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I cut through alleys, double back on side streets, keep my head down and my pace fast enough to look like I have someplace to be. My hands won't stop shaking, and the ache between my thighs won't let me forget what I just walked away from. His seed is still warm inside me. His promises are still wet on my skin. And every shadow I pass makes my stomach lurch.

When is the next killer going to find me?

There’s no one left to answer me. Nowhere to seek shelter.

So I keep running.

CHAPTER 11

THANE

The elevator groans and drops, taking her with it.

I stand in the center of my safehouse dripping water onto cold concrete, a towel around my hips and nothing else. My hands hang loose at my sides. Ten minutes ago they held her face. Now they hold nothing.

Her voice loops through the silence.

I would have understood.

You let me fall in love with you while you held the weapon pointed at my head.

I give myself three seconds to absorb every syllable before I shut the door on what just happened and lock it behind me. Grief is a luxury the dead can't afford, and if I don't move in the next sixty seconds, Neve Castellano will be dead.

My encrypted phone buzzes against the nightstand. The screen lights up with a notification from the Genesis thread.

Contract reassigned. New runner deployed. Cross status: find and terminate. Enforcement in progress.

Fuck me. I knew it was coming but I’d hoped my last conversation with Harlon had bought me time. He said he would see what he could do after I told him Neve was not where the contract stated she could be found. I guess he saw through my ruse.

I toss the phone on the bed and cross the safehouse to the closet. I grab black pants, black shirt, boots. I don’t fucking care. I dress with mechanical precision, my mind on one thing. Getting to Neve.

I grab my shoulder holster off the back of a nearby chair and slip it on. I check my weapon and grab a couple of magazines. The KA-BAR tactical blade goes inside my boot. I pull a dark jacket over everything because moving through Chicago in broad daylight with visible weapons draws the kind of attention I can't use right now.

I grab my phone. The Genesis thread is still open.

I read the message again.

Contract reassigned. New runner deployed. Cross status: find and terminate. Enforcement in progress.

My jaw tightens until my molars ache.

Enforcement in progress means Harlon has already dispatched a cleanup crew for me and reassigned Neve's contract to a fresh runner. Possibly two. At this level of payout, every gun on the Dark Floor will be scrambling for position. Ten point five million buys a lot of motivation, and Neve is alone in a city full of men who kill for a living.

I pocket the phone and head for the elevator.

The sub-basement is empty when I get there. Her sneaker prints mark the polished concrete in a straight line toward the steel door. Small, spaced wide enough to tell me she was moving at a near sprint. I push through the same door and step into a Chicago morning.

Rain mists over my face. The air bites with October cold, sharp enough to sting bare skin, and Neve is out here in nothing but my shirt and her sneakers. No jacket. Fuck, she didn’t even bother throwing on pants for Christ’s sake. She definitely has nothing to protect herself with. No money beyond whatever cash sits in the bag she grabbed off the counter.

I turn left out of the building. She would have gone right. Toward the busier streets, the foot traffic, the crowd she can disappear into. I have no doubt her father taught her to blend in, move with purpose, and to stay the fuck out of alleys.

I move fast, covering ground with a stride that eats sidewalk without breaking into a run. Running draws eyes. A tall man in dark clothes walking with purpose through downtown Chicago is invisible. I've built a twenty-year career on that principle.

I’m three blocks east in less than eight minutes. A woman at a bus stop holds her umbrella low against the drizzle. I pull out my phone and flash a photo of Neve from my gallery. "Excuse me. Have you seen this woman? She's my sweet girl. She left the house upset and I'm worried about her out here all alone.”

The woman squints at the screen. "Dark hair, real pretty? Wearing a big shirt and sneakers? That’s your girl?"

"That's her."