She tried to recall the sequence of events. Arriving with Emile, losing him in the crowd when the fight broke out, and then…

“I can’t remember where I dropped it.” She shook her head as they hurried along. “I’m trying to think…”

Abruptly, Trez stopped in front of absolutely nothing—except then a panel slid back. As he dropped her hand and turned to the side to squeeze his big body through the relatively narrow exit, she had the feeling that he didn’t want to be seen holding on to her. Why, though?

Except maybe she was just being paranoid, and like that wasn’t understandable? She’d almost been shot, had lost her purse, and capped all that off by doing the deed in that corridor with a male she was convinced she’d seen in her dreams. As if things were going anywhere close to normal tonight?

A bar, she thought as she emerged into the club proper. They were behind the serving counter of a bar, by the liquor bottles and the stacked racks of glasses.

The lights were on in the huge warehouse space, and as her eyes adjusted, she got a clear shot of medics working on a man who was down on the floor—and it was not going well. The patient was pissed off and physically combative, batting away the nitrile-gloved hands that were attempting to diagnose and treat him. Meanwhile, in an opposite corner, human police had someone in custody, the handcuffed guy likewise arguing. There were two other people who appeared to be injured, although not critically so—and there were no dead bodies under sheets.

How that was possible, she hadn’t a clue.

There were also a number of men wearing “STAFF” polos, as well as—

Oh, my God, Therese thought. That was the savior who had taken the shooter down.

With all the chaos, she’d assumed the figure in the muscle shirt had been a male, but that was not the case. The female had a short haircut, as well as a broad set of shoulders and well-muscled arms—and those details, along with the even harder look on her face, had led to some conclusion jumping.

“What does your purse look like?” Trez asked as he held open a break in the counter.

Therese stepped through. “It’s nothing special. It’s a Coach knockoff. It’s brown? With some black patterning.”

“Let me ask Xhex. If it’s still here, it’s been collected. Whenever there are big fights, there are always dropped wallets, purses, watches, other things—only some of which are legal.”

“So this happens a lot? Jeez.”

“Not the shooting part.” He raised his hand as they started walking across the scuffed floor. “Yo, Xhex?”

The female looked over. And did a double take.

“Actually, why don’t you stay here,” Trez muttered.

Before Therese could ask him why, the female strode to them, her heavy boots making a loud sound in the wide-open cavern of the club, like a squadron of marching males. As she came to a halt, her dark gray eyes locked on Therese with such directness, it was like being cross-examined.

Therese glanced around. Took a step back.

“Who are you?” the female asked her.

Or demanded. Depending on how you took it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Trez said tightly. “None of this matters. We’re looking for her purse. It’s a—”

As he glanced over for some descriptive backup, Therese filled in, “A Coach knockoff. Brown and black? And I’m Therese. Nice to meet you.”

She put out her hand and met that stare head-on. Undoubtedly tensions were high because of the shooting and the female must work at the club in some capacity. But dayum. And no, Therese wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“Xhex,” the female announced. “Good to meet you.”

As the female accepted the palm that had been offered, the shake was curt and very strong. And still those eyes did not budge. Yet there was no hostility, exactly. No possessiveness over Trez, either. But still.

“Is there a problem?” Therese said. “And I don’t mean that in an obnoxious way. It’s just this feels…” She motioned between them. “A little intense.”

“I apologize. Let’s go see if we can find your purse.”

At which point… absolutely nothing happened. The female just stood there, those eyes remaining fixated.

“Xhex, can I talk to you a minute,” Trez said tightly. “Privately—”

He took the female’s arm in a grip, but she shook her head. “You don’t need to tell me a thing. I get it.”

As Therese frowned, the hard-ass female smiled a little. “This way to Lost ’n’ Found.”

Trez said something under his breath as they all started walking, but there was no reason to get involved in whatever was going on between the pair of them. Maybe they were exes? Or… maybe they were lovers?

A lance of pain went through Therese’s chest at that idea, but come on. In spite of the fact that she and Trez had just had sex—and she was convinced he was her shadow lover—his actual, in-person, non-lunatic love life was none of her business. And as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her, she decided she just needed to get her purse back and go home. It had been a very, very long night—

No.

