None of it is working.

Mason moves right past her, pushing his way through the crowd toward the bar and ordering a drink. A part of me wonders if we haven’t misjudged him, if he isn’t, in some small way, distraught over the death of James Barrasso. Maybe tonight he isn’t looking for pussy?

But, of course, that’s a ridiculous thought.

Mason’s black gaze lifts up to mine and it’s like an arrow has pierced straight through my chest. I take a step back, my ass bumping into the edge of the table that Aaron and Hael are seated around. I often call Victor’s eyes black or—much to Mr. Darkwood’s chagrin—ebon. But there’s a depth to them, something poignant and organic, like the night sky or the darkened underbelly of a distant wood.

Mason … his eyes are voids to another world, one where compassion goes to die.

Four minutes have ticked past by the time he starts making his way toward me.

“Bernadette,” Aaron warns from the booth behind me. “Start moving.”

But I don’t. The way Mason is looking at me, I can tell that he’s already made his decision for the night: I’m the girl that he wants.

“You,” he says, pausing in front of me. The way he looks at me, it feels like he’s peeling my skin back so he can lap at the blood inside. Wild, primal fear takes over me, the most feminine part of my brain screaming that I need to run. Now. Fast. Go, go, go, and never look back.

The thing is, we cannot move forward without killing Mason.

And we’re never going to get a better chance than we have now, tonight, here.

I go to set the bottle of liquor aside, but Mason snatches my wrist so hard that I hiss in pain between my teeth. He smells like iodine and bleach; I kid you not. And there’s just something so much worse about that antiseptic sterility. I’d have preferred sour breath or the stink of booze. A neat monster, I think as Mason takes the bottle of liquor and lifts it to his mouth. Swigging a healthy portion of it, he lets his eyes sweep the crowd. If he looks too closely at Hael and Aaron, there’s a chance—however slim—that he might recognize them.

It’s dark in here, smoky and hazy, strobe lights flashing as topless girls flicker across the surfaces of the stages. It’d take an eagle eye to spot anything unusual in the anonymous pit of the club. The thing is, I don’t put it past a man like Mason Miller to do just that. If Callum says this man is dangerous, then I believe him.

I scoot closer to Mason, allowing my breasts to brush against his chest. He curves his left arm around my shoulders, looking down at me with a sneering expression that has me fantasizing about the blade stuck in the sole of my boot. It slides into a small sheath embedded in the rubber, and even if it’s only about the length of my hand, I could kill a man with it if needed.

Just … maybe not Mason Miller.

I don’t lose faith in my plan—it’ll still work, whether Mason chooses me or Vera—and allow him to lead me through the crowd, toward a dark hallway with a staircase. A chain is drawn across it, a small sign hanging from it that warns against trespassing.

That’s where we’re supposed to be going.

Instead, Mason leads me right past the staircase and down a separate hall. In my pocket, I feel my phone buzz, but there’s no way to answer it or even check to see who’s calling me. Mason is too focused, his gaze flicking down to mine every few steps we take. At least I know that the call I made to Vic’s phone outside the club is still connected; nothing else matters.

We make a right turn and Mason pauses at the sight of another man in the hall with us.

It’s Tom Muller.

His eyes drop to mine before lifting back up to Mason’s. He does a decent job of acting like he’s never seen me before, but the pulse in his throat jumps at the sight of Maxwell’s second-in-command, a dark fear and grudging respect etched into his gaze. Tom’s brown eyes mimic his son’s in color only; there is nothing of Tom’s cruelty in David Benedict.

“Mason,” Tom starts, nodding his head respectfully in the man’s direction. “Do you like the girls this week?”

“Oh, I love the girls this week,” Mason says with a harsh laugh, and then, before I can even think to react to his movements, he’s drawing a pistol outfitted with a silencer and pulling the trigger. A neat, little hole appears in Tom’s forehead just before he slumps to the ground at our feet, blood pooling in a circle of ruby red around him.

That’s the first sign I have that something’s wrong; I did not expect Tom Muller to die here tonight.

“Fuck,” I murmur as Mason laughs and yanks me forward, shoving me into one of the downstairs rooms, the ones that used to be old bank vaults. The door slams into place as Mason flicks first one lock, then the next, and the next.

Three locks, all of them on a solid metal door that can’t be blown up or shot down or picked.

Trapping us inside.

In here, nobody can hear Mason’s girls scream. Nobody can hear them cry. Nobody can smell their blood.

This vault room, it may as well be a tomb.

I back away from Mason as he lifts the liquor bottle to his lips, finishing off the alcohol inside before tossing it aside and letting it shatter. He drags a hand across his mouth as he looks me over, standing there in a corset and a miniskirt, my hair hidden beneath the red curls of an expensive wig.

“Fuck is right,” Mason tells me, grinning as he reaches down for his belt, sliding the leather from the loops of his pants with a hissing sound. “You and your boys think I’m stupid?” he clarifies, taking a step toward me and causing me to scoot back a few of my own. His gaze is as slick as oil, rife with perversion and violence. I can only imagine the things he’s done to girls in the dark.

And tonight, he recognized me. Just as Victor suggested he might. Just as Callum promised he would.

I smile.

“No, actually. The guy you almost killed—Callum Park—he was impressed. He told us we shouldn’t underestimate you.”

“So you show up at my club during a night of mourning?” Mason reaches out to take my arm, pausing briefly as he glances over his shoulder at a sound. It’s hardly anything. Most people would never notice it, not with the thumping, pounding bass from the main part of the club or the insistent, unrelenting creak of a bed on the floor above us.

Mason notices though, spinning around to find Callum waiting there with a knife in his hand. He toys with it, pressing a single finger against the end of the blade as he smiles.

“You were right, Mason. I am still human. I’m not sure why I denied it in the moment. Chalk it up to youthful inexperience. I’m grateful for your observation though, because I was reminded that I’m not the darkest, most twisted shadow in the night.”

“And you came back for another round?” Mason queries, his expression showing grim appreciation for Cal’s ability to predict his movements, but also a disturbing level of glee at the thought of being able to kill the blond boy in front of him. “Because that worked out so well for you last time?”

I slip my phone from my pocket, checking the time.

It’s now been eleven minutes since we pulled into the parking lot; we’re running out of time.

“Humans are like wolves,” Callum says, looking up from the knife to Mason Miller’s terrifying face. Mason has the same unsettling look in his eyes that the Thing possessed. The same look as Eric Kushner. The look of a predator. “We need a pack. A single wolf can’t bring down big prey. But a pack? Well, a pack can do anything.”