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“Huh?” I smiled at the server taking a break to vape. “Yeah, you know . . .” I shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said, somehow knowing.

A black pickup truck rumbled by the end of the back alley. It was only there a few moments, illuminated under a streetlight, then gone again.

There had to be plenty of black pickups in Miami.

It didn’t mean anything.

“Hey, you got the time?”

“Sure.” He checked his phone. “One thirty.”

Six a.m. was our meet time. The time Agent Leomaris had agreed to send in the SSD agents. I headed back inside, where Zee had switched it up to sing “Roxanne” by The Police. He had the perfect voice, adding some throaty growl to go with the song’s gritty theme.

I got turned around in the maze of back corridors, taking a left somewhere instead of a right, and ended up heading into a quieter part of the club. About to give up and turn around again, I caught sight of Kat’s name painted on a door in neon pink. Definitely not the men’s room, but an easy mistake to make if I was asked.

I tried the door, found it unlocked, eased it open, and ducked inside.

A burbling fish tank full of lively, brightly colored fish lit the office behind a desk. I almost regretted trespassing until I noticed the framed photo on the shelf by the tank. Kat and Skrinde shaking hands in front of some development land, both full of big smiles.

I picked up the picture.

The scene could have been innocent. It didn’t have to mean Kat was friends with Skrinde. They were both Lost Ones in business in Miami. It was probably just a small world, right?

But if they weren’t friends, why display it?

My insides fluttered.

Placing the photo back, I turned to the desk and opened a few drawers, not sure what I was looking for. Something, anything that would stop my instincts from setting off warning flares.

Zee trusted Kat. They were friends, war buddies, brothers in arms.

But being trapped on this side of the veil changed people—changed everything. Not always for the better, like it had me, Victor, and Zee.

Kat said he’d had a human partner, someone he’d cared about. If I could find something on him, then maybe it wouldn’t all have been lies . . . I rummaged some more, shifting papers aside, the seconds ticking down. A folded photo had been shoved to the back of the top drawer. I opened it.

The image showed The Peach Pit’s owners, according to the handwritten scrawl. Skrinde, Kat, and their third business partner, a human guy with a kind smile. You wouldn’t shove this crumpled picture in the drawer and display the other if you hated Skrinde as Kat had claimed.

My gut sank. Kat was not what he seemed.

A hail of pink sparks spritzed over me.

“You shouldn’t be back here.”

A blow to the back of my head tipped me forward, moments before the world went black.

CHAPTER 16

I came around on the office floor, minutes or hours later. Music thumped through the club walls, but Zee wasn’t singing.

I had to get back to them.

Climbing to my feet sparked a throbbing headache, and a quick probe with my fingers found a bruise that would heal soon. Kat had wanted me out of the way . . .

I stuffed The Peach Pit owners photo in my pocket and dashed out the door, down the corridor, found the right path, and dove back into the bustling parts of the club. Loud music pounded my headache even harder. Nothing had changed, but the neon-pink surroundings had a different, more sinister vibe now.

The stage was empty again.