop onto her fear. He meant to kill her. No doubt about it.

“Johan,” she managed, gasping his name on half a breath. “Please . . . please.”

“You stole from me, Kitty.”

“Just . . . just a little . . .”

He let go of her hair and she slumped to the floor. She tried to crawl away but he dropped to his haunches, clamped his hand beneath her jaw, and swiveled her head so that she faced him. A perilous light shone in his eyes, and amid all her consternation and fear, Kitty remembered what she’d said to him on the night they’d met: You’re too dangerous. The blood in her mouth tasted oily and sour.

“You stole from me,” he said again.

The apartment door opened and Ruben Osterfeld—Sly Boy’s right-hand man—walked in. Kitty blinked, trying to make sense of these illogical pieces. What the hell was going on here? Ruben flexed his hands inside leather gloves. He glanced at Kitty, but couldn’t look her in the eye.

“What the fuck, Ruben?” she murmured.

He wrinkled his nose and ignored her.