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and streamed down my flushed cheeks. My heart still pounded; my pulse still raged. I was a mess. Though I tried really hard not to show Dane how freaked out I was.
    â€œHe could have killed you.” I bit my trembling lower lip, desperately hoping I wouldn’t fall apart.
    â€œDon’t think about that,” he said.
    â€œHow can I not?” I quietly demanded. “He actually pulled the fucking trigger.”
    â€œHe did what he had to do, without taking it to the next level. He didn’t want to shoot either one of us. Hilliard will make him pay for the screwup. Either before Tom heads off to prison or while he’s inside.”
    Dane contacted FBI Agents Daugherty and Strauss, whom he’d worked with as he handed off evidence against the society.
    When Dane wrapped up the conference call and shoved the cell into his pocket, I asked, “Could it have been Wayne Horton who was sent in with the snakes? He does seem to get off on terrorizing me.”
    â€œDoubtful. He worked directly for Vale. No paycheck attached to being a lone wolf,” Dane said, clearly fighting a wince of pain. And trying to keep the look of sheer agony from me as he continued to bleed—too much for my comfort. The dish towels were already coated in crimson.
    He added, “I can’t imagine Horton would go to all this trouble without a funding source. And Bryn wouldn’t be able to count on him, since Wayne and Vale failed their mission the first time around.”
    â€œNot necessarily,” I said. “Wayne could very well have been the one to bomb the Lux.”
    Kyle snorted. “Probably hoping Ari was inside. She’s right—seems he’s taken a personal interest in making her suffer.”
    â€œYou think he’d come after her for the sport of it at this point?” Dane lobbed the question out there, but he didn’t sound convinced Wayne would pursue this avenue without Vale to provide the directives.
    Kyle said, “You didn’t see Horton chasing us up the switchbacks with hairpin turns and no shoulder on her side of the car—just a forty-five-hundred-foot drop into Oak Creek Canyon.”
    Dane’s scowl deepened. “Don’t think for a second that I’m letting him off the hook. Not after all the damage he’s done. That asshole’s on my list, believe me.”
    â€œDane.” I didn’t like that lethal blade to his voice that sliced through me.
    He was slipping back into that dark and dangerous place in his mind.
    I knew he wanted vengeance. And he certainly deserved it. Yet it was what he was willing to do in the name of retribution that alarmed me.
    â€œKyle, you’re on-watch,” Amano said as he gestured to Tom, then shoved his gun in his holster. “Don’t touch the rifle. We don’t want to smudge the prints on it.”
    â€œYou got this?” Kyle asked me of Dane’s wound.
    â€œYes.” I bucked up. Forced my hands to steady.
    Kyle crossed to the other side of the kitchen and said, “My GLOCK’s in my room.”
    â€œYou’ll survive.”
    â€œSeriously, you’re leaving me unarmed with him?”
    â€œThe man is unconscious, Kyle,” Amano stated in a flat voice.
    â€œOr dead,” Kyle mumbled.
    â€œHe’s still breathing. Just keep an eye on him. If he comes to, you know what moves to use on him.”
    Kyle’s chest puffed out a bit. “You got that right.”
    Amano left us briefly, evidently to retrieve Dr. Forrester from the other side of the massive walls surrounding the estate, which sat in a secluded portion of a box canyon in Sedona. Though we were surrounded by breathtaking red-rock formations, I currently found no beauty in our grim world. Not with my insides twisted and Dane and Kyle bleeding. The scent and sight of it made me nauseous, but I tamped down the bile burning my throat.
    I eyed Dane closely, seeing the rage burning within him. I had