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Jacobs…laughed.

The sound was bizarre—a note of helpless, involuntary humor threaded through with dark frustration.

The reaction made not the least bit of sense.

It lasted for only a breath before his eyes flashed with fury, and his cool facade slid back into place.

“This is a waste of my time,” he determined.

He turned away. Zeinab coughed pointedly, and Ellie made another desperate jab.

“You despise him, don’t you?” she called out. “And yet you keep doing whatever he tells you to do, even when you disagree. It can’t be because you need the work. You are obviously very competent at your—er, particular area of expertise. I’m sure there are other ne’er-do-wells you could ally yourself with if you chose. Yet you keep bowing to Mr. Forster-Mowbray’s whims, even when it obviously infuriates you. I wonder why that is?”

Jacob’s attention was like a dagger. Ellie braced herself against it even as a cool line of sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.

“Careful, Miss Mallory,” Jacobs’ tone was light—and dangerous. “I don’t think you want to make this personal.”

“Makeit personal?” Ellie burst back, startled into frankness. “You have already tried to kill me four times!”

“Was it four?” Adam’s tone was casual, but his blue gaze was like ice as he studied Jacobs. “I was counting three.”

Ellie bit back a huff of exasperation. “First, he planned to murder me at the hotel in Belize Town,” she listed. “Then he threatened to flay me to force you to cooperate when we were caught on the trail. He tried to shoot us both when we were fleeing from the temple. And then there was that attempted stabbing when he caught me by the mirror. That is four!”

“I dunno if I’d count the flaying,” Adam hedged. “That was more of a bluff than an actual murder attempt.”

“Are you saying you didn’t mind that one?” Ellie shot back, infuriated.

“Of course, I minded it!” Adam returned. “I minded it a lot!”

Jacobs pinched the bridge of his nose as though fighting a rising headache—then with a smooth, practiced motion, he grabbed hold of Constance’s hair, dragged her to him, and set a dagger to her throat.

The blade seemed to have slipped into his hand out of thin air.

“Unhand me, you reprehensible, loutish—” Constance snarled.

“Connie!” Ellie pleaded.

Constance closed her mouth, though her eyes still blazed with fury.

Ellie’s throat tightened with fear… and a curious, buzzing question.

WhyConstance?Jacobs must have a far better sense of what Adam meant to her, and he was sitting right beside her. Why the friend he’d barely seen her with as opposed to the man he must know she cared deeply for?

“You rotten bastard—” Adam started, the words a growl of outrage as his arms tensed against the ropes binding his wrists.

“What is all of this about, Miss Mallory?” Jacobs’ voice was taut with impatience and barely suppressed ire.

She was exquisitely conscious of the impossibility of putting Jacobs off with a lie—and of just how easily Jacobs might snap his blade and leave Constance to bleed out on the stones.

Constance held herself still—for now. She hadn’t yet revealed that her hands were untied, keeping them at her back. She had likely calculated that even her more advanced jiu jitsu maneuvers couldn’t help her when someone had a knife at her throat.

“Answer my question, and I will tell you,” Ellie pushed back in a desperate gambit. “What did the mirror show you?”

“You are hardly in a position to bargain,” Jacobs pointed out.

“I am if I have something worth telling you,” Ellie retorted, glad her hands were behind her back so that Jacobs could not see them shaking.

Jacobs stilled. When he spoke, every word rang with a clear, deliberate comprehension. “And do you?”