Anne stared at us from the doorway and Kori continued to buck while I pulled her gun from her shoulder holster, then dug into her pocket for her phone.

Kori’s eyes went wide when she saw Anne, and though I couldn’t understand her individual words, her inarticulate demand to be released came through loud and clear.

“Sorry, Kor,” Anne whispered. “You shouldn’t have taken Hadley.” Then Anne headed into the living room, cradling her own stomach, as if seeing Kori gagged and restrained actually nauseated her.

“Let’s put her in a chairI said, pocketing Kori’s phone. I checked the safety on her gun, then stepped into the hall, where Michaela stood waiting like a child about to meet Santa.

“Better search her first,” she suggested, a creepy but confident light dancing behind her eyes. “That’ll be harder once she’s strapped down.”

Kori’s brows rose in wordless question and she craned her neck for a better look at Meika, obviously trying to place the face. When Cavazos ordered his wife out of the way, Kori stiffened visibly and I realized she’d thought Cam was holding her.

Ruben forced her down the hall and into the living room with a series of short shoves, and she stared at Michaela the whole time, still clearly trying to identify her. Then, finally, her eyes widened again, and she started shouting behind the tape. She’d recognized Meika.

Kori twisted viciously in Ruben’s grip to face me, wordlessly demanding an explanation even as he jerked her around again.

“Hadley’s his daughter.” I reached between her backside and his pelvis—not a pleasant place to be—to search her pockets, while she shouted inarticulately, and this time I thought I heard her say, “Elle.”

“Yeah, she’s Elle’s, too. I know it’s weird.” But that was all the explanation I had time for. Her left pocket was empty, except for a convenience-store receipt for an overpriced pint of ice cream.

Kori fought Ruben’s grip even harder, kicking the air, trying to throw us all off balance as I slid my hand into her right back pocket. She understood now—I could hear it in her voice, feel it in her struggles. She knew she’d brought the two most powerful syndicates in the country into a head-on conflict. And that her boss had no idea it was coming.

Finally, I pulled a blank white plastic key card from her right back pocket and held it up for everyone else to see. Anne looked relieved, and Meika looked…aroused—a fact I decided not to focus on.

I handed Kori’s gun to Anne—couldn’t risk Meika picking it up—and searched Kori myself, because I didn’t trust either Ruben or his wife not to find a way around his promise not to hurt her. But when my gaze met hers, she finally stopped struggling and just blinked at me. Then said what might have been “please” behind her duct-tape gag. There was something she needed to say. Maybe something I needed to hear.

I exhaled slowly, trying to decide. “If you ask me or Anne for anything, I’m going to let Ruben knock you out. Do you understand?”

Kori nodded eagerly. So I peeled the tape from her mouth.

“Liv, please—” She stopped suddenly, biting off an instinctive request, then started over with a rephrase. “You can’t do this,” she said, as I removed a knife from the sheath strapped to her belt. “If I don’t go back, he’ll take it out on someone else.”

“Hadley?” Cavazos jerked her arms hard enough that Kori grunted in pain.

“No. She’s fine. Playing video games on a fuckin’ sixty-inch flat screen. He doesn’t want to hurt her, I swear.”

I removed two more blades from Kori’s boots—electing to ignore the hungry look Meika eyed them with—and gestured toward the chair Anne had pulled out from the table.

“We need cuffs. Or rope,” Meika said, eyeing her husband. “Bedside table drawer?”

Cavazos nodded, and my stomach churned with sudden nausea at the thought of…whatever he’d had planned for the two of us in that bedroom. “There may be a ball-gag.”

“You’re sick,” I spat, as Anne edged closer to me and farther from him.

Ruben chuckled. “That’s a matter of perspective. Fear and adrenaline heighten other physical sensations, you know.”

I palmed Kori’s largest blade, getting a feel for the weight. “They just make me want to kill someone.”

He shrugged. “I’m not taking anything off the table.”

A minute later, Meika returned from the bedroom, accompanied by inarticulate sounds of surprise and disgust from Cam. “Just swear they’re not for Liv!” he shouted down the hall.

Kori heard him and opened her mouth to shout, but Ruben slapped one hand over it.

“No, I’m fine!” I called back.

“’Kay. Carry on,” Cam said, then the door closed and—presumably—he put his headphones back on.

“He’s kinda hot when he blushes,” Meika said, glancing back toward the bedroom.

“Bitch!” Cavazos snapped, and for a moment I thought he was talking to his wife, until I looked up to find him shaking his right hand, flinging small drops of blood all over the pale Berber. Kori grinned and licked a single remaining drop from her upper lip.

“Is it just me, or does blood always seem to fall on white carpet?” Meika said, ripping a long strip of duct tape from the roll.

“I’ll clean it in a second.” Cavazos shoved Kori into a chair and secured her hands at her back with the handcuffs Meika had set on the floor at his feet. They were the real kind—no fuzz or padding. Not what I’d choose for play. If I were to choose such a thing for play.