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I shake my head. “I had a bad feeling Claire was up to something, so I had Jay check their house. Someone broke in about a half-hour ago.”

She’s scrambling from the bed and beside me in seconds, slapping away my hands and grabbing the clothes she needs.

“Why would she go after my parents?” she asks, frantically pulling on clothes.

“Because outside of myself and Daya, it’s the only other way to get to you. There’s been no communication, which means they might not have done anything drastic yet.”

She shakes her head, panic pulling her brows into a tight knot. “I don’t get it. I don’t understand why she’s after me like this.”

I grab one of my guns from her dresser, check the clip, and tuck it into the back of my jeans. The knife I gave her for her birthday is downstairs, but I'll be grabbing extra guns for her.

“At this point, it’s just personal, baby. I’m the biggest threat to her organization, and you’re the biggest payday she’ll ever see in her lifetime. You will simultaneously make her richer than any human has a right to be and bring me to my knees.”

“Xavier already paid for me, and now he’s dead. So she’s trying to make double the money on me,” she snipes.

She rushes over to her snea

kers lying haphazardly at the foot of her bed. “She can’t possibly think this will work. Does she think I’m that fucking stupid to run into the same situation twice?”

“It’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how desperate you are. And if she gets ahold of your parents and uses them as collateral, you will be desperate enough to do anything.”

Addie huffs, stomping her foot to get the shoe past her heel.

“I’ll be damned if I become like Rio,” she mutters under her breath.

I’ll sooner make it into heaven before that happens.

“What the hell is she going to do anyway?” she asks aloud, though it sounds rhetorical. She turns to me, her light brown eyes sharp. “The stupid bitch is going to try to get me to trade my life for theirs, am I right?”

“Most likely,” I concede, following her out of her bedroom door. The moment we step out, it feels as if the walls open their eyes, watching us rush through the dark hallway. Addie cuts through the shadow figures creeping across the floor, paying them no mind.

“Should we wake Sibby?”

I open my mouth, but then as if conjured straight out of a Rob Zombie film, she steps out of her bedroom door near the staircase, covering her mouth as she yawns. Her pigtails are skewed, and her purple nightgown hangs off one shoulder.

She squints her eyes, staring at us with confusion. Addie stops short, gives Sibby one look, and then clips, “Get dressed quickly. You may get to have some fun tonight.”

Whatever fatigue was clinging onto her wisps away in a matter of seconds. Her eyes widen with excitement.

“Can my henchmen come, too?”

I sigh. “Only two can fit, and only if they don’t get in the way.” They’re imaginary, yet the assholes somehow still cause problems. She takes off back into the room, squealing.

“Give us two seconds!” she shouts from the depths, but Addie is already tapping her little feet down the stairs like a roadrunner on crack.

“Don’t forget your knives and guns, mouse,” I call after her. “And, Sibby… limit your knives and guns.”

I hear a dramatic sigh from the room, but I ignore her, sticking my Bluetooth in my ear.

Within two minutes, we’re piled into my car and taking off towards her parents’ house. It’s an hour away, but I’m determined to get there in half the time.

Ten minutes into the drive, the men were dragging Addie’s parents out of the house. Jay made a split-second decision and gunned down their truck. The drone he’s using is special grade, equipped with bullets, and highly illegal.

The men took her parents right back inside and will be waiting for our arrival. There’s a slight risk that they’ll kill her parents before we get there, but that would be entirely stupid.

If her parents are dead, there’s no leverage. And if they tried to escape, Jay would shoot them down. Either way, they lose.

“They know we’re here,” I remind Addie as I pull into the driveway.