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Kat’s wings drooped. “I’m looking out for me. Like we all had to.”

“Did you kill him? Your human partner?” Zee asked, waving the wrinkled photo in front of Kat’s face.

Kat lifted his chin, defiant. “He was just some stupid human.”

Zee lunged, grabbed Kat by the neck too fast for him to react, and slammed him into the club’s back wall. “I thought I’d taken out the trash with Sebastien. Seems like I missed some.”

“Lycian . . . wait,” Kat squeaked. His tail whipped up behind Zee, but Zee’s tail smacked it back. “We’re soldiers, brothers, bonds formed in battle!”

“The name’s Zee, an’ no traitor is a brother of mine.”

He was going to kill him. Zee had been pushed to breaking point. He was done messing around with people trying to hurt us, or take advantage of others. But if he killed Kat in front of all these people, there was no coming back from that. He was angry, I got that, but right now he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Zee . . .” I pushed through the crowd toward the stage. “Easy.”

He leaned in, teeth bared. “You’re right, Kitten, it would be easy. After the battles we’ve been through, this is how you repay me? I should pull your wings off, Kat.”

“Go ahead,” Skrinde laughed. “What’s another murder to you guys? When the SSD show up, who do you think they’re going to arrest? Me? What did I do? You guys have murdered your way across the States to get here.”

“That’s not . . . We haven’t . . .” Okay, so we had been in the wrong places at the wrong times, and some things did look bad. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The SSD were going to arrest Skrinde. I’d made sure of it. Leomaris had assured me—during a second phone call when I’d set up this plan—that the SSD agents would bring Skrinde in for drug offenses, locking him up for good.

Unless I hadn’t been speaking to Leomaris during that second phone call.

Unless Jenny had been on the end of that line

Or maybe Leomaris just had orders to bring us in . . .

Oh dear.

What if I’d given my brother and the loup-garou everything they’d needed to bring the SSD to us . . . not to save us, but to arrest us?

Had I set our own trap?

The crowd waited, most of them intrigued, not scared. This was probably a typical Miami night.

Zee waited for my word to snap Kat’s neck, and Skrinde waited with a grin on his face, thinking he’d won.

But I had something he didn’t.

The lights went out, plunging the club into near darkness. The only light came from the two faintly glowing demons at the back of the stage.

I had a shadow daddy.

Shame it was too dark for Skrinde to see my smile.

Indecipherable whispers filtered through the dark in a voice that chilled the air and touched my spine. The crowd stirred, tension rising, panic brewing. I could feel it too—the anticipation, a hint of fear. Ancient instincts warning us all there was a predator among us, and this time, it wasn’t me.

There are vampires, and then there’s Victor Reynard. And when he’s angry, he’s a whole other level of murder husband.

Skrinde grunted into the mic, but when I looked back to the stage, he’d vanished. Zee was still there, unconcerned by the sudden darkness. He could feel Victor at work.

There had always been a chance Skrinde wouldn’t fall for our six a.m. trap.

So Victor was our backup plan.

He appeared on stage, bathed in the spotlight, missing his tie, looking wild and ragged, eyes a shining silver, hair kinda messy. Unhinged Victor had arrived.

“We’re all gonna play Victor Says. You ready?” Zee asked Kat.