He nods. “There are four outside. First take out the two by the French doors. I will provide the distraction.”

I pick up my tray and head toward the back of the main party room. The French doors are open, and there is a near-constant stream of people moving toward the back where the pool is. Women are getting naked and drawing the crowd out. It’s easy enough to come up behind the guard on the right. Even easier to jab the discarded cocktail fork I’ve appropriated from a nearby table into his neck. He falls backward, but his descent goes unnoticed when Petrovich’s loud voice yells, “Bomb. There’s a pipe bomb.”

The guests start screaming and running in different directions as no one is sure where the bomb is located. I twist the neck of the guard and let him collapse on the floor. Moments later, his jacket is around my shoulders and the familiar weight of a semi-automatic is in my hand.” I take out the guard in the corner with an elbow to the nose. Two down, a million more to go. Over the melee, I see Petrovich disabling the guard across the way. I’ve got the ammunition and weapons of two. That’s enough. With a jerk of my head, I indicate I’m headed into the private rooms of the Hudson compound. I pull out the phone from my pocket and engage the GPS tracker. It’s good within five feet, Mendoza informed me.

The signal indicates that it’s northwest of my position, but as I look to the northwest, I see only a well-manicured lawn. The house doesn’t extend to the northwest from my position near the terrace and the French doors leading to the pool. Basement then. Dammit. I wish I had a blueprint of this fucking place. The tracker doesn’t map depth, only location. Regan was led north and then backtracked, but the private area of the house is too closed off. I’m going to have to find another way in. In the kitchen I find chaos. People are screaming and running several directions. I grab a worker by the collar as he sprints past me.

“Onde fica a adega?”

He shrugs and wiggles like a worm on a hook. Worthless. “Where’s the fucking basement?” I scream but no one answers the crazy Texan.

Methodically, I start throwing open doors. Closet, pantry, stairs to a cellar. Bingo. I run down the stairs, past wooden boxes and shelves of cheese and casks of wine. It smells cool and fresh, as if there is regular circulation of air down here. The thick brick walls mask the upstairs disarray, and I can hear the trickle of water and the hum of electricity and not much more.

I move through the cellar as soundlessly as possible, noting that its size outpaces the house that sits atop of it. About thirty feet in, the room stops and there is nothing but stacks of food stuffs and wine bottles against the wall.

But the freshness of the air quality down here doesn’t fit with the room ending at thirty feet. Above me I see the air ducts and electrical conduit which don’t terminate at the brick wall but actually continue beyond. I start tapping to find the opening. Between two barrels of wine and crates of something, I find a vertical seam in the brick. To the left, on the floor is a depression. I fit my foot into the depression and press downward. Holding my breath, I lean against the bricks and am rewarded with the sound of a lock mechanism disengaging. A slight push and the hidden door swings inward on well-oiled hinges. The hum of electricity is louder now, and I wonder if the hacker lair is positioned down here. It would explain the conduit, the well-circulated air, and the noise.

I have a gun in either hand as I creep down the hall, my one shoulder glued to the brick wall on my right.

“I’m hungry,” I hear a female say. The voice is muffled, but it doesn’t sound like Regan.

“What do you want?”

“Root beer float. For me and my new friend. I think she looks like she needs a root beer float.”

“Hudson isn’t going to like that you brought her in here.”

“The crying was bothering me. Wasn’t it bothering you? How am I supposed to work if there’s all this crying?”

God, that voice. I know that voice.

“You’ll be the one crying if he puts you in the locker. Last time he did that you wouldn’t stop sniveling for days,” the male voice sneers back.

“And he lost several hundreds of millions of dollars, so I think that I won’t be going back into the locker anytime soon. That wouldn’t make sense.” Oh Jesus. I slide down onto my butt. It’s Naomi. The relief I feel at hearing her voice is sapping all my energy. I want to lie down on the concrete and cry like a baby.

“Saying that Hudson makes rational decisions is your first mistake. Eh, your problem.” There’s a pause, then I hear him speak. “The Emperor wants a root beer float. Make that two.” Another pause. “What the fuck is going on up there?” I creep closer until I’m right outside the door. The voices are crystal clear now. I place the guns back in my pocket. My sister is in that room. Maybe even Regan. I can’t take the risk that I’m going to shoot either of them. “All right,” he sounds annoyed. “I’m coming right up.” There’s a rustling sound. “Something is going on upstairs. Stay put.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” There’s no sarcasm in the question. No, Naomi truly doesn’t know.

