Johnathon doesn’t look away from me.
I do.
The sound echoes, laughter threaded through it, voices carried and distorted by the cavernous space. Casino overflow, I think. Partiers drifting where they shouldn’t.
Johnathon exhales faintly, annoyed. “This city never shuts up.”
The dogs stiffen.
Klause turns first, his attention snapping toward the music. Artemis follows, body taut, ears forward, eyes fixed on the darkness where the sound pulses.
“Klause,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t come back to my side.
Instead, he steps forward—and crosses the edge of the light.
“Artemis,” I whisper.
She hesitates for half a second. Then she follows him.
My breath catches.
They move deeper into the dark, their shapes swallowed piece by piece until there is nothing left of them.
“Klause,” I call again, sharper now.
Nothing.
They’ve never disobeyed me.
My heart begins to race, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. A cold, crawling feeling settling low in my gut. Danger surrounds us.
Chapter Six
Trey
Kiss Kiss – Holly Valance
5 minutes earlier…
We’re buried beneath the casino, several levels down where the lights thin to a jaundiced glow and the shadows gather thick enough to conceal anything that doesn’t wish to be found, which is convenient, because concealment is exactly what this is.
An army, quiet and patient.
Fifteen men spread through the concrete arteries around us, armed and watchful, with more stationed inside the casinoabove and others positioned on the roof, their presence forming a living perimeter of eyes and weapons and intent, the kind of preparation that only ever exists when someone important is about to bleed.
I sit in the front seat, restless energy moving through me like an electrical current I cannot ground, my leg bouncing despite every effort to still it, the engine silent, the interior dim, the air stale with anticipation and the faint, metallic scent of gun oil.
Niko is late.
I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes, if only to contain the impatience threatening to splinter through my composure, and after a moment I turn my head slightly, cracking one eye open to look at Chace beside me.
“You know what I need, brother,” I murmur, my voice threaded with exaggerated gravity and something far less innocent beneath it, because if I don’t reach for levity now, I may very well reach for violence too soon. “I think the occasion calls for it.”
I smile, open and hopeful and entirely unapologetic.
Chace doesn’t even blink.
