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I narrow my eyes at him. “Let me guess, you were one of her people?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Not anymore.”

“Are you sure about this?” Maddie whispers.

“No,” I say honestly. I’ve never been more frightened. “Not at all.”

“What if he double-crosses you in there?” She flicks her head to the backseat where Thane can clearly hear everything she’s saying.

I flash her a grin. “I guess I’ll have to beat him to it.”

I put the car in drive. I’m coming for you, Caleb.

Chapter 15

Caleb

“Whereisit?”thebig dude, whose name I still don’t know, yells.

“I don’t know.” I groan, repeating the same words I have for the last hour. And just like he has after every response for the last hour, he punches me. In the gut, my face, ribs, shoulders, they’re all bruised. But there’s no way I’m going to tell them my dad has the Framework. Not because I want to protect him, but because I know that if they find him, he won’t hesitate to throw Amelia under the bus and send them after her. Which means I might die here.

“Let’s start over, shall we?” the man asks, stepping back and rubbing out his hands. He motions to one of the other two men in the room, and one flicks on a projector. A map of the Strip pops up. “Evan lost you right about here.” He points to the Mandalay Bay. “Then we found you here.” He points to the other end of the Strip. “What did you do in the meantime? How did you get from one end to the other?Whodid you spend your time with?”

I purposely avoid his last question. “I was looking for that stupid toy you all want so badly.” I throw some arrogance into my voice like I have no idea what the Framework is.

“And you found it?”

“If I found it, I would have given it to you an hour ago before you broke my nose.”

“Concerned with your looks?” He chuckles. “You’ve got much bigger worries.”

“No offense, but it seems like you’ll be in bigger trouble when your boss gets here and realizes you lost the stupid thing to Katerina.”

“I didn’t—” he yells, then tamps it back down. “That little witch seduced me,” he mutters.

Finally, something to work with. “She tends to do that.”

He looks at me, almost surp I’m still here. “She has this way about her.” His eyes glaze over, and I barely stop myself from groaning. “She gets in my mind. But Fox…Fox is going to lose it.”

“Talk to Katerina. Get her to admit where it is. Maybe Fox doesn’t have to know,” I say, one step closer to being able to play this man like a fiddle. But he only glares at me.

“Fox knows everything.”

There goes that hope.

The door creaks open and a wide-eyed man peeks in. “Fox is here.”

Great. I’ll get to meet the Fox but not be able to do anything about it because I’m headed for six feet under.

“Get him up,” the big guy barks to the other two, who gruffly grab my arms and haul me up, dripping blood all over the penthouse. They shove me onto a couch just as the door opens. My vision blurs and my body screams in pain as I right myself.

The second the room is in view again, I wish it wasn’t.

The world stops spinning.

There’s my dad. And Amelia. In a black wig.

No.How did she find me? Why are they here? Did my father put her up to this? I’m going to kill him. But I have to get her to safety first.