“Don’t go wandering around again, no matter who’s crying.” The voice is coming closer to me and so are the footsteps. I don’t know who else is in the room, so I stay crouched down. The door opens, and the feet exit. Exploding upward, I drive the heel of my palm into the man’s nose. The sound of the cartilage crunching into his skull is extremely satisfying. He stumbles back, and I push him down, crouching on top of him with one hand on his windpipe and my left knee in his balls. My gun is out now, and I take a quick look about the room. In a chair, trussed at the mouth and feet and wrists is Regan, looking wide-eyed, scared, and a little pissed off. Make that a lot pissed off. Behind a bank of computers is my sister Naomi, looking only slightly older than she was eighteen months ago, pale-eyed and pale-skinned like she never ever sees the light of day.

There’s no one else in here.

“Look away,” I order the girls but neither do. “Fuck it,” I say. I drive my elbow into the windpipe of the downed guard twice, and he passes out from lack of oxygen. But I’m not leaving this to chance. I drag him out into the hallway and shoot him once in the head and then another time in the chest.

“He was from Massachusetts,” my sister says behind me.

“I don’t even know why that’s important.” I don’t wait for her to answer but drag her into my arms. “And I don’t want to hear how you don’t like to be touched. That’s not going to fly with me today.”

She stands stiffly in my arms, but I don’t care. Relief, grief, joy all wash over me in an uncomfortable shower of emotions but I endure it and make her suffer it as well because I’m so grateful to see her alive. I squeeze her tight and then head over to Regan. Her eyes are gleaming, and maybe if my sister wasn’t there and a dead body wasn’t lying ten feet away, I’d do something more than bury my head in the crook of her neck, thanking all the deities above for showing me some fucking mercy.

“Will this work?” There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see Naomi holding a long knife. I presume she’s taken this from the dead man. With a short nod, I get to work on Regan’s bonds. The minute that she’s free, she’s back in my arms and the tears are falling. I’m pretty sure some of them are mine.

Regan

IT WAS NAOMI ’S IDEA TO TIE me up but keep me at her side. I guess the guards were used to her weird behaviors. She simply waltzed into her workroom with me, sat me down, and began to tie me up in a complex set of knots, checking each one over and over again and muttering to herself. But she didn’t tie me up tightly, and the looks she kept sending my way told me that this was all an act.

But then the door busts open, and Daniel is there. I barely notice that he effortlessly executes a man in seconds. All I care is that he’s here, and he’s come to get me. To my shame, I start crying again. I told myself I’d be strong, that I could do this and be the fighter Daniel thinks I am.

But I keep weeping. I’ve been so utterly terrified and seeing him brings it all to the forefront again.

I twist in my bonds, anxious as Daniel hugs his sister, and I see the relief and happiness in his face as he pulls her close. I know that look—he’s accomplished his goal now. He’s found his long-missing sister. He can go home now.

Strange how that scares me. If Daniel’s done here, what does it mean for me? Is he going to send me home with a pat on the back and a few memories?

Now’s not the time to think about it, though. Just as quickly as he hugged his sister, he heads over to me, and his knife rips apart Naomi’s careful knots in a matter of seconds. Then he drags me into his arms and buries his face in my neck. I feel a tremble rush through him, and I realize with wonder that he was as scared for me as he was for his sister.

And my tears start all over again.

“I’m sorry,” I say, huddling against Daniel. “I was trying to be a fighter, but they took my clothes and chained me in that room, and I-I couldn’t—” A broken sob escapes my throat.

“Shhh.” He strokes my hair. “You’re the bravest girl I know. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

I cling to him and then begin to press frantic kisses to his face, his throat, anywhere I can find skin. I’m so relieved to see him. I knew he’d come back for me, but knowing and seeing are two different things—and in the long minutes when I was trapped, naked, in Hudson’s sex prison, I worried that my luck had run out. That there would be no happy ever after for me.