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and slip out of the ropes that bound her to the chair.  
    She’d managed to rub her wrists raw, but she hadn’t broken free. Not yet.
    “You were in the wrong place…”
    His voice drifted to her.
    Jess stiffened. Her fingers were fisted behind her.
    “You shouldn’t have walked into the bar. Not
his
bar. If you hadn’t…” Now the guy was walking back toward her, stepping through the doorway that connected the two rooms.
    The knife was in his hand. Light glinted off the blade. “If you hadn’t been in that bar, Blake would have picked up another woman to screw. Maybe she would have let him die in that elevator. Or maybe
she’d
be the one tied up in that chair right now.”  His lips twisted in a cold smile. “Life’s funny that way, isn’t it?  The little choices we make can change everything for us.”
    Jess licked lips that had gone bone-dry. “You can make a choice right now. You can walk out of this room. Just turn and walk away. I-I won’t tell the cops about you. We can forget this whole thing ever happened.”
    His laughter broke through her words. Heavy, mocking laughter. “Blake Landon wouldn’t forget, and the bastard sure as hell wouldn’t forgive.”  His eyes locked with hers. “And when I take what he values most, he sure as shit won’t be forgiving me anytime soon.”
    “I’m not what he values—”
    “Not you. The Night’s Heart.”
    She just stared at him. Utterly and completely
lost.
    “I know how Landon got his fortune. He fuckin’ stole it, so now, it’s my turn to take from him.”
    Jess stared up at him, but she also kept working—slyly and slowly—to slip her wrists out of those ropes. The rope around her left wrist felt loose. She sure hoped that wasn’t just wishful thinking on her part.
Be loose. Be. Loose.
    “The Heart wasn’t at his suite in the Landon Hotel. The bastard has hidden it, but when he comes tonight, I’ll make him tell me where it is.”  He lifted the knife a few inches, pointing it at her. “He can tell me, or he can die.”
    “W-what’s the Heart?” She didn’t want to know. She didn’t—
    “The
Night’s Heart!”
he shouted.
    Her left wrist slid from the ropes.
    “And it’s the biggest damn diamond you can imagine.  Big enough to buy Landon a new life. Big enough to give me back the life I
should’ve
had.” 
    The fingers of her left hand began to fumble with the rope that kept her right hand imprisoned. If she could just get it free, then she could have a fighting chance.
    “You’re the distraction…like I said…” His hand lifted. The hand
not
holding the knife.  His fingers brushed over her cheek. “You went into the wrong bar. But I can see why you caught Blake’s eye.”
    She wanted his hand
off
her.
    But he didn’t stop touching her. Instead, he slid his hand down, carefully skirting the wound on her neck—the wound
he’d
made—and then pausing at her collar bone. 
    No, no,
no.
Jess did not like the way he was looking at her. 
    The rope slipped away from her right hand. 
    This was it.  Do or die—literally. 
    Jess raised her chin. “Get your hand off me.”
    He leaned toward her. The knife lowered. “Honey, why don’t you just—”
    Glass shattered. The window near the front door seemed to splinter into a thousand pieces and something—someone—flew through that window even as someone else rammed into the door and sent the wood flying open.
    Jess shot to her feet. She rammed her knee into her attacker’s groin as hard as she could, then she leapt past him—and ran straight to Blake.
    Because Blake was the man who’d knocked open the motel room door. And the other guy—the guy who’d hurtled through the window—that was…Carson. Blake’s security guy from the Imperial.
    Blake’s arms were open, and running into them seemed like the most natural thing in the world. 
    Her body slammed into his.  Collided with a hard impact that knocked the breath from her, but Jess didn’t