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Micah smoothed a bandage over the cut he’d made. “How do you know that’s it, that there’s no more?”
    “We don’t,” Seth said, his voice grim. “We hope like fuck because we’ve run out of time. If that was their last way to track you? Determination is going to turn to unrelenting desperation pretty damn quick.”
    Devon’s heart leapt into her throat at the distant whir that pulsed out of the sky, because now she knew what it meant. She gasped as Seth grabbed her hand and hauled her up. She put a hand to her side, to the sharp, throbbing pain there.
    “How are we going to get out of here? Are we running again?”
    She was hurting, bleeding. She’d do her best, but…
    “Not exactly.” Seth grabbed Micah’s wrist, Micah took hold of hers. She started at the contact, wondered if she’d ever get used to it, and then gasped as three black helicopters crested the rise, men shouting from below them on the slope.
    “Micah, go, ” Seth shouted.
    * * *
    This was supposed to be the fun part?
    Devon doubled over yet again, her stomach heaving despite being completely empty—painfully, bitterly empty. This was as far removed from fun as she could imagine, not that she’d ever had that much to compare it with.
    The feeling of disorientation she was getting used to— don’t overthink it, don’t try to understand, just go with it —but the nausea, not so much. And the pain in her side was a blazing fire that she was strangely thankful for. It helped take her mind off everything else. Sort of.
    She took a gulp of air as the tangy ocean breeze washed across her skin, lifting some of the sickness away.
    Wait. Ocean?
    They’d been in the crisp, cool air of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now she was looking out over a bay—the warm, salted air a little stifling. There were palm trees. A lot of them.
    If she thought she was in bad shape, it was nothing compared to Micah. He collapsed, Seth just managing to pull her wrist from his grasp otherwise he would have taken her down with him. He’d stumbled before, had managed to stay upright with Seth’s help, but this time he looked like he wasn’t going to get up. And he was deathly pale.
    “Is he okay?”
    Seth’s mouth was a grim line. “He’s never taken so many people so far before. The bad news is he’s done, depleted. The good news is that we’re here.”
    She glanced back at the massive, looming structure.
    “What is this place? A hotel of some sort?”
    “Noah’s house.”
    Even with the wealth she’d lived with, the accommodations she was used to, the luxuries that had been commonplace, this house was impressive.
    “Not that I expect a straight answer, but who exactly is Noah?”
    “You’re late.”
    Devon started at the deep voice. A man stood in the shadows. What was it with all these guys appearing out of nowhere? She couldn’t see his eyes, actually couldn’t see much of him at all, but her skin prickled. She knew he was staring right at her.
    “Yeah, we had a little…issue,” Seth drawled as he bent to Micah.
    Before he could hoist him up, several men filed out of the large house. They nodded to Seth who pretty much ignored them. Some stared openly at her. They were all heavily armed, watchful and moved with the same lethal grace she’d first noticed from Seth.
    They also reminded her of the bodyguards she’d lived with her entire life, had thought were normal for the longest time, until she’d realized there was nothing “normal” about how she lived, how she was “kept.”
    “But it’s taken care of.”
    Or it had better be. The voice was hard for all its silky smoothness and it wasn’t a question. Not even a statement. It was a threat.
    Seth’s lips tightened. “Yeah.”
    “Meet me up in the office.”
    The stranger stepped back, melting back into the shadows, as the men lifted Micah and took him into the house.
    He looked… “Is Micah—”
    “He should be fine. He knew transporting the three of us over that distance in