Page 63 of Velvet Vaughn

Anja lifted her phone and took eleven photographs in quick succession under the cover of a woman texting.

She sent the clearest three to Tyler with two words: Run him.

The answer took eighteen minutes, which for Tyler was practically an apology for the delay.

Anthony Reyes was VP of Strategic Partnerships at ApexPlay, a Vegas-based sports-betting platform expanding aggressively into newly legal markets.

Anja glanced up to see Reyes laugh at something across the table. Webb did not laugh back. Why was a betting executive having lunch with the agent who had poached Leo’s client?

#

Remi pegged the sedan in his mirror three blocks after leaving Pinnacle’s garage. It was a nondescript, white four-door riding two cars back.

“You good?” Leo asked, obviously catching something in Remi’s posture that hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago.

“Might be nothing.” Remi eased off the accelerator, letting the gap between the Escalade and the traffic ahead widen. He watched the mirror instead of the road for one long moment. “Just want to check something.”

He crossed the Escalade into the left lane without signaling in advance. The sedan followed, two full seconds behind, close enough that the move couldn’t be coincidence a second time.

“It’s obviously not nothing.” Leo’s hand found the door handle out of pure instinct.

“No. It’s not.” Remi’s pulse settled into the calculated rhythm his training had carved into him years ago, every extra thought stripped away except the ones that mattered. “Seatbelt tight. Hands braced. Whatever happens, stay vigilant.”

The sedan surged as soon as Remi entered the next intersection, closing the gap fast, aiming not for a lane change but for the driver’s side quarter panel. There was no misreading their intent. Remi threw the wheel hard right and stomped on the accelerator instead of the brake. The Escalade leaped forward out of the sedan’s path with a lurch that snapped Leo’s head against the headrest.

The sedan missed them by inches and kept going, unable to correct in time. It plowed into the rear of a Jeep idling at the crosswalk, metal screaming against metal, glass scattering brightly across the asphalt. For one suspended second, nobody moved. Then the sedan’s engine roared again. The driver reversed hard, fishtailed around the wreckage, and sped down a side street before Remi had even stopped the Escalade.

“You see plates?” Leo’s voice came out ragged.

“Nothing. Front and back both missing.” Remi was out of the car, moving fast toward the Jeep, which had flipped onto its roof during the impact and now sat crumpled and smoking at the curb. One wheel spun uselessly in the air. “Call it in. Get an ambulance rolling.”

Leo had his phone out before Remi finished the sentence, reciting the intersection to a dispatcher. Remi dropped to his knees beside the overturned vehicle, peering in through the shattered driver’s window.

A woman with dark hair hung upside down against her seatbelt, a thin line of blood tracking from a cut above her eyebrow into her hairline. She was moaning softly, one hand pressed instinctively against her ribs. Then she focused on him, and her turquoise eyes were so startling that he lost half a second just registering the color before his training caught back up with him.

“Hey.” A familiar calm settled over him, sharpened by years of handling scenes far worse than this one. “I’ve got you. Don’t try to move yet. Can you tell me your name?”

“Hollyn.” Her breath hitched, more from pain than fear, though there was plenty of both in her voice. “Hollyn Christensen. What happened?”

“Somebody ran a light and clipped you. You’re upside down right now, but you’re talking, which is a good sign.” Remi assessed her quickly, logging the cut above her eyebrow and her arm curled protectively against her side. “Ambulance is on the way. Just hold tight.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” She tried to shift, wincing hard the second she did, her hand pressing harder against her ribs. “I’m okay, but I want out of this seatbelt.”

“You’re bleeding from your head and guarding your side like something’s broken under there.” Remi kept his tone gentle but immovable, the voice he used on operatives who insisted they were fine right up until they weren’t. “You’re going to the hospital, Hollyn. Not up for debate.”

She glared at him through the blood and the pain, a flash of stubbornness that might have been funny under different circumstances. Then she hissed sharply as another wave of pain struck her ribs, the fight draining out of her all at once.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Hospital.”

“I don’t want to risk moving you.”

Sirens rose in the distance, growing fast. Remi stayed crouched beside the wrecked Jeep the whole time, keeping her talking and calm. Hollyn’s turquoise eyes tracked his face as though he was the only solid thing left in a world that had just flipped upside down on her. Literally.

The paramedics arrived within minutes, cutting her free from the seatbelt and easing her onto a backboard. She gritted her teeth and refused, twice, to cry out loud even though it clearly cost her everything not to. Remi walked alongside the gurney as they wheeled her toward the ambulance, unable to fully explain to himself why he was still standing there instead of back at the SUV checking on Leo.

“You’re going to be all right,” he told her.

“You keep saying that.” She flashed a weak, pained smile despite everything. “Are you always this bossy with strangers?”