The alley dumped out onto a busier street.
Colin veered right, barreling through the propped-open rear door of a restaurant.
Voices exploded in Spanish.
A cook shouted as Duke followed, the hot air thick with the smell of cilantro, lime, and sizzling oil.
Colin skidded on the damp tile, arms flailing. His shoe lost traction on a strip of dropped onion.
He went down on one knee.
Duke closed the gap.
Colin bolted again—out a side exit this time—then scrambled toward a chain-link fence behind the restaurant. He grabbed the metal with shaky hands, trying to climb, expensive dress shoes slipping on the links.
Duke caught Colin’s ankle just as he reached the top.
Colin yelped and kicked wildly, but Duke yanked him down.
They hit the pavement together. Colin’s palms slapped the concrete, his breath tearing out of him in a strangled gasp.
Duke planted a knee on the man’s back, pinning him in place. “Enough. You’re done.”
Then Colin twisted his head up, terror blazing in his eyes—and whispered, voice cracking as he said, “It wasn’t me.”
“Where in the world did Duke just run off to?” Rupert’s voice was loud enough that the night-shift receptionist flinched. “Did he just chase someone? In public? Where people havephones? This is how scandals start!”
Andi didn’t respond.
Instead, she strode toward the revolving doors, worry coursing through her.
Before she could step through, Ranger’s hand closed gently—but firmly—around her arm. “Andi. Let Duke handle it.”
She hated his words. But Ranger wasn’t wrong.
Duke had training. Chase-and-subdue situations were practically his native language.
“Handle what?” Rupert demanded, pacing in frantic little loops, his leather portfolio clutched to his chest like a flotation device. “Why is everyone behaving like cryptic woodland creatures? Ihatecryptic!”
Andi glanced through the glass doors but saw . . . nothing.
Only the quiet, downtown San Francisco street.
Duke had vanished into the city.
Andi turned toward her team. “We should go up to our rooms until we know more.”
“But—” Rupert began.
“Now, Rupert.”
Something in her tone froze him mid-protest.
He nodded jerkily and followed as they moved toward the elevators, still muttering about liability clauses and ruined Yelp reviews but no longer shrill. They climbed inside, still listening to him.
Finally, the elevator dinged at their floor.
They stepped out into the carpeted hallway, Rupert shuffling behind them and lamenting his shattered itinerary.
