Page 101 of Velvet Vaughn

“That’s what took the last two hours. Untangling whose name sits at the top of it.” Tyler exhaled, and even through the speakers, she could hear him bracing for what came next. “I found the ringleader, Anja. The person running this whole thing. Not the middle management. The head of it.”

Anja’s grip tightened on the wheel. Beside her, Remi shifted, his eyes fixed on the dashboard display, willing Tyler to spit the name out faster.

“It’s not Brad,” she said slowly, testing the ground before she let herself step onto it.

“Oh, no. Much bigger. It’s Curtis Lennox.”

The world tilted completely off its axis. The wheel jerked hard under Anja’s grip as the Escalade swerved toward the shoulder, gravel spraying up under the tires.

“Anja!” Remi’s grunt cut through the ringing in her ears as he slammed into the door, his hand shooting out to brace against the dash.

She wrenched the wheel back, overcorrecting, the SUV fishtailing once before she forced it straight, her pulse hammering so hard she could feel it behind her eyes. Beside her, Remi had gone pale beneath his hospital pallor, one hand pressed hard against his bandaged side where the seatbelt had cinched tight against the wound.

“Sorry.” The word tried to come and died in her throat, because “sorry” belonged to a world where the ground hadn’t just dropped out from under both of them. She couldn’t force air past the horror crashing through her fast enough to manage even that much.

Leo.

He’d left the hospital over an hour ago with a rideshare and a hopeful heart, walking straight into that man’s house to deliver devastating news in person because he loved him like a father. Leo was alone, unarmed, and sitting across a desk from the actual architect of everything that had happened. He would break the news that his fixer was dead and the operation was unraveling, with absolutely no idea that the monster in the room was the one behind the desk and not the one they’d already caught.

“Anja? You still there? I know it’s a lot, but honestly, it’s a good thing I caught this while he’s in the hospital. If we’d waited even another day—”

“He’s out.” The words scraped out of her raw and shaking, the only two she could manage.

A beat of silence crackled through the line. “What?”

“Curtis isn’t in the hospital anymore.” Anja’s voice climbed, cracking around the edges as the full weight of it consumed her. “Leo is with him. Right now.”

“Oh my God. Anja, get him out of there. Get him out of there right now.”