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They’re not coming.

Either they can’t, or they’re not seeing what’s happening. If they could, they would’ve been here by now.

“What are you waiting for?” Mischa drawls. “You’re a beautiful woman. Entertain us.”

The guard behind me steps closer, and something hard bumps my lower back.

When cold metal slips under my jacket and presses against my skin, it’s worse than my nightmare. At least if I fell forever, I wouldn’t hit the ground.

Ivanov’s cruel grin and the gun in my back say I’m about to do just that.

29

HARRISON

From the second Rae entered that VIP room, I’ve been ripped in two.

“Go in,” I snap for the third time from the car outside, even though no one can hear me.

Watching her in that room with Ivanov, I’m dying a slow death. Sawyer got me a link to the feed when we figured out Rae’s plan and patched it through to the police too.

It kills me the audio on her camera isn’t working. I’ll ream Sawyer out for this later, assuming there is a later for all of us.

If she gets hurt in there, I’ll never forgive myself.

I should’ve stopped her. Should’ve taken her up on her suggestion this morning to walk away from all of it.

I rue the day I so much as uttered Ivanov’s name in her presence because if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here. Now the woman I love is risking herself to bring him down.

The second the asshole gets off the couch and crosses to her, I’m cursing. Then the camera swings wildly before settling again at a new angle, one that shows a security guard but not her.

She took off the vest.

Or someone ripped it off her.

I’m out of the car.

A plainclothes officer emerges from an unmarked vehicle. “Mr. King, do not go in there.”

I wrench away from him. “If you won’t, I will.”

I head inside, trying to wade through the crowd, but La Mer is packed. Raegan stirred them into a damned frenzy, and the afterparty is going strong.

This is taking too long.

I pick up my phone and hit a contact. Tyler answers over the din.

“I’m trying to get to Raegan,” I holler. “I need crowd control. Everyone near the stage and out of the halls.”

I don’t want anyone in the way of what could happen.

He hangs up, and I think he’s been cut off until the DJ changes to something else and I hear Tyler singing over it.

The crowd erupts, flooding the stage. A few people are in the halls still, and I shove past, reaching for my phone. I switch a few settings on it before sticking it upside down in my jacket pocket.

There’s no sign of Raegan’s security, or Mischa’s.

But when I reach the VIP door, it’s locked.