“She did it to protect her daughter—your daughter—from Jake Tower.”

“What?” Cavazos demanded, and in an instant, the calm, almost nostalgic syndicate leader I’d come to tolerate over the past few minutes was gone. In his place sat the Ruben Cavazos of old, but the anger now blazing behind his eyes was fueled by fear and desperation, lending a much more personal—and dangerous—flavor to his rage.

“Olivia, where is my daughter?”

“We’re not sure. Exactly. Cam was able to get a read on her name, and he thinks she’s still in the city. But Tower has her.”

I barely even saw him move. One second he was sitting in the chair to my right. In the next instant, a Ruben-shape blur streaked toward me and an instant after that, I fought to get my feet beneath me as I was dragged across the room by my neck. My back slammed into the front door. Then Ruben was in my face, and I really wished I’d had the forethought to grab the knife I’d hidden in the couch.

“How the hell did Jake Tower get my daughter?”

“Spy,” I gasped, and he loosened his hold so I could speak. But not by much. “Before we knew Hadley was yours, we called a friend for help—a Traveler—but it turns out she’s bound to Tower. She didn’t want to take Hadley. She didn’t have any choice.”

“How long ago?”

I rolled my eyes to the left until I could see the clock mounted on the wall above the kitchen sink. “About two and a half hours ago.”

“Jake Tower has had my daughter for two and a half hours, and you’re just now telling me?”

“We didn’t know she was yours until a few minutes ago—when I told your men to call you.”

“So…I hire you to find my child, and instead, you get her kidnapped by a man who’s been trying to kill me for the better part of a decade. Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

His hand tightened around my throat, and I gasped reflexively, trying to drag in air that wouldn’t come. I clawed at his hands, but when he whispered for me to let go, my hands fell to my sides of their own accord. Contractually speaking, he couldn’t kill me. But he could damn well choke me until I passed out, and then he’d find Cam and Anne in the back room, and without me to mediate, he might very well decide to kill them both before he even realized who Anne was.

I kicked out as hard as I could, and my boot slammed into his shin. Ruben cursed and squeezed tighter.

Desperate and out of ideas, I kicked backward, and my boot heel echoed against the hollow door. I kicked it one more time, before he could order me to stop.

A second later, Cam stepped into my line of sight over Cavazos’s shoulder, gun aimed at Ruben’s back. “Let go of her now, or I will shoot you.”

Twenty-Six

Ruben Cavazos turned to face me slowly, one hand still around Liv’s neck. I’d only met him once, and I would have hated him then even if his men hadn’t just beaten me into a mass of lumps and bruises. Seeing his hands on Liv now… I wanted to kill him. Not just shoot him. Not kick his teeth in. I wanted to squeeze the last breath from his body and watch the life drain from his eyes.

“If you pull that trigger, it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” Cavazos said, and in that moment, I didn’t give a damn. At least he’d be dead and she would be free of him. Until his men burst into the apartment and killed everyone left standing.

So I didn’t shoot, but I didn’t lower my gun either, and Cavazos turned back to Liv as if I wasn’t still pointing a gun at him—an illustration of the arrogance and fearlessness he was known for. And I hated him just a little more.

“What the hell is he doing in my apartment?” he demanded calmly. “Did you fuck him in my bed? Because I’m not sure I could forgive that, Olivia.”

“Helping,” she gasped, when his grip loosened just enough for her to speak. “He’s helping.”

“Clearly.” His voice deepened with sarcasm. “A gun aimed at my back is always the sign of a helping hand.” He turned to me without letting her go. “Put the gun down, or I’ll crush her windpipe. Now.”

“I don’t think you’re going to do that,” I said, and Olivia’s eye widened. “In fact, I think you’re contractually prohibited from killing her, and even if I’m wrong, if you kill her, I have no reason not to kill you. Then your men will come in here and kill everyone else, and there’ll be no one left to go rescue Hadley. And I don’t think you’re going to let that happen.”

Even if Liv was wrong about his capacity to love a child he’d never met, I wasn’t wrong about his determination to take her back from Jake Tower, at all costs. Cavazos would never let an insult like that go unpunished.

He nodded, once, curtly, as she sucked in another breath. “We seem to be in a draw.”

“No, you’re at a distinct disadvantage. I have a gun and am willing to kill you, but you hav no gun and are not willing to kill her. Ergo, I win.”

Cavazos considered that for a moment, then narrowed his gaze at me. “If I let her go, you will put the gun away? Immediately?”

I nodded. “If you swear to leave your men downstairs out of this.”

“Done. I swear.” He let go of Liv’s throat and she half collapsed, gasping for air. He reached for her, as if he’d either help her up or haul her up, but she dodged his grasp before he could wrap a hand around her gunshot wound.