Like he’d seen a lot of Roger Moore-era 007 films.

Goddamn it, Balz was so fucking distracted, he’d missed the scent—

“I’m calling the police!”

The Mr. had had a lot of Botox, so his eyebrows were locked in the down position, even though he was panting from shock and super flushed. Guess only the bottom half of his puss was capable of exhibiting surprise. Oh, and those plaid pajamas? Not exactly a vibe if you were trying to be taken seriously as a protector of your happy home.

Rolling his eyes, Balz froze the human where he stood—and then had to wonder if the Mrs. was in res as well. Not that it really mattered.

“Put that thing away, for fuck’s sake,” Balz muttered.

On command, the Mr. lowered the gun and then blinked like he was waiting for further suggestions as to what he needed to be doing.

Glancing back at the Book, Balz frowned. “Lemme ask you something. Where’d you find this thing?”

“It’s a new acquisition.” The Mr. looked around Balz’s body, and the instant his eyes rested on the Book, love poured out of his stare. “I just knew I had to have it. It was like . . . it was destined to be mine.”

As Balz’s dagger hand snuck to his own gun, he told himself to fucking relax. Was he really prepared to shoot this motherfucker over a book—

The Book, he amended.

The Mr. continued: “There’s a rare book dealer here in town. He knows that I buy the unusual, particularly if it has—shall we say, an edge?” The man smiled in an I’m-a-naughty-boy kind of way, those brows moving not in the slightest. Then he dropped his voice and tilted forward. “My seller told me it’s bound in human flesh.”

So much about this sonofabitch made Balz want to kick him in the nuts. On principle.

“So where the hell did it come from?” he demanded of the guy.

“It’s very old.”

“No shit.”

“And it’s written in Hungarian.”

Balz glanced behind himself at the “NSFW.” And all the English words underneath that heading. “No, it’s not.”

The Mr. puffed up his chest. “Are you saying I do not know the first language I learned.”

Pointing at the Book, Balz said, “No, I’m saying that’s English.”

“You, sir, are wrong.” If not for the Botox, there clearly would have been a serious arch over one of those eyeballs. “But as it is my book, I’m not going to argue about it with a stranger.”

“What do you use it for?”

“Use it . . . ?” That stare went hard upper right. Which was what liars did when you got inside their little games. “You don’t use a book like this. It’s for display only.”

“You’re full of shit, but I don’t care about your answer.” At least not to that. “I need to know when you bought it?”

“About two weeks ago. It’s my newest acquisition.”

“Yeah, you already said that. Did the dealer tell you where he or she got it from?”

The Mr. smiled and nodded. “Such a crazy story. Some lowlife brought it into the bookshop and dropped it off. Said he found it in some back alley downtown. He refused to take any money for it—he said, and I’m not sure whether this is true, but he said it told him to bring it to the shop. Can you imagine?”

“How much did you pay for it?”

The Mr. inflated his chest again, like he was used to telling people how much he paid for his shit. ’Cuz he liked making those kinds of reports. “It was in the six figures.”

“Well, you better get ready to put a claim in on your insurance.”

“Why?”

Balz reached out for the Book. “Because it’s coming with me—”

Just before his hands made contact with the ancient tome, the lights flickered—

And then everything went black.

Mae came back to consciousness because she dropped to the floor—and the sudden impact hurt. But it was also a case of her being able to breathe again.

Gone. The crushing, invisible pressure was gone.

As she started to cough and gag, she rolled onto her back and shoved her hair out of her face with a loose, flappy hand. Staring up at a bald white ceiling, she was confused about where she was, but then her brain began tossing context into the boat of her consciousness, the images and sounds and smells of her short-term memories like dry-dock fish flipping around, spastic and overlapping.

The brunette—

With a shot of adrenaline, Mae shoved herself into a sit-up and put her hand to her head. Even though everything went around in a circle, she managed to track enough so that the racks of clothes registered and so did the purses and the shoes . . . the kitchen area. The bed.

She was alone.

The brunette woman—or whatever she was—was nowhere to be seen.

Mae’s legs were loose as she stood up, and she needed to brace a hand on the wall to keep vertical. Looking around, she expected the evil woman to jump out from behind the partition over by the bathroom area . . . or re-form right in front of her.

When neither of those happened, Mae stopped thinking about immediate self-defense and possible weapons—and started worrying about survival and getting the hell out of wherever she was.

With a lurch, she headed off to the door on the other side of the—what was this, anyway? An apartment in a converted warehouse? It had to be underground given the no-windows, and she tried to scent things to get some clues, but whether it was all the perfume or that her nose was broken, she couldn’t smell anything except that Macy’s-counter stuff.

The only exit she could see was solid steel. With reinforced bars riveted in place.

It didn’t budge as she pushed at the handle, but like that was a surprise? And there was going to be no dematerializing for her. She had no clue where she was or what was on the other side of any of these walls or that door. Plus, with how much pain she was in? No way she could calm herself—

Phone!

Mae shoved her hand into her pocket—her phone. She still had her phone! Yanking the thing out, her hands trembled.

No service.

“Shit.”

But at least it was three in the morning. She had been gone for hours. Surely Sahvage had noticed her absence? Surely he was looking for her? And even though she had been unconscious for a while, there was still enough time before sunrise to get home.

Holding the cell phone out straight, she walked around and hoped to pick up a bar. When that didn’t happen, she circled the perimeter of the space, looking for any viable option to get out.

There was nothing. No other feasible way to leave except for that one bank-vault-worthy door. Yes, there were a couple of vents over the stove, and in the bathroom area, and two heat exchangers in the corners that pumped in warm, dry air. But that was too suicidal. You dematerialized and tried to travel through a venting system you weren’t familiar with?

All it took was one steel-based air filter and you were Swiss cheese.

For a split second, her brain fritzed out with panic, and the gonowhere buzz got worse as she glanced at the dog cage she’d broken free of.

But losing focus was not going to help.

She reminded herself that Sahvage would know she should have been long home by now. He would look for her. He might even find her car at the side of the road—