Victor rose, swept around her body to the wide glass doors. But they didn’t open.

There was no escape.

* * *

MITCH didn’t know what to do.

His car idled a hundred feet beyond the high metal gates of the EON

complex as the rain turned from a drizzle to a downpour.

He sat behind the wheel, now jury-rigging the butler’s small black box to hack the gate’s frequency instead of tracking signals. That would get him closer to the building, but it still didn’t answer the problem of how he was going to get in, or rather, how he was going to get Victor out. Or even where to start looking for him.

There was a guard in a security booth inside the gate, and who knew how many officers inside the building, and it would take a hell of a lot more than a smartphone and a hacking fob to crack the security around a place like EON. Which meant, if Mitch was getting in, he’d have to use force.

He was still wracking his brain for the best of several bad plans when the rain eased a little, enough for Mitch to make out the building’s front doors—and the distinctive figure standing just beyond them.

Victor.

Mitch hit the button on the black box, and the gates to EON began to slide open. He gunned the engine and shifted into drive, tires skidding in the rain before lurching forward through the gate, and straight toward EON.

Victor leapt out of the way just before Mitch crashed his car through the front doors. The glass, reinforced as it was, didn’t shatter, but it did buckle, bow, and as Mitch reversed the car, Victor was able to pry the doors open and slip through.

He threw himself into the front seat.

Mitch’s foot was already on the gas.

The guard from the security tower was running toward them, but Victor flicked his hand, as if the soldier were only a bug, a nuisance, and the other man collapsed.

Mitch’s car, its front end a mess of crumpled metal, barreled through the open gate and drove away.

He checked the rearview mirror—nobody was behind them, not yet.

He glanced sideways at Victor.

“That’s a lot of blood.”

“Most of it is Dominic’s,” replied Victor grimly.

Confusion washed over Mitch. He didn’t want to ask. Didn’t really need to. The only answer that mattered was in Victor’s eyes as they avoided his.

“Where’s Sydney?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You drop me off,” said Victor, “and you find her, and then you get the hell out of this city.”

“Drop you off where?”

Victor pulled the invitation from his back pocket. It was crumpled, and bloodstained, but the gold lettering on the front was clear.

“The Old Courthouse.”

XVI

THE LAST EVENING

XVII

DOWNTOWN MERIT