My voice trailed off as he closed the distance. His hand held my elbow, and he pressed me against him. He was rock solid, every inch of him tense.

He was serious, deadly serious.

I swallowed over a lump. “Okay.”

“I travel with fewer guards than my brothers because I am as good as my men, better than most of them.” His hand tightened on my elbow, sliding up to the back of my arm. His fingers pressed in. “I am allowing you leeway by only bringing one of my men. The rest need to be on the ground. My man is here because of you, not me. I’m telling you this as a warning. Do not run, or you will get hurt. It’s not just one guard you have to calculate taking down. It’ll be me as well.”

He pulled me all the way against him. I could feel his breath on me, warming me. A few inches separated our lips.

His eyes moved there, lingering before looking back up.

“Do not get foolish and make a mistake, thinking you can escape me here,” he said flatly. “You can’t.”

His hand slid up, over my shoulder and around my neck to cup the back of my head. He closed the distance, his mouth almost touching mine.

“I do not want to hurt you,” he whispered, his lips brushing against mine. “But I will if it means losing my sister. Remember that.”

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t move.

I didn’t dare.

I didn’t know if I wanted to, so I kept still, my eyes holding his, and when he didn’t move away or kiss me, I knew he was waiting.

I nodded, my lips brushing back against his. I whispered, “Okay.”

That was it.

He released me, stepping back, and I felt deprived of…something.

Something wrenched out of me as his body moved away. I wanted to pull him back. I wanted to feel him against me, but I gritted my teeth. I pushed that desire down.

I was fucked up—that was the only reason I could find for my attraction to him.

My father was a monster, so I was attracted to a monster.

That’s why I felt this lust.

Disgust flared up in me, so much I could taste it, and I forced myself to step around him.

“I won’t run,” I told him. Then I went to see what his guard was watching.

I’d been expecting to be at the meet with Blade.

I’d been expecting he would step out of his vehicle with Brooke. Kai would have me. We’d meet in the middle, and whatever happened after that happened. Whether I’d stay and fight for Brooke, or if Brooke would actually go with her brother, I didn’t know. I hadn’t fully thought it out, mostly because I couldn’t. I wasn’t in the driver’s seat for this one, Kai was.

But what I didn’t expect was to not be involved at all.

At the glass wall, I looked down and saw two vehicles in the lot. Neither was the van we’d ridden in. They were SUVs. Kai gave me a pair of binoculars, and as I put them up to my eyes, I saw the doors open.

Tanner got out. So did I.

Not me, obviously, but someone who looked like my twin.

I was stunned.

She was wearing the scrubs I’d been taken in. Her hair was down, swept to one side. She was hunched over, purposefully hiding her face, and goddamn, she even walked like me. The bitch had studied me somehow.

Her/my hand came up and brushed some of my hair back, like I do.

Like I did just now—I caught myself, and cursing, I tightened my hold on the binoculars again.

She tugged at the bottom of her scrub top, just like I would.

She stopped, hesitating, and her shoulders rolled back, just like I do.

There, across the lot, was Blade. He was too far away to see it wasn’t really me as he got out of the Chevy truck. I was impressed that sucker had even made it the whole way, and it told me he was doing this off the books. 411 didn’t know about it. If they had, he would’ve been in an SUV.

“What are you doing, Blade?”

He paused, holding his arm up to his forehead to shade his eyes. He saw Tanner and her/me, then went to his passenger door. Opening it, a girl got out—a girl… She looked like Brooke, but it couldn’t have been. He wouldn’t have done that. I knew Blade. No matter how much he might want me back, he wouldn’t trade in someone who was hiding for her life.

It went against his code as a 411 operative.

Kai leaned forward. I could feel the intensity rolling off of him.

It looked like Brooke.

Same dark hair, same build, same height as the girl I’d seen in Brooke’s Instagram pictures. But…no way. It couldn’t be.

“That’s not her,” Kai growled. He snapped a radio to his mouth, pressing the side button. “Abort. It’s not her.”

Tanner’s hand went to his ear, then shot out to the girl beside him. We heard a shout over the radio before both turned and ran back for their vehicle.

I jerked forward, but there was nothing I could do.

Sixteen floors separated us.

I glanced around, but Kai was already in my ear. “Don’t fucking think about it.”

He motioned, and the guard grabbed my arm and began dragging me away from the window—but not before I saw all the guards who had come with us swarm into the parking lot below.

“Grab both of them!” Kai ordered. “Take them to the warehouse.”

“No!” I kicked, trying to get free.