He withdrew the gun. “Go with Jaz.”

As Jaz led me away, I kept hearing his words: I’ll take care of this. I felt myself move across the room, up the stairs, his hand on my elbow, heard his murmured directions, but none of it seemed real, as I floated, numb.

Get him away from Sonny. That was the key. Away from Sonny…

“Duck your head. It’s a low opening.” He chuckled. “Even for you.”

The smell of stale cigarette smoke hit me and even before he tugged off my glasses I knew I was in the room where we’d waited for the heist to begin.

“Remember this?” He backed up and waved at the spy hole. “Us? Watching the party?”

He took my hand and sat cross-legged, pulling me down in front of him. My gaze ran over him, looking for the gun. I needed to know where it was before—

“Do you still have the watch I gave you?”

He had to repeat himself before I understood, and even then I didn’t understand. Didn’t know what possible significance it could have to this moment. I shook my head.

“That’s okay. It’s probably at your apartment. We’ll get it when all this is over.”

We’ll get it? As in him and Sonny? Retrieve the valuables after he “finished this”?

“Remember when you first came to the club?” he said. “Sonny and I heard the new recruit might be an Expisco and we thought ‘Oh, shit.’ Definitely not good for our plans. When I went to that door, we’d already decided how we’d get rid of you. But then I opened it and…bam.”

He grinned. “One split-second and everything changed. Of course, Sonny wasn’t too happy, but he came around when he saw how useful you could be.”

“Useful?”

He squeezed my hand, then uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound good, but that’s how Sonny is. The practical one. I’m the dreamer, he’s the doer. It’s…” His pupils dilated and his color rose, and he looked like he had that night after the heist. Drunk on adrenaline and tequila. “I can’t even begin to explain it, Hope.

Sonny and me—we can do anything. And now, with you, it’s only going to get better.”

I should be relieved—he wasn’t going to kill me—but I could only stare at him. He squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt, apologized, rubbed his thumb across my knuckles, then uncrossed and recrossed his legs again, as if he couldn’t sit still. His face glowed and I swore I could see a barrage of thoughts ping-ponging around behind his eyes as he struggled to release them in some semblance of order.

Another hand squeeze, pulling himself closer with the motion. “You’ll see, Hope. You’ll see. And when you do…”

His eyes rolled back, pure bliss, the tip of his tongue sliding between his teeth. Even through my fear, I felt the waves of chaos rolling off him, that pure chaos, so intense that for a moment, I just wanted to let go, to share that high.

I slid back and disengaged my hand from his.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know. You’re not too happy with me right now. You liked them. Hell, I liked them.

Guy, Rodriguez, Tony, Max. Even Bianca wasn’t so bad. But there wasn’t any other way, Hope. You’ll see that soon. You can’t worry about other people. They’d do the same to you. You can’t let anything block you from your goal.”

Another shift, this time stretching his legs, letting them rest against me. “Sonny and I, we’ve been given a gift. To not use that gift would be wrong. You have one too—something that makes you better than any Cabal sorcerer. So why should you work for them? Grovel to them? Why should they hold all the power? Biology is destiny, Hope. It’s time for you to seize your destiny.”

I could only stare at him, searching his eyes for the fever of madness. What glowed from his face was the fervor of conviction. Was it the same thing?

“You killed Bianca, didn’t you?” I said finally. “It was you, in the hall. You impersonated that Cabal guard—the one you claimed robbed you. You killed him and the other one, staged their homes and ‘became them’ to kill Bianca.”

A soft sigh. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. I leaked Guy the identity of the guard, thinking he’d take me for the break-in and I’d show them evidence to prove the Cabal was a threat. But he cut Sonny and me out.

Fortunately, we had a backup plan.”

“Killing Guy and impersonating him.”

“Oh, that was always part of the plan. Had to be. It didn’t work any other way.”

“You were Guy that night, in your apartment. It was Sonny the first time—taking me there to point out the evidence that you’d both been kidnapped, so I’d support the story for the others. But later, when I went back, you’re the one who showed up as Guy.”

He smacked his open palms on his thighs, setting his whole body rocking. “Yes! You knew it.”

“I didn’t—”

“No, no, you didn’t understand it, but you knew it. See, that’s what Sonny was afraid of. When we saw you and the werewolf in the apartment—there’s a camera, got it from Rodriguez with some other stuff, such a sweet kid, I really hated…”

His voice trailed off, then he smacked his palms on the floor, so hard I jumped. “Gotta be done, right? First thing you learn. You cannot hesitate. Anyway, the camera. We see you and your friend…”

Again, he faded. His gaze jumped to mine. “He’s in love with you, you know. Useless, of course. He has no idea what you need. Anyway, we figured out what he was when he waltzed out as a wolf. Cool trick.”

He said it with a mix of admiration and condescension, the way one might praise a child who’s learned a simple magic trick.

“So we see him and you and we figured out you weren’t who you said you were. Sonny thought you might be a threat. He wanted to get in there, suss out the situation, grab you or…” His fingers tapped against his knee. “Or something. I convinced him to let me go in as Guy, get you away from the werewolf and kidnap you if I had to, so you wouldn’t get hurt. Sonny didn’t want me doing it ’cause he thought you’d recognize me. But I knew it would be okay. You wouldn’t understand what was going on, but still, I knew you’d know it was me. Deep down, you’d know.”