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You killed me.

Jonas was already plotting out his next move, made harder by the presence of the authorities. But harder wasn’t impossible, and impossible was all in a day’s work for him. Even if he happened to be a little more impaired than usual today.

He focused on Carter. “It doesn’t matter who dies as long as I’m rich, right? Isn’t that the way you operate?”

“Spare me the lecture, you sanctimonious prick,” Carter snarled at him, his face getting red. “I’ve scraped better men than you off my shoe. Just crawl back into your little hidey-hole in Alaska and leave it to the big boys to figure out—”

“Enough,” Jonas interrupted him. “I’m done with you.”

“What areyougoing to do?” Carter demanded. “Knife me right here in Grand Central? Is that the high road you think you’re on?”

“Technically,” Jonas pointed out, “I already did.”

Then he lifted his hand with the tube in it.

Everything sped up all around them. He heard shouting. The kind of loud, abrasive commands that only cops made, because they wanted to clear the scene, take control, get everyone down on the floor.

Jonas looked to his right, expecting to see Isaac there, and sure enough, his friend was right on target. So he threw the tube that he knew was full of the SuperThrax that was even now eating him alive. He didn’t wait to see if Isaac would catch it.

Because he knew he would.

Instead, he banked left, knowing that Templeton would do what was necessary to give him that opening—

He did. Templeton theatrically tripped over his own two feet, knocking back half the SWAT team gunning for Jonas.

Jonas dived for the stairs, plunging into the crowd and shoving his comm unit back into his ear as he went.

“Where is she?” he demanded, not bothering to look over his shoulder, because he was fairly sure most of the New York Federal Bureau of Investigation was behind him, with a few SWAT teams from the NYPD thrown in for good measure, and there was no point clocking their positions because he didn’t intend to get caught.

“The corridor to your left,” came Blue’s gruff reply.

Jonas ran.

He didn’t care if they shot him in the back. He’d keep running.

He didn’t ask if she was alive, because that wouldn’t help him go any faster. And if he was too late, he would deal with that once he found out one way or another. Likely by tearing the entire building down around him.

He ran and, for once, didn’t do a single thing to disappear while he did it.

Every eye in Grand Central was on him, and he didn’t care.

He vaulted over luggage, shoved a few clueless young men out of his way, and, for perhaps the first time in his entire life, was making a freaking spectacle of himself.

But it was for Bethan.

He would do a lot more.

Jonas threw himself into the corridor Blue had indicated and saw them there, halfway down the gentle incline. Bethan was slumped against a wall, down on the ground as if she’d crumpled there. Iyara Sowande was next to her, also sitting, while Blue was standing guard over them.

And it wasn’t until Jonas slid to a stop, going down in a roll that ended with him up on his knees before Bethan, that he realized he was light-headed.

Exertion, something in him told him matter-of-factly.You made that run in less than a minute, but it came at a cost.

“I have the antidote,” he managed to get out past the panting as his lungs worked overtime.

But his hands were already on Bethan. He checked for her pulse. He looked at her face. She was paler than she should have been, her eyes were glassy, and she didn’t look right—

“Jonas,” Blue began. “Brother—”