Rami laughed. “It can befor some.”
From the ring, Gemma popped out the stone via a small lever on its underbelly, and the gem dropped into the beverage, disintegrating in half a second.
“Well, it was nice to formally meet you.” She nodded to Ivan and hurried away before Rami could reply.
Gemma walked straight for Christian, pulling him into a dance again and holding onto him for fear her legs would give out.
“What’d he say?” Christian asked, scanning her face.
“What I expected,” Gemma lied, keeping her gaze on Rami as they swayed.
“You all right after hearing all that?”
Gemma whipped her head back to face Christian. “What? Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”
Christian stopped dancing, his brows furrowed. “Something’s up. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just asked—” Gemma glanced back to Rami in time to watch as he handed the drink to Ivan and took a second from the bartender.
No. The blood rushed from her body. Her head swam. Her vision tunneled.
Ivan turned to speak with an older woman as he took a sip of what had, apparently, been his drink.
Almost immediately, Ivan stumbled backward, clutching his throat. The glass shattered to the floor, and the lieutenant commander followed. The woman he’d been speaking to screamed as he seized momentarily.
Then stilled.
In what felt like slow motion, Rami turned his head, his gaze locking on Gemma.
He knows. Oh, stars, he knows. Heat flushed through her likean oven.
She needed to run. Now.
“I’m so sorry,” Gemma said to Christian, her voice cracking.
She stepped out of his hold and raced for the exit.
“What—Gemma, wait!” Christian reached for her; his fingertips grazed her arms. But she couldn’t go back, no matter how badly her heart told her to turn around and fall into his arms.
Tears ran down her face as she sprinted for the stairs that would take her to Zion’s main level, where she could escape to Perileos and pray the Dissent would hide her until the search for Ivan’s killer ceased. She had no idea how many floors she had to climb down, but she had no choice.
Her heels pounded against the hard surface as she bolted down the stairs, her chin trembling with each floor she passed.
She’d failed. Everything she’d worked so hard for was for nothing. And not only would Nadine’s death never be avenged, but now she’d lost Christian and her friends and a life free of poverty.
A sob escaped her as a door flung open and guards stepped into the stairwell, their guns trained on her.
No, no, no.
She spun around and raced back up, but the door on the next level opened as well.
Gemma was trapped.
“Please, I didn’t mean—” Pain as hot as lightning shot through her spine.
Blackness overtook her.
A cold breeze flitted across Gemma’s spine, snapping her awake. She hung upside down in the same room where Moriah had died, her knees slung over a metal bar, her wrists bound behind her back and attached to her ankles.
