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“Exactly,” he cackled and stopped moving. “She has so much more to lose. So much more to give than you.”

“Just give me a week. I just need some time, and I’ll have the money,” I pleaded.

“I don’t want your money, and you don’t have a week. You sign the restaurant over or…” He sat back down in his chair and crossed his legs as if he were in another usual, above-board business deal. “Well, you know you can’t stop me or these men even if you wanted to.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Why this? Why now? Why us?”

“What you’re really asking is…” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows against his knees. “Why not the Thibodeauxs?”

A shaky breath escaped my throat, but I nodded. Guilt swarmed within me, coating the anger and, yes, fear, that surged through my veins. But I wanted to know what they were going to do to escalate against the Thibodeauxs, because his threats always came in pairs.

“How do you know this isn’t about them? Besides, they have a son who just showed up,” he hissed and nodded his chin.

A crack sizzled through the air. To my left, the eleventh man I’d slashed in the stomach collapsed to the floor. My eyes widened as blood seeped from the bullet hole in his head. But the man who had shot him barely batted an eye.

Ten. Back to ten.

O’Connor grabbed the arm of my chair and tugged. Metal grated across the floor as he closed the gap between his seat and mine. “What does—” I gasped, gulping down mouthfuls of air. “What does their son have to do with anything?”

“Well, one, Fred there clearly didn’t do the background dive into the Thibodeauxs as well as he should’ve, or we would’ve already known about this son. So, isn’t it obvious?” He tipped his head and blew air slowly from his lips.

“You’re going to focus on what and who you do know,” I finished for him.

“Exactly.” He leaned away from me and glanced back at my knives. “These are really nice. Too short to really do much damage, but easy enough to carry around undetected.”

“Give them back,” I snarled. But how fucking intimidating was I when I barely passed five feet tall and certainly had no leverage or advantage being restrained and tied to this FUCKING CHAIR.

I rocked back and forth violently, thrashing against my restraints, when the lights went out.

“What the hell?” O’Connor muttered.

Faint illumination from the streetlamps cast an eerie, dull yellow glow around the room. With the chairs stacked on top of the tables and men staggered about the room, odd shapes shivered in the darkness as if they were swaying beneath water and then extinguished by simply shifting the angle with which I looked at them.

A scream tore my attention behind me, but the bellow was cut short. Suddenly, a shadow darted across the diner. I whipped my head to the right as several bodies disappeared into the ethereal black with a faint grunt.

Six. Maybe seven? Either way, there were certainly fewer than ten men standing around me now.

“Thefuck?!” a man shrieked, and then one of the shadows thumped to the floor.

A thud followed.

The strangest silhouette raced across the restaurant at nearly inhuman speed.

Rougarou?

All my bravado fled. O’Connor’s cronies looked like they were being torn apart, and my earlier thoughts about childhood fables didn’t seem so innocent now. My heart hammered in my chest, and my ribs felt as if they could barely contain the fervent pounding.

“WHAT THE—” Another man’s scream was cut short as this massive creature barreled into three of the cronies, all standing in a line.

“WILL SOMEONE FUCKING DO SOMETHING!” O’Connor shouted, his darkened form rising in front of me.

“Like what?” a man to my left defiantly asked. He shifted on his feet, darting wildly from side to side. In the dim shadows, I could make out his gun, which he waved around recklessly but with no aim. I mean, was there anything to really aim at?

“I don’t know. Shoot the fucking thing!” O’Connor shrieked, his voice sounding a bit further away from me, high-pitched with panic.

“Where is it?” the man beside me cried out, spinning in a circle.

Everything within me froze as a monster rose behind him. Towering at least a foot or two taller than an average human, and twice as wide, the creature’s massive frame blocked the streams of light from the street. His own shadow bathed me and the man holding me hostage in total darkness.