I jumped to my feet, dragging the chair with me, and rammed my head into Jin’s torso. He shoved me by the shoulders so the legs of my chair jounced back to the ground, jarring my entire frame. My shoulders screamed from the impact.

“You have nerve,” Jin said. “I’ll give you that.” He pulled on his sleeve cuffs, ran his hands over his expensive suit jacket. “I kill people who get in my way.”

“Kill me, then.” I sneered at him, not caring if I died as long as I could protect my friends.

He raised his eyebrows. “Not before you answer some questions first.” Jin slanted his head, scrutinizing me with those sharp eyes. I’d seen Daiyu do the same to me, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder from the intimacy of it. “I want to know,” Jin said, “why you seem so familiar to me. Why you sound so familiar to me.”

I shook my head to bring myself back into focus, but said nothing.

He hauled me up by my shirt collar, grasping hard enough that I choked. “You’re that punk kid that stole three hundred million from me,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “The features are a little off from the image, but . . .” Jin narrowed his eyes.

I should have been afraid. Instead, I felt the fury rise in me, being face-to-face with the man who had ordered Dr. Nataraj murdered, who might as well have helped kill my own mother the way he kept meis down like roaches beneath the heel of his expensive shoe. A man who cared more that he had money stolen than a daughter kidnapped. Jin didn’t loosen his chokehold on my shirt, and my vision began to swim. Mustering the last of my strength, I reared back and head-butted him again right between the eyes. Pain exploded in my forehead; Jin reeled back, cursing.

I stumbled and fell into the chair hard, laughing. But no sound came. My limbs had turned boneless, and my ears rang.

Jin was rubbing his forehead, and I regretted I hadn’t hit his nose or mouth to draw blood. Still, I felt a smug satisfaction to see him in pain.

“I will root out each and every one of your friends,” Jin said in a cold, calm voice. “They won’t die as pathetically as you will, but they’ll spend the rest of their lives in a jail cell.”

It didn’t matter what he threatened me with. But sick fear cramped my empty stomach when he mentioned my friends. What could I do? How could I warn them? I was good as dead.

The door pushed open, brushing Jin’s shoulder, and Da Ge entered with a bottle of water. His eyes darted around the room, taking in how my position had changed.

“I’m going home for the night,” Jin said.