Not calm. Still.
The kind that comes right before violence.
I move fast through the corridor behind the terrace, every step clipped and purposeful. The bathroom is empty. The service hall is empty. A startled waiter nearly drops a tray when I stop him.
“The woman who came through here. Dark hair. Black dress. Where did she go?”
He blinks. “She used the staff exit, sir. Just now.”
Cold cuts through me. I’m already moving before he finishes the sentence.
The back door bangs open against the stone wall as I step outside into the night. The air is colder here, sharper, the path behind the estate dimly lit and too quiet. Gravel crunches under my shoes as I head toward the road.
Then I hear it. A muffled, painfully familiar cry.
Zatanna.
Every nerve in my body lights up at once.
I break into a run.
The path empties onto the road,f and halfway down I catch the shape of a dark sedan angled at the curb. Rear door open. Oneman already inside. Another outside, one hand clamped over Zatanna’s mouth, the other dragging her toward the car while she kicks and twists in his grip.
My vision narrows. There are moments in a man’s life when thought becomes unnecessary.
This is one of them.
I hit the first man before he even sees me coming.
My shoulder drives into his ribs with enough force to send him sprawling across the hood. Zatanna stumbles free with a strangled gasp, but I don’t spare her more than a glance—not yet, not until I know she’s on her feet.
The second man comes out of the car with a gun.
But he’s too slow.
I catch his wrist, slam it against the door frame, and hear bone crack before the weapon even discharges. The shot goes wild into the dark. He screams. I wrench the gun free and drive the butt into his face hard enough to drop him.
“Get behind me,” I snap.
Zatanna is breathing hard, shaken, one hand at her throat, but she obeys instantly.
Good girl.
The first man recovers faster than I want. He launches at me from the side, desperate and ugly, and we go down against the gravel in a mess of fists and momentum. He’s trained enough to be dangerous, but not enough to win. I drive an elbow into his throat, roll, and hammer three clean strikes into his jaw until his body goes limp.
Footsteps. Another one.
I come up fast just as a third man rounds the front of the sedan. Knife in hand. He hesitates when he sees the other two down.
That hesitation costs him.
I grab the gun from the second man’s slack fingers and level it between us.
“Drop it.”
He doesn’t.
He glances past me, toward Zatanna.
