Chapter 30
MARCUS
She saw me. I made damn sure of it. I know how wild she gets when she’s hunting Wolf, how tunnel-visioned she becomes. But she has no idea how wild my pulse is right now. For her. And for the man I’m hunting.
She’s wearing purple tonight. Jesus Christ, it pisses me off how fast my body reacts and how little resistance I have when it comes to her. I know she doesn’t want the man behind the mask, but one look and I’m dragged down to pure, dumb want.
But this isn’t the night I lose my footing.
I take myself out of the mirror’s line and wait where the corridor splits toward the prop room and the dressing rooms. The pause makes space for the lie I’ve been telling myself, which is that I can stand by and let another man put his hands on her. That I’ll be able to watch and stay on course.
I keep waiting. She’s probably fighting her way through curtains, refusing to lose my trail.
There was supposed to be a magic act later. Some amateur with oversized props and too much confidence. Well, he can wait. This building answers to me, and I’m after something far more serious than spectacle.
“Your double stayed on her from Brooklyn,” Max says over comms.
“How?”
“That blue Mazda.”
I frown. “What?”
“I know, I know. It split from her limo and took Roebling near the Williamsburg Bridge approach. But Torry found something.”
Torry, her driver.
“He spotted the same Mazda parked behind the hotel. CCTV shows it arrived half an hour ago.”
Damn. The guy’s good, for a fake trying to be me. Still, this tells me exactly what I need. One, he took the bait. And two, he followed her. Which means the location wasn’t handed to him by anyone inside the Game.
“Where is she?” I ask. Too much time has passed. She was parallel to me moments ago, separated by the split hallway. Even lost, she shouldn’t have fallen this far back.
“Switch sides,” Liam cuts in. “Head for the Night Stair.”
“That access should be sealed,” I say.
“She went through it.”
My gut drops. “The damn fuck has gotten to her?”
“I’ll send Snow Fox and Mongoose.”
“No! Let me handle this,” I say.
I bring my gun up as I move. The door to the Night Stair yawns open, and inside, darkness swallows everything. I flick on the light and take the steps two at a time. Somewhere in my head, a clock starts ticking, though I don’t know the number yet. I just know it’s counting down.
The basement opens out.
There are props everywhere. Props that couldn’t fit upstairs, as well as painted backdrops that are stacked too close together. It smells like dust, oil, and old water. A makeshift stage squats at the center of it all.
And him.
The fake wolf, my supposed double, my twin, stands on a raised platform, backlit and still. For half a second, my brain tries to make sense of the shape beneath his feet.
Glass.
Water.
The tank.
I vault a crate, then another, adrenaline shredding whatever caution I have left. Before I can line up a shot, he moves and disappears off the platform, gone behind the mess of props.
“Fuck!”
I skid to a stop at the edge of the stage.
I reach the platform, and the world narrows to one brutal fact.
She’s inside it.
Her hands slam against the glass, frantic and useless, bubbles tearing from her mouth as she fights the water closing in on her. Her hair whips around her face, her dress dragging her down as her body strains for space that isn’t there.
I haul at the lid.
It doesn’t move. It’s sealed.
“Hunt!” I roar into the radio, already moving again, skidding to the front of the tank. “I need backup. Now!”
Inside, she kicks hard enough to rattle the frame. Her palms slide against the glass, her eyes blown wide, her mouth opening and closing around a word I know without hearing.
Wolf.
How could I do this to her?
I slam my free hand against the panel.
Nothing gives.
I force myself into her line of sight and point. Over there. To the side. Away from the center.
She curls against the side panel, her arms wrapped around herself.
I raise the gun.
The first shot cracks the surface, and white fractures burst outward like frost racing across a window. Water surges, pounding against the panel, bowing it toward me.
I fire again.
And again.
The glass whitens, crazed and ruined, but still, it holds.
“Come on!” I growl.
Then it hits me. The way the cracks stop and the way the surface flexes instead of giving way. It’s laminated.
I feel the seconds tearing past me, each one louder than the last. Inside the tank, her movements slow, her kicks turn sloppy, and her hands slip.
This is on me. I weighed the risks and decided I could control it. I told myself I’d see the threat in time.
But I didn’t.
I move fast, scanning the frame, the fittings, and the way the tank sits wrong on its base. Then my gaze catches on a seam that doesn’t belong, a latch half-hidden beneath a decorative brace.
There.
I wrench it free, and the tank answers with violence.
Water explodes outward, a solid wall that knocks me back, floods the floor, and steals my footing. I don’t wait for it to finish. I plunge into it, my arms burning, my fingers closing around her waist as the last of the water tears past us.
She’s limp when I drag her free.
I carry her away from the wreckage and lay her down hard on the concrete. Her skin is cold, and her lips have gone pale.
No.
I force air into her lungs. Again and again.
My hands tremble. And my own breath catches in my chest, too tight, too panicked to release.
“Stay with me,” I choke out. “Iris, stay with me.”
Lights snap on overhead. The basement erupts in sound, with Velvet crew shouting and footsteps scrambling, but it all blurs into nothing.
All I feel is the stillness I put in her.
I won’t stop. I bend over her again, sealing my mouth to hers and willing her to take what I give. Her chest lifts with each breath I force in, but there’s no fight in it.
The torn neckline of her dress flutters as I breathe for her. She’s limp and unmoving. My hands press harder against her sternum, and I count silently, begging with every push.
“Come back. Please come back,” I plead.
I tilt her head again, press, breathe—
Then, finally, she jerks.
She coughs hard, spluttering water from her mouth and convulsing beneath me. My hands fly to cradle her as she gasps again.
A sob punches from my chest.
“Iris—”
I drag her up and clutch her to me, burying her against my shoulder.
She keeps breathing, short and wet and erratic, but alive.
I don’t know when my tears start, only that they don’t stop.
“I’m sorry.” The words break apart in my throat. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I rock her against me, my hands everywhere, on her back, her hair, and her ribs, as if I can hold her heart in place with my fingers.
Someone grabs my shoulder. “Let us take over, Wolf.”
I don’t move.
“Marcus.” Another voice. It’s Liam’s, closer now. “Let them take her. Let them help.”
Marcus.
The name doesn’t belong.
Zebras edge in, firm but careful, easing me back inch by inch. As they lift her, her head lolls, then her eyes flutter open.
For a heartbeat, she looks at me, and something changes in her expression.
It’s recognition, but the wrong kind.
I lift a hand to my face.
My mask is gone.