Goddamn it! I’d been spending three evenings a week at the gym, and I couldn’t do better than this?

The door handle turned.

Shit, shit, shit! I’d never make—

“And another thing, asshole,” the man’s voice boomed from the end of the hall.

One last push, boosted by a wave of relief, and I heaved the rest of my torso into the shaft.

“Come on, Rick!” the woman called. “Do you want me to go back to the party?”

I wriggled and twisted, getting my legs in and my body turned around so I was facing the shaft opening. I tugged the cover from under me, hooked my fingers through the slats, and pulled it into place just as the doorknob twisted, and the lock snapped.

Marsten threw open the door, fast—as if he expected me to be standing there armed with a heavy stapler. Door wide, he paused in the opening, gaze tripping across the room, nostrils flaring.

Nostrils flaring…Werewolf…He could smell me.

Damn it! I tried to twist around. My shoulder knocked against the metal. A dull thump, but he heard it. Of course he heard it.

Werewolf. Heightened smell, heightened hearing, heightened strength…

I knew all this, so why did I keep forgetting until it was too late? I was out of my league. Way out of it, and I would pay for my hubris—

“Let’s make this easy,” he said, his smooth mask back in place. “You don’t want to play hide-and-seek with me. I have all the advantages, and a low tolerance for frustration. So we’ll skip the games. If you feel safer in your hidey-hole—” He scanned the room. “You’re welcome to stay there. You can hear me, and that’s all that matters.”

He turned slowly, searching for me even as he said he wouldn’t. Bastard.

I shifted my shoulders, testing my space limits again. Too tight. I’d been able to turn around with the vent open but, without that added space, I was stuck. No, not stuck. I could move backward. Awkward, slow, and probably loud, but if it came to that, I would. He’d barely fit in here—if at all—so I could still move faster than he could.

“Whoever you are, you’re of no interest to me,” he continued. “That means I have no particular desire to hurt you. So you have a choice. Tell me who you’re working for, and I’ll step aside and let you out this door. Refuse, and I’ll use you for leverage. That’s not a position you want to be in.”

I stayed still and quiet.

“I don’t have all night,” he said. “Nor do you. When I hear your associates approach—which I’m sure will be soon—I’ll sniff you out, and the choice will be made. After that, whether you walk out of here depends on how willing your employer is to negotiate.”

I said nothing. As he moved, his nostrils flared, still searching. Then he stopped and smiled. His gaze lifted to the ventilation shaft.

“Ah, there you are.”

A quick leap and he was on the desk. As he pulled off the cover, I scrambled backward. I got about five feet before my shoulders hit the sides, stopping me. While I struggled to back up, he peered into the shaft and smiled, his teeth glinting in the dark.

“I do believe you’ve backed yourself into a corner.”

I wriggled, but the shaft had narrowed, and the more I moved, the tighter I wedged myself in.

“Are you going to tell me who you work for?” he said.

“I already did,” I snarled.

“And I told you, I know better.” His voice was calm, conversational, no trace of the cold fury from earlier. “You’re obviously a bright young woman, and quite capable of thinking on your feet, as you proved earlier, so why you insist on sticking to this story—”

“Don’t bother. I know who I work for, and nothing you say is going to make me second-guess that—or betray them.”

He lifted his hand to his mouth and rubbed it, his gaze searching mine.

“You didn’t kill that security guard, did you?” he said.

“Kill—!” I gritted my teeth. “We both know who—and what—killed him, so don’t try pinning that on me.”

“That spot on your dress. I suppose you’ll tell me it isn’t blood.”

I snorted. “It’s the marinara sauce from the damn mussels you threw at me in the buffet line.”

“I threw—?”

He rubbed his mouth and growled. Or I thought it was a growl, until I saw his eyes dancing and realized he was laughing.

“All right. Here.” He reached into the shaft. “Come on out of there. I believe we both have a problem, and we’d best set about resolving it before your ‘associates’ arrive.”

“You really think I’m a fool, don’t you?”

He tilted his head, as if considering it. “A fool? Young, yes. Reckless, yes. Naïve, probably. But foolish? No. Not foolish. You—”

A sound from the hall. A door opening, then closing. He swiveled, his eyes narrowing as if tracking something I couldn’t hear. His gaze shot to the door handle and he mouthed a silent oath.

“Couldn’t lock it, could you?” I said. “That’s the problem with breaking things. They tend to stay broken.”

He shushed me, grabbed the vent cover, and knocked it back into place. Then he peered through the slats and whispered, “If you want to find out whether I’m lying—and I think you do—stay there and stay quiet.”

Marsten jumped off the desk and was halfway to the door when it opened. Two men strode in, guns in hand. Part of the council security force. I recognized both from other operations.

I crawled forward, ready to push open the vent. Then I stopped, palms against the cover. I didn’t need to eavesdrop to know Karl Marsten was full of shit. I heard the web of lies he’d spun when I’d first confronted him with the theft. He’d say anything to get out of this—to use me to get out of it. Yet there was reason to stay up here, hidden and silent, the perfect position to watch Marsten, and make sure he didn’t try anything. Or that’s what I told myself.

A man strolled in. Mid-thirties, average height and slightly built, with light brown hair and a delicate, almost feminine face. Tristan, my council contact.

“Ah, Karl,” he said. “I didn’t know you were a patron of the arts.”

“Tristan Robard,” Marsten said. “I’d say I should have known, but I’d be lying. After the last time, I thought you’d have the sense to leave me alone. I guess I overestimated you.”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed.

“I should give you credit, though,” Marsten continued. “You have quite a clever setup here. And your young agent. Well done. A beautiful young woman lays the most irresistible traps and, it seems, even I’m not immune.” He paused. “Aren’t you going to ask where she is?”

“Not terribly worried.”

Marsten smiled. “Oh, but you should be. The one problem with using beautiful young women as bait? They make equally irresistible hostages.”

“So you have her.”

As Marsten nodded, I opened my mouth to call out and let Tristan know I was safe—

Tristan smiled. “As I said, not terribly worried.”

I blinked, but shook it off. Of course Tristan would say that. He was a skilled negotiator. He wouldn’t let Marsten know he had leverage.

“I don’t think your superiors will approve of that attitude,” Marsten said. “Oh, but your superiors have nothing to do with this, do they? This is personal. A little boy lashing out because the big bad wolf embarrassed him.”

Tristan’s jaw set.

“I didn’t embarrass you, Tristan,” Marsten continued. “You did it to yourself. You offered me a job. I turned it down—respectfully and politely. But that wasn’t good enough, because you’d already promised them I’d do it. If I refused, you’d need to explain that you’d overreached, and there was no way you were doing that, so you came after me. I was happy to let the matter rest—a rejected business proposition, no cause for animosity—but you came after me. That was your mistake.”

Tristan give a tight laugh. “My mistake? You’re the one being held at gunpoint, and you’re talking about my mistake? Delusional to the end.”