Erik vanished from her mind.
All that existed were her pounding heart and the dark shape crossing the room. She trembled, and not from the cold. He unsettled her. Not like Erik did, but as if the ground under her was buckling.
Still, she couldn’t move.
Every rotten thing her life had become—all of it traced back to that night. To him. And now he was walking toward her like this was inevitable.
He didn’t look like a monster. At a glance, he looked her age—dark hair, pale olive skin. His black eyes burned. With every step, horror twisted deeper in her middle. She reminded herself that, even if she’d been wrong about a lot in her life, she wasn’t wrong about him. This, at least, she could be certain of.
Satisfaction surged. She’d been right all along, despite what everyone had said. Detectives, experts, and doctors insisted the man she described was a delusion, a story twisted by trauma and drugs. They called her unstable or a liar. Vindication hit so hard it bordered on nausea. He was real, with a powerful aura. She wasn’t high. This wasn’t a hallucination. For one ugly second, she savored her proof before survival took over.
Threat radiated off him like heat from asphalt. He wanted her to feel his approach, which should have terrified her more.
Instead, it made her hold her ground.
She considered fleeing. Maybe he collected telepaths as trophies. Maybe she was next. The unknown made him more lethal, and hungry men broke in unforeseeable ways.
However, curiosity sank its claws in deep. She was rooted to the wall, away from Erik, away from the drunk, distracted crowd, watching him close the distance.
Ten paces.
Then, abruptly, he stopped.
In the middle of the crowd with music circling him, he stopped and snapped his head to the side as if someone had pulled a chain. Anger flared through his aura, sudden and bright. His lip curled as an inhuman growl shaped his mouth.
A vibration touched the edge of Audrey’s awareness. There was another powerful presence here—another telepath.
Was it her mother? Someone else? Something worse?
Her insides screamed.
Run.
She’d learned not to ignore that voice. This time, the instinct felt tactical. She didn’t want this fight now. Not with Alex’s money surrounded by a crowd too drunk to care.
A rough hand grasped her elbow, wrenching her around into a solid mass of muscle.
Erik.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he growled into her ear, fingers biting into her arm. “I swear to God, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He dragged her through the crowd, past the bar, into the warren of back hallways. As they crossed the club, the sound shifted—music surrendering to cold concrete and stale ventilation. At the end of the corridor, Erik kicked open a steel door and hurled her into the alley. Night slapped her, and a damp, bitter wind stabbed through her coat and Alex’s sweatshirt.
Erik’s thoughts turned rough and loud in the emptiness. When he got angry, his mind slipped into Swedish with its coarse consonants and clipped syllables. She caught enough.
Fucking whore, making me look bad when the bosses are here.
He slammed her against the brick. The impact rattled her teeth, hair whipping her mouth as she twisted away. She duckedhis first swing, which sliced the air over her cheek. She came up ready to strike, but he got a fist in her hair and snatched her face up.
Grabbing her by the hair, Erik cracked her skull against the car. Glass splintered into a spiderweb. Pain flared at her temple. Warm blood flowed down her cheek. “You think you can skip out on me?” he snarled, pressing his arm to her chest, hand jamming between her legs. “Like I don’t own this pussy?”
She put a bloody hand on the car. “Jesus Christ, calm down,” she growled. “I have your money.”
“Where is it?”
She motioned to the duffel but held it back. The bag meant more drugs—a safety net. If she gave it too soon, he’d still hurt her. If she held it too long, he might decide both money and body were problems.
His eyes narrowed. “You skimming? Working for someone else now?”
