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“Then your best bet is to attend Nightfall tonight and hope to run into him. Darius isn’t coming to the door. Fair warning. He doesn’t show up on the floor often, so even if you get inside, the chances are slim to none that you’ll meet him.”

Slim chances were better than nonexistent ones. “Fine. Could you please ask him to have a drink with me this evening? Let me give you my contact information.” Mara pulled the slick leather portfolio from her oversized tote and withdrew an embossed card with her name and the bank’s logo. “Thank you for meeting with me. I had to exhaust every possible method to communicate.”

“Good luck, Mara Eliot. Better get in line if you want in. Stow that bag in your car first. We don’t allow purses that big inside,” he warned.

“Thank you for letting me know. Please stress to Darius that I have an excellent reason to chat with him. He’ll want to hear what I have to share.”

“I’ll pass along the message. Have a pleasant day.”

And with that, he was gone. How did a large man like that move so quickly and quietly?

Her head spun with disbelief as she looked around, expecting to spot him disappearing through a different door or turning the corner. She couldn’t see any sign of him. Shaking her head, Mara retraced her steps to her car to stow her portfolio, her frustration multiplied as she mentally reviewed all her efforts to contact Mr. Spanos The crowd jeered about her not getting in ahead of them. She held her head high, trying to ignore them but feeling every verbal jab as she headed back.

When she returned to claim a spot at the end of the line, Mara resigned herself to working on her phone for the rest of the afternoon. Hopefully, she wouldn’t face questions about her absence from the building on Monday. Her stomach growled. She should have grabbed a bottle of water from her car. That would have at least kept her hydrated.

Tired of standing in this line, Mara turned to see where the end of the prospective nightclub attendees had reached. To her disbelief, she discovered people stacked behind each other wrapping around the corner. The queue had multiplied in length since the sun set. Mara weaved slightly in her spot, lightheaded from staring at her phone for the past several hours. Her stomach let her know it wasn’t happy either and voiced its displeasure with a quiet rumble.

This is ridiculous. She glanced around at the crowd of excited would-be partiers gearing up for what she assumed must be an epic event.

The amount of tasks she could complete from outside the bank firewall was limited, but she’d managed to tame her unread emails and watched two training videos she’d put off too long. Time dragged through the last three hours until the bank closed.

After her workday had ended, Mara had resorted to scrolling through the videos on social media as she waited for Nightfall to open. She had to admit the place was impressive. Nightfall had all the usual trappings of any club: dim lighting accentuated by a dazzling light show, addictive music that pumped up the crowd, and lots of extremely attractive bartenders, but there was even more. The enticing edginess of the place had people clamoring to get in and kept them coming back.

A man’s sudden appearance next to her jolted Mara from her idling thoughts. His thin smile didn’t reach his eyes, putting her instantly on edge. The training she’d had to survive a bank robbery loomed in her mind—stay calm.

“Babe. I told you we’d visit Nightfall later. Come on. Let’s get something to eat and we’ll talk about date night here.” His voice had a harsh tone that brooked no argument as he wrapped his fingers around her biceps. That vice-like grip on her arm brought tears to her eyes as he pulled her out of the line.

Automatically, she looked around for someone to help her. To recognize that this interaction was wrong. A sharp pain flared at her rib cage. That could only be a knife as the man held her close.

“Not a word, or I’ll kill you here.”

As fright flooded her body, Mara struggled to think rationally. She understood the dangers of allowing someone to take her to a second location, but still she moved with him. This man wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. She turned her head in different directions, hoping to make eye contact with anyone, to have someone see what was happening. Instead of noticing that something was wrong, the crowd eagerly filled the open space left by her. The people around her didn’t care as long as the line moved forward.

Anger flared through her. How could no one give a damn that this man was abducting her in such a crowded space? A rush of adrenaline ran like lightning through Mara’s brain, shocking her out of the stupor. “What the hell are you doing? I don’t even know you!”

“Shut up,” he growled. “You’ve pissed off the wrong people, and that comes at a cost. I’m the collector. Nothing personal.”

He forced her around the corner toward a dimly lit parking lot. This is bad. Mara panicked. She was in deep trouble. She opened her mouth to scream for help. Her assailant brutally jerked her arm to spin her around as he slapped a hand over her mouth, muting her automatic yelp of pain.

“Shut up! Not a peep if you understand what’s good for you. We’re going for a ride.” He hauled her closer to a van parked in the darkest corner of the lot.

Frantically recalling every self-defense bit of advice she’d learned from articles on the internet, Mara dragged her feet, trying to slow their progress down. Please let someone see this happening!

The man cursed and practically lifted her off the ground as he towed her to his vehicle. She could hear the sounds of those still waiting in line. He would kidnap her, and no one would stop him.

As they crossed into a deeper patch of darkness, two dark figures appeared with blinding speed. Her head spun as someone suddenly pushed her free, and the trio of men vanished behind the van. The momentum spun Mara to face the opposite direction, and she stumbled toward the ground. She extended her arms to break her fall but never hit the sidewalk.

Mara’s breath gushed from her lips as powerful arms wrapped around her, lifting her back to her feet. Wildly, she fought the new assailant as he squeezed her trembling body to his hard frame.

“Whoa, Little one. You’re safe now,” he said in a deep voice that felt like silk over her jangled nerves as hands closed to span her waist. The soft leather of his gloves brushed over the bare skin of her midriff, exposed by her struggles to free herself. She shivered at the impact of his touch. Why did he affect her so much?

She met deep brown eyes in the shadowy face of a man she didn’t recognize. The fire in his eyes made her freeze when his reassurances didn’t. She stared at him, trying to see clearly in the dim light. Why did his mere presence both reassure and thrill her?

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The huge bearded man oozed testosterone and power. Unable to tear her eyes away, a spark of attraction sizzled deep in her core, unlike anything she’d experienced before. When he stepped back from her, Mara attempted to clutch his broad shoulders.

“No!” She finally found her voice, but she spoke to emptiness. The man had vanished in a second. Shaking her head to regroup, Mara tried to process what had happened. No one could move that quickly.