The look Marc tossed my way was so cold, my hands started to shake. “Kaci’s waiting.” Then he stomped out the door.

Jace hauled himself to his feet, scowling. “I deserved that. But I won’t take another one from him.”

And with that, I lost the battle against tears.

“It’ll be okay.” Jace tried to fold me into his arms, but I stepped out of reach.

“No. It won’t.”

He held my gaze; he wouldn’t let me wallow. “It won’t be the same, but it will be okay.”

I could only nod and head for the car.

“I’m gonna lock up. I’ll be right there,” he called after me.

“Marc already…” I stopped on the top step when I heard a familiar metallic click.

No…

As Marc closed the back hatch, blocking Lance from sight, I ran back through the kitchen. Jace knelt beside Dean, who still wheezed through bubbles of his own blood. “You ever touch her again, and neither she nor Marc will have a chance to kill you.”

I sucked in a breath to say his name, to stop whatever was about to happen, but I was too slow. Jace shoved the blade of the folding knife through Dean’s exposed left cheek and pulled it forward, slicing all the way through to the corner of his mouth.

Dean screamed and gurgled violently, and this time the sound carried. Everyone could hear him.

Jace flinched when he saw me watching him in shock. Then he jogged across the room and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”

Marc was walking back from the woods with the backpack he’d retrieved, but when he saw us coming—and heard Dean screaming—he raced back to the car and opened the front door for me. But instead of rounding toward the driver’s seat, he climbed into the back without a word. He wouldn’t sit with me.

Jace slid into the front seat and started the engine, then slammed the gearshift into Drive. “Where’d you park?” He stomped on the gas and took the turn around the building too quickly.

“The road we were on yesterday.” Marc slammed the buckle on his seat belt home, then grabbed the door grip as I struggled to untangle my own belt.

The car skidded onto gravel, then spun out as the back door of the middle building flew open. Another of Malone’s enforcers jogged down the steps and stared at us for a moment. But that was all it took for him to recognize me and Marc. He shouted something I couldn’t hear over the engine, then raced toward the row of cars I’d disabled.

Our tires caught purchase on the gravel and the rental shot forward. More enforcers poured from the middle building, and I didn’t recognize most of them. How many had Malone hired?

We shot past the middle building, then past the main house and onto the concrete driveway. With my belt now buckled, I twisted to stare out the rear windshield as we raced toward the road. The front door of the main house flew open and Malone appeared on the quaint porch, followed by an openly sobbing Patricia Malone.