Page 89 of You Can Run

Jessica didn't answer.

“One gun, and the belief that love would fill in the gaps.” Borya shook his head slowly, and the gesture held something that might have been genuine wonder. “I have been in this business for thirty-four years, and I continue to be astonished by what people will walk into when they're convinced it means something.” He looked at Dante. “She came for you. Isn't that touching?”

Dante kept his face empty. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Harder than leaving Jessica, harder than walking through the front door, harder than any of it. Because Jessica was two feet away from him and armed men were on every side and the gun that might have given her a chance was sitting on the table in front of the man who wanted to destroy them both.

“Here is what is going to happen,” Borya said, and his voice shifted— the conversational tone dropping away, replaced by something flatter and more administrative. “The girl is going downstairs.”

The words stuck in Dante's chest like a physical thing.

“She was supposed to be there two years ago,” Borya continued. “I've been patient. Patience is something I value. But patience has a limit, and that limit was reached the moment she walked through my door tonight.”

“Borya,” Dante said.

“Don't.” The word came out soft and final. “You don't get to negotiate this. You came here as a surrender, and she came hereas a volunteer. Those are different categories, and they will be handled differently.”

Borya folded his hands on the table. “Your punishment, Daniel, is not the basement. Your punishment is much simpler than that.”

He paused, and in the pause Dante felt something close in around him—the booth, the noise, the pink light, all of it contracting into a space that was too small to breathe in.

“You're going to watch,” Borya said. “I'm going to bring you upstairs to my private suite, and you're going to see exactly what happens to the woman you gave yourself up for.”

Dante's vision went white at the edges.

This wasn't the plan anymore. The plan hadn't included Jessica at this table. The plan hadn't included Borya's hand gesturing casually toward the basement stairs while describing what he was going to do to her. The plan was gone, and what was left was a man sitting across from another man who'd just told him he was going to watch the woman he loved be destroyed, and the distance between Dante's fist and Borya's face was about eighteen inches.

He measured it. He measured the time it would take for the nearest security man to reach him. He measured the angle to the Ruger still sitting on the table. But the math said the same thing it had said ten minutes ago. He'd be dead before he got the gun up. Jessica would be dead a second later.

He couldn't save her. Not from here. Not with his hands. Not with eighteen inches and a room full of men who were better positioned than he was.

He couldn't save her.

The realization sat in him like something swallowed whole.

Borya was watching him, looking for the moment the fight went out. “You understand,” Borya said. “Good. Understanding is the?—”

The lights went out.

The pink lights on the main floor kept pulsing, the stages remained lit, and the music kept thumping. What died were the lights in the booth alcove, the overheads along the back wall and the illuminated staircase to the mezzanine. It created a sharp blackout that sunk the back third of the club into sudden darkness.

Borya's men reacted first. Dante heard them shift, heard the rustle of hands going to weapons, heard someone speak into a radio and get nothing back. The security room wasn't responding.

Because Sofia was in the security room.

Dante understood it in the time it took for the darkness to settle. Sofia had seen Jessica on the cameras. She'd seen what was about to happen. And instead of making the call—instead of triggering the raid that she'd spent four years building toward—she'd killed the lights in the back of the club to give them a window.

A window for what, he didn't know. But it was a window, and it was now, and now was the only thing that mattered.

He moved toward Jessica. His hand found her arm in the dark and he pulled her out of the booth in a single motion, dragging her sideways. Away from the table, away from Borya, into the gap between the alcove and the back wall where the darkness was deepest.

“Move,” he said into her ear. “Stay low. Don't stop.”

Behind them, Borya's voice cut through the dark: “Find them.”

Dante pulled Jessica along the back wall, his free hand trailing the surface, counting doorways. Somewhere ahead of them was the corridor that led to the service area—kitchens, storage, the fire exit that opened onto the alley behind the building.

A flashlight beam swept across the floor behind them. Close. Getting closer.

Jessica stumbled on something—a chair, a cable—and he caught her, one arm around her waist, holding her upright, and for a second they were pressed together in the dark and he could feel her heart hammering through the denim jacket, hammering as hard as his.