Neither of them moved. And that was when she realized she recognized the other one as well.

The fight club, she thought with a surge of adrenaline. He was the one from the footage with Ralph DeMellio.

Holy shit, talk about your BOGOs.

Before she could repeat her commands, the one on the left, the one she really needed to stare at in a solely professional way, said softly, “I’ll take care of this.”

Erika deepened her voice. “Put your hands on your heads and—”

• • •

As Balz went into the human woman’s mind and froze her where she stood, he actually wanted her to keep talking. Somehow, she managed to turn simple words into a symphony in his ears, and that wasn’t all she did.

Her scent speared into his nose and went directly into his blood.

Physically, she was not all that tall. Five six, maybe five seven. And she had a practical vibe to everything about her, from her flat shoes to the tight ponytail at the base of her neck, from her lack of makeup to her level, hard eyes. And talk about professional clothes. The shield on her dark blue blazer flashed with every breath she took, and her loose slacks gave him no clue as to what her body looked like.

But like that mattered?

It was . . . all of her . . . that got to him.

And that wasn’t the half of it.

As he penetrated her mind so he could shut the present down and patch over her memories, flashes of . . . unspeakable past violence and tragedy popped up. Like even though the images, sights, and sounds were part of her long-term storage, they were always just under the surface for her.

She had faced things that no woman, no man, should ever have to survive.

And yet she was totally unafraid as she stood up to him and Sahvage, two vampires who were heavily armed and outweighed her by four hundred pounds. Then again, considering what she had already lived through? There was going to be little that rattled her.

“What the fuck’s going on here?”

As Sahvage’s impatience cut through the silence, Balz snapped back into action. “I got this. I got her.”

“Do you? ’Cuz from over here, it looks like she got you.”

In spite of the high stakes, Balz needed one more moment—and then he stripped the woman of any recollection of coming and finding them here. After that, he inserted the thought that it was just an alarm malfunction.

Alarms malfunctioned all the time.

Nothing wrong, nothing out of place.

As she pivoted around to leave and put her weapon and those handcuffs away, it was clear that she was comfortable with guns and confident in her ability to use them properly—and what do you know, Balz got hard in his boxer shorts.

He had to see her again.

Somehow—

A bumping sound brought his head around.

Sahvage had removed the display case’s top and was straightening back up, his hands outstretched. As he moved in for the Book, his eyes were locked with total absorption, his body tensed, his—

“Oh, no you don’t,” Balz gritted as he lunged forward as well.

The two of them grabbed hold of the Book at exactly the same time. And as that spoiled-meat stench roiled up in the air, they both started pulling—and Balz felt like he was in a tug-o’-war for his very life. Sure, Sahvage had fronted like he was all go-team, but right now, nothing about the fucker suggested he was on board with the original plan.

He was going to take the fucking thing.

Bearing his fangs, Balz snarled, “You fucking douche.”

“This is evil. This needs to be destroyed!”

“What are you—”

“You don’t want this!”

“I need it to save my life!”

Somehow, in spite of the fact that both of them were leaning back, all their weight put into the pull, all of their muscles engaged . . . the Book was not torn apart. Even though there should have been, there was no ripping release of structural integrity, no break at the spine, no give anywhere.

It was like an I-beam—

Let it go.

From out of nowhere, like it’d been piped into the room—or maybe it was Balz’s skull?—Lassiter’s voice permeated the growling fight.

Let it go.

“No!” Balz barked. “Fucking no way!”

He refused to live with that evil inside of him for the rest of his life—

If you want to live, let it go.

From out of nowhere, the image of that detective he had just sent away came to the forefront of his mind.

But was this the evil talking to him or was this . . . actually Lassiter, trying to save him?

How did he know the difference between the brunette’s seductive misrepresentations and reality?

“Fuck!” he yelled.

There were some battles where losing was not an option. This was one of them.

As Sahvage’s body strained and sweat broke out across his chest and face, he locked his molars and kept pulling. Across the pages of the open Book, the Bastard was doing likewise, every ounce of power in that male’s body and mind determined to take control as well.

There was the temptation to reach for a weapon. One bullet to the other fighter’s head and this physical argument was fucking over.

But Sahvage couldn’t risk having the Book ripped out of a one-handed grip. Without knowing many details about the Bastard, he had a feeling that Balthazar was fully capable of dematerializing at the drop of a hat. And if the male did?

Sahvage was not getting a second chance. In two hundred years, he hadn’t crossed paths with the fucking thing. It was not happening again, and with that summoning spell out there?

Sure as shit, given his fucking luck, it would find its way to Mae—

All at once, and without warning, the Bastard released his grip. Just opened his hands and let the goddamn thing go.

With no more opposing force working against him, Sahvage’s backward momentum was so great that he slammed into the opposite wall, the impact knocking him stupid for a split second.

Meanwhile, across the now-empty display case, Balthazar looked down at his hands as if he didn’t understand what he’d done—or maybe that they’d acted independently.

His eyes lifted and he spoke with resignation. “Where are you taking it?”

For some reason, maybe because Sahvage recognized the numb despair in the other fighter’s face, he found himself answering.

“Where no one can use it ever again.”

“I need it. To get the evil out of me.”

“There is no evil in you.”

“You are very wrong about that, and the Book is my only hope.”

If only Rahvyn were still alive, Sahvage thought. She used to take care of problems like that in their village back in the Old Country.

“I’m sorry,” Sahvage said. And meant it.

With that, he dematerialized out of the room. Out of the gallery. Then it was out of the corridor and into the stairwell.

But he didn’t go up. That’s where the Brotherhood was—or had been. He went down, ghosting through the concrete landings faster than a heartbeat. At the bottom, he opened a fire door and expected to find all of the Brotherhood with their guns pointing to him. Nope. Just a sleek marble lobby with a couple of humans at a set of desk areas and two women coming in with shopping bags.

As he jogged across that shiny floor, he heard someone shouting for him.