He squeezed Silas’s throat until the man’s eyes began to roll back.

Then, with a disgusted grunt, Declan threw him to the floor.

Silas lay there, gasping for air and clutching his broken ribs.

Roman stepped over the groaning man and stopped three feet from me.

He looked down at my shaking hands, then at the brass key.

“You did well to make it this far,” Roman said.

“I had the situation under control,” I said, trying to stop my knees from trembling.

Declan let out a harsh, mocking laugh.

“Under control?” Declan asked, wiping Silas’s blood off his knuckles with a rag.

“You were five seconds away from a bullet, little flower.”

“And you were five minutes away from losing your only leverage,” Roman said to Declan.

The tension between the two men was thick enough to choke on.

They stood in the narrow aisle, inches apart, their bodies tense and ready for a fight.

They had hated each other for a decade.

Their families had spilled oceans of blood in the streets of Calder City.

Yet, they were both here, in the dark, standing side by side.