“We should find someplace with a modicum of privacy,” I said. “I know several-”

“Here’s fine.”

He veered into a bar packed with commuters fortifying themselves for the flight-or the drive home. It hardly seemed the place to discuss matters of a supernatural nature, but a crowded public place was more secure than an empty one, where words could carry and neighbors might be bored enough to eavesdrop.

“Where’s Hope?” Paige asked as Karl pulled out her stool, the action seeming more reflex than courtesy.

“After the girl died, Benoit-the gang leader-called her in. He has them hunkered down at the club, planning their next move. No one leaves.”

That explained his brusqueness then. He was eager to get this over with so he could return. His haste was warranted. Should Hope push her panic alarm now, it would be a half-hour or more before he could respond.

Karl pulled a manila envelope from his folded newspaper and removed a sheaf of photos. Eight-by-ten shots, all grainy, the resolution poor.

“Hope used her cell phone to take pictures of the originals, then sent them to me,” he explained.

The top photograph was of two young men. Both sat bound to chairs, bowed forward, as if so exhausted that their bindings were all that was holding them upright. The dark-haired one bore an ugly cut across his cheekbone, his cheek coated with a layer of dried blood. The fair-haired young man had a black eye and a swollen lip.

“Jaz and Sonny, I presume?”

He nodded. “The original was left beside the girl’s body.”

“Was any note attached?”

“Three words on the back: more to come.”

That could mean anything from “more information forthcoming” to “more mistreatment of the prisoners” to “more victims to follow.” Intentionally cryptic, leaving the recipient hoping for the best while imagining the worst.

“And her killer claimed to be delivering a message from my father, not only with the picture, but the young woman’s death? The Cortez Cabal rarely utilizes kidnapping. The outcome is fraught with uncertainty. If it fails, you must kill the victims. If it succeeds, you have living witnesses. If it succeeds and you kill the witnesses, your credibility as a negotiator is irrevocably damaged. To send such a blatant message, and leave evidence of his complicity…” I shook my head. “It’s not-”

“-your father.”

“No, I was going to say it isn’t my father’s style.”

Karl’s fingers drummed against the tabletop. “Same thing. The point is-”

“No, pardon the interruption, but it is not the same thing. If my father wishes to commit a criminal act that may later damage his reputation, he has been known to choose a method that is deliberately out of character.”

When Karl frowned, Paige explained, “So when he’s accused of it, even his enemies will say ‘that’s not Benicio Cortez’s style’…ergo, it couldn’t be Benicio Cortez.”

Most people would be shocked by such duplicity. Karl looked as if he was taking notes.

I said, “You may not wish to raise the possibility to Hope, but it’s very likely these young men are no longer alive. There’s nothing in the photograph to indicate when it was taken. Usually, if proving that a kidnap victim is alive, his captors-”

“Put a newspaper in the picture.”

Karl himself had been involved in a kidnapping-a brutal one of Clayton during his strike against the pack-and as he turned his gaze to watch passersby, I wondered whether there was a touch of discomfiture in his straying attention.

He flipped the photograph behind the stack. Next was a black-and-white security camera shot, showing a man walking down a hall.

When I saw the man’s face, my heart sank. As quick as I was to agree that my father could be involved in this, such assertions were born more of self-preservation than of conviction. Saying my father would never do such a thing was a direct route to humiliation.

“I take it you recognize him?” Karl said.

“Juan Ortega, head of the Cortez Cabal private security division.”

“According to the gang, this is the same man who beat and robbed the kidnapped boys,” Karl said. “He’s the one whose home they were going to break into last night, before the boys disappeared.”

“Could he be moonlighting for someone else?” Paige asked.

“Unlikely. If he was caught, he’d be executed. An employee who is willing to work for an outside interest might be persuaded to sell information to that interest.”

“What if he wanted to leave the Cabal and this was his way to do it?”

“Blackmail? Let me leave or I’ll kill these boys and pin it on you? My father would agree, wait until the danger had passed, then devote all his excess manpower to hunting Ortega, whereupon he’d be tortured as a lesson to others. Ortega would know that.” I pushed the photo back to Karl. “I’m not saying Ortega’s involvement proves my father is behind this, but it lends credence to the theory.”

Karl flipped to the next photo. A tall light-haired man with a scar by his mouth. My heart dipped a little more.

“Andrew Mullins,” I said before Karl could ask. “He’s in security too, under Ortega. I don’t know him as well. I’m presuming this is the second gunman?”

Karl nodded.

“Then leave these with me and go back to Hope. I’ll call when I know something.”

HOPE: FEAR AND LOATHING

The room blurred. The gun barrel flashed under the harsh light. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the gun kept rising. The finger moved on the trigger. The gun flared. Bianca’s eyes widened in horror. The bullet-

Goddamn it, stop!

Guy had bustled me from the war room while they planned the strike against the Cabal. I presumed that meant he didn’t trust me yet, but I’d be naive if I wasn’t considering the possibility that they knew I was a spy.

If he suspected, though, he wasn’t doing a very good job of imprisoning me. Max hadn’t activated the storeroom lock. I’d detected only a security spell across the doorway, which would warn them if I left.

As for why Guy picked this room, I wondered whether he knew more about Expisco half-demons than he’d let on. Being here, with such a strong source of chaos nearby, prevented me from listening in to their distant thoughts and conversation.

I’d now watched Bianca die twenty-one times, and no matter how hard I fought, the ending was always the same. The bullet hit and I gasped, struck by a bolt of indescribably delicious chaos.

This last time, the gasp was more a mewl, my overstimulated nerves protesting, my body shaking with exhaustion. But that didn’t block the charge of pleasure-or the wave of self-loathing. And, finally the questions.

I’d known she was in trouble and hurried into the back hall to help. Had I tried hard enough? Had I run fast enough? I’d seen her killer raise the gun and I’d stopped running, hit by the chaos wave. As the scene replayed, that split-second of inaction seemed to stretch into long minutes, during which I stood in that hall, doing nothing, overwhelmed by the chaos.

“-need to strike at-” Tony’s voice in my head, penetrating the chaos fog.

I strained to hear more. I needed to focus on finding out what they were planning so I could warn Benicio.

But should I warn him? It looked as if he’d kidnapped Jaz and Sonny, and had Bianca killed. What obligation did I have to tell him anything? I didn’t have enough information, didn’t know who was really the aggressor and who the defender. That’s why Karl had insisted on letting Lucas decide our next move. Whatever allegiance Lucas felt to his family, his allegiance to truth was greater.

“-I just don’t think-”

“-then walk away-”

I strained to pick up more, but the chaos ebbed and surged as the gang members’ moods veered between grief-fueled outrage and anxiety over whatever they were planning.