I longed to lean closer and whisper reassurances, but Sonny was out there, watching. I had to play this cool. Especially if she wasn’t.

“The club’s this way,” I said.

She fell into step beside me. I pointed out the couple across the road, commenting on their clothes. She said little. I yammered on, filling the dead air, hoping to calm her. Ahead, the couple crossed the road and went down the side street. We were approaching the service road.

“Bet that’s a shortcut,” I said. “Let’s take it.”

She didn’t resist and I didn’t expect her to. Getting off the street would give the Cabal team a chance to swoop in.

We started down the narrow road. It was dimly lit, but not dark. Paige walked briskly, with renewed confidence. The end was in sight, her nervousness fading. It seemed, though, as if I’d caught it. Sweat beaded along my lip.

I focused on the door ahead.

It was about eighty feet away now. I knew it should be cracked open, but from here it was impossible to see.

When I got closer, I was supposed to steer her that way, then as we passed, Jaz would throw open the door, grab Paige, then grab me. He’d pull us both inside and throw me aside. I’d pretend to hit my head and pass out. That was critical to his plan—that Paige have no idea I was involved, so she couldn’t finger me later. I had to be a co-victim until Lucas was dead and I could be “freed” while Paige remained a captive.

None of that, though, would ever come to pass, because between here and there, I had every expectation of rescue. Would they come while we were still in the lane? Or wait until Jaz pulled us inside? Either way—

Something moved to my right, the blur of a figure seeming to leap from the wall itself. I swallowed a yelp and wheeled, expecting to see a tactical team member rappelling down from the roof.

Instead, I saw an open door and a dark figure within it. Paige shrieked. Fingers clamped down on my arm. I opened my mouth to tell my rescuer that Jaz was farther down, waiting. But it was Jaz standing there. Holding me.

Paige gibbered in fear, and I had an insane urge to shout at her to stop because I couldn’t think with her chaos waves so strong, and I needed to think, but the moment I could think, I realized that help wasn’t coming, that she wouldn’t be screeching and clawing at Jaz if it was.