The resounding negative came through so loud and clear, it was like getting tapped on the shoulder, and Therese even looked behind herself. At first, she wondered why some inner part of her was disagreeing about the fact that the combination of worrying about losing the only job she had, getting a thousand-dollar tip, setting boundaries with a coworker, getting in the middle of a shooting, having sex with her boss’s incredible brother, and losing a thousand dollars was enough to qualify for a long frickin’ night.

Except then she looked at Trez’s profile. His expression was tense, his brows down, his lips thin. He was staring at the back of the other female’s nearly shaved head, and Therese had the sense he was having some kind of conversation with her in his own mind.

One that maybe had a lot of cursing in it—

No, the voice repeated.

And that was when the meaning became clear. Somehow, he and this powerful female with the short hair and the dark gray eyes were not lovers. Never had been lovers. Never would be lovers.

The conviction was as rock-solid as it was incomprehensible—and, arguably, irrelevant. That Therese and he had just had sex, sharing what to her was an intimate act she did not take lightly, did not change the reality that they were nothing but acquaintances. Sure, their bodies had fused for a short, intense time. Yes, she was convinced for some crazy reason that she had dreamed of him. But in the cold light of—she glanced up at the ceiling… well, in the cold light of these fluorescent fixtures, none of that meant that their lives were any closer than they had been at the start of the night.

With a quick shift, the female—Xhex was the name, if she got it right—glanced over her shoulder as she led the way across the dance floor, staying far from the medics, the cops, and the groups of humans giving statements.

“The recovered stuff is back here,” she announced. “In one of my workrooms. The cops wanted to seal off everything. Treat this as a crime scene. Take evidence and pictures. But we are not going to allow that, of course.”

“Oh,” Therese said. Because she felt like she should say something, and the only thing occurring to her was, Holy shit, you people work here every night?

Trez shook his head as if he’d read her mind. Or maybe her expression wasn’t as composed as she thought it was.

“Like I said,” he muttered, “it doesn’t happen all that often.”

Once is enough for me, Therese thought.

“In here,” Xhex said as she opened a door.

Therese went inside and was surprised to find herself in what looked like an interrogation room: There was a broad metal table with four chairs around it, and nothing else but noise-canceling, egg-carton-like padding on the walls—and wait, were those chairs bolted down? She shook herself back into focus. On the table surface, there was a clutter of all kinds of personal belongings, clothes, glasses, jewelry—

“My purse,” she said as she leaned across the stuff. But she stopped before she touched anything. “Is it okay for me to pick it up?”

That female’s eyes were on her again, even before she asked her question. “Yeah. Help yourself.”

Therese grabbed her bag and yanked it open. There was nothing inside.

Closing her eyes, she cursed. The tip money. Her burner phone. But more than anything… the keys she had tried so hard to find at the beginning of the night.

Her parents’ keys.

Even as she told herself she shouldn’t care, she did.

“Is your wallet gone?” Trez said as he looked inside at all the absolutely-nothing. “Oh… shit.”

“It’s all right. The keys were the only thing that really mattered. But I’m going to miss that tip money, for sure.” She glanced over at him. “It was going to help me move, actually.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have the money?”

“Well, this blond member of the species came into the restaurant with his shellan? He ate like… I mean, almost the whole menu, and after he was comp’d by your brother, he left me this huge tip. It’s okay, though. I mean… what am I going to do?”

Xhex nodded. “The money’s probably long gone. Listen, I’ve got to get back to erasing memories. I’ll see you both later.”

With a nod, the female took her leave, and the door shut behind her. Left with Trez and the Lost ’n’ Found, Therese took a deep breath. And another.

For a brief moment, she considered asking if she could go and scour the dance floor in case she could locate those keys. Then she glanced back at the table. There were a couple of key rings scattered among the crap that had been lost, but none of them were hers.

“Well,” she said. And could go no further.

“I’m really sorry.”

As it was hard to know what he was apologizing for—the sex, even though it had been incredible? the strange connection, even though it had seemed so real? the shooting, even though she hadn’t been injured and it was hardly his fault?—she recognized that her head was in a total tangle, and the only cure for the condition was sleep.