“You think you can just walk away from me like that, you bitch?” His voice is a low growl, and he yanks me closer, causing me to lose my balance. I try to scream, but the sound is swallowed by the pounding music. I struggle against his hold.
“I’ll do worse,” I gasp, pulling away and making a frantic dash toward the bar. Honor and I were supposed to take a self-defense class at the Y last month, but we kept flaking. Too late for that now. I stumble through the crowd, my heart beating double time. Everything around me warps—neon lights cast twisted shadows that feel like old, half-forgotten nightmares.
Suddenly, I’m back in Miracle Solutions Hospital, small and vulnerable. Dr. Don looms over me, his face obscured by bright lights and a surgical mask, a witness to all my worst trauma. Antiseptic fills my nose, there’s a distant beeping of heart monitors. I’m a child, terrified and alone, each shadow a potential threat. The overwhelming fear from those days surges through me, blurring my vision, making it hard to breathe.
I reach the bar and grasp its edge, the cool surface grounding me momentarily in the present. The bartender shoots me a concerned look, but before I can ask for help, a rough hand clamps down on my shoulder. I whip around, and Freddy’s furious face is right there, inches from mine.
For a split second, in my dazed state, past and present blur together, and he morphs into Dr. Don, with his pale eyes, greasy shoulder-length gray hair, sweaty hands, and pitying smile. Dr.Don was the stuff of my nightmares—perfect for this House of Horrors—but he was one hundred percent real.
For a second, I can’t tell where I am—and then Freddy’s voice jolts me back to the present.
“Let’s find somewhere we can talk, babe.” His hand roughly grabs my wrist, his fingers locking me in like a vise, and I feel my bag drop. To anyone in the crowd, it might look like we’re dancing—the way he’s got his arm around my waist, his smile wide like it’s all in good fun as he swiftly hauls me toward the asylum.
But nobody’s looking, not even the bartender.
“Stop!” My words are swallowed by the pounding dance music and oblivious crowd. My heels scrape against the floor, my entire body resists, but Freddy is stronger.
He pulls me back inside through the door and down a dark hallway, pinning me against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
“Finally, some privacy,” his says, and the fact that his voice is so calm, almost relaxed, is somehow worse. “All I want to do is get to know you better.”
When I open my mouth to scream, his hand clamps down on it. And that’s when it hits me—this may be a fake House of Horrors, but I’m in real danger.
Four
Axe
Back in my CIA days, when I was neck-deep in code cracking, and later in private security gigs across every sketchy corner of the world, I could practically smell trouble before it hit. I had a knack for sensing when a cover was about to be blown, when an ambush was lurking, or when a mission was going straight to hell. But that talent doesn’t seem to carry over to the tech world—aye, I can spot a mole from eighty meters, but my radar for office drama is completely useless.
Maybe it’s because the stakes just aren’t as high.
But here, at this ridiculous party, that old instinct is kicking in again.
I’m not the only one. Plenty of agents talk about this sixth sense. I imagine it’s a Darwinian survival instinct, honed by experience.
The annual SynthoTech/Dark Matter Entertainment bash is my least favorite night of the year. The only upside is that once it’s done, I’m free from this nonsense for another 364 days. The party committee, in their infinite wisdom, picked the Ravenswood Asylum as the venue. Despite the way I tend to do things, I’m no fan of horror.
Life is dirty, and I often have blood on my hands. Why mess about with the fake stuff when the real thing is never far away?
“I’m going to find Honor,” Strike says from behind me. Petrov’s sorted—he’ll be chucked out with the rest of the night’s rubbish. Our business is done here, even if things didn’t go exactly to plan. “I’m not too worried. She’ll do damage control with Josie.”
“Aye,” I say, but I’m barely paying attention. I’m already halfway down the hall, following the alarm bells blaring in my head—or, more precisely, in my nose.
Something’s happened to Josie. I can smell it.
I take the stairs to the back patio, party central. I’ve purposely been avoiding this area—too many hands to shake, too many people who want to either pull me to the dance floor or chat AI. These aren’t my mates—I only have one of those—and I can think of a thousand better ways to spend this evening. Billiards or boxing or on my boat with Strike. Home with a whiskey neat, in front of my computer, untangling a difficult piece of code. Working out in my gym, burning off my rage with weights. This is a spectacle of forced merriment, but for me, it’s an introvert’s nightmare. The real action is in the shadows, where blood and secrets flow thicker than whiskey.
And tonight the scent of trouble is strong. Josie is somewhere out there, and I need to find her before the night takes an even darker turn.
I thread through the crowd, dodging people shouting hellos and “Hey, Axe!” and even one lass who brazenly slips her hands into my pockets and tries to whisper in my ear. I grab her wrists and push them away. Out of the corner of my eye, I clock that she’s beautiful, in that TikTok filter way that has flattened so many women—tight skin, lip implants, jaw contouring, fake lashes.
Not my type, even if she wasn’t so handsy.
I glance around, desperate now. It’s not Petrov’s men; I’d knowif they were here. But something’s off. Josie’s no damsel, even with those big doe eyes. She could kill me with a look. Still, I know she needs help.
I dodge yet another bloke trying to chat about AI, not bothering to slow down—seriously, can’t they take a hint? I’m stumbling through fake smiles and masked faces. The dance floor’s heaving, and the music’s so loud it’s rattling in my skull. How this noise became part of my job, I’ll never know. Tech used to be about the product, not the image.
My eyes scan the crowd around the bar, teeming with people. No sign of her. Then I see it.
