“It’s her sky. You were made, not born. It’s Dani’s life.”

“Was. She was a fool. She wept like a helpless child that night at Chester’s while the entire club watched. Not because you broke her finger or threatened her but because you were alive and she was that happy to see you. She was always happy to see you. She lit up inside. You lost her. You let her be lost.”

“I ripped this city apart for a month looking for her.”

“That month was five and a half years for me.”

Ryodan flinches almost imperceptibly.

“Five and a half years in Hell. Don’t berate me for being. Thank me. She was weak. She needed me. I became.”

“She was never weak. She was a child. Treated abominably. Yet she shined.”

“I was never a child. I couldn’t afford that luxury. She made mistakes. She is dull. It is I who shine. You of all people should see that.”

“That’s why you’ve come today. To show me you’re all grown up and display your dazzling new persona.”

“As if I care what you think. I came for the contract, nothing more.”

“Because you believe it’s the only hold I have on you. You’ve been back for weeks and haven’t tried to kill me. I’d imagine, considering how hard I was on Dani, I must rank high on your list of scores to settle. Yet you’ve avoided me. You fear me.”

“I fear nothing.”

“Or perhaps you can’t quite bring yourself to kill me and have begun to wonder if my contract somehow mystically prevents you from harming me.”

Jada tenses slightly, and I realize Ryodan’s nailed it. Barrons told me a few months ago that Ryodan had coerced Dani into working for him, that he was being tough on her, trying to make her see that she wasn’t indestructible, curb some of the recklessness that would one day get her killed. Jada would surely despise Ryodan for controlling Dani. So why has she been back in Dublin for weeks and not once tried to get even with him? That’s not Dani’s way at all, and since Jada appears to be Dani on steroids, well … I hold my breath, waiting for her to answer.

“Let me make it simple for you.” Ryodan reaches beneath his desk, presses something, and a hidden panel slides soundlessly out.

“I would have found that,” Jada says instantly.

He pulls out a sheet of paper and glances at it. “Said contract. Signed in blood. By Dani. In your hand. Binding both of you. You think this keeps you from killing me. You want to kill me, pick up the blade on my desk.”

“You would only come back. When I kill you I will do so for good.”

“Get a little practice. See what it feels like to drive a knife through my heart. Relish it. Watch the light fade from my eyes, stare into my dying, taste it, see how you like it. There’s a moment in death that is unlike anything else in all existence.”

“You think I don’t know that. I began killing far younger than you.”

“Not even close. I’m here now. So are you. Do it.” He rips the contract in half, drops the pieces to the floor. “Contract void. Kill me. Dani.”

Jada says nothing. Her gaze drifts down to the knife on his desk, then back to Ryodan, but not starting at his face. It makes it there only after a false start from his feet.

“Pick up the fucking knife,” Ryodan orders.

“You don’t order me around. I’m not she who once obeyed.”

He steps forward, closing the space between them. I wonder how many of the Nine I’m going to watch die today.

Ryodan takes the knife from the desk, grabs her by the wrist and slaps the hilt into the palm of her hand. “I said kill me,” he says softly.

And all I can think is, God this is a terrible bluff. He’s trying to force Dani to stir behind Jada’s implacable countenance, force her alter ego to do something he believes Dani won’t let her do because she lit up whenever he was around.

She closes long, elegant fingers around the hilt. “Fine,” she says coolly.

She draws back her hand and, aiming at his heart, stabs him.

At the last moment, however, her wrist stutters, jerks, and twists around. The blade skids sideways, flat to his chest.

She goes motionless, fist resting on his bare skin and they stare at each other. Emerald ice meets silver steel.

I angle myself sideways, spellbound, trying to get a read on what’s going on by their expressions but, Christ, it’s like trying to read two standing stones. I’m startled to realize Dani didn’t merely grow up—she grew tall. The top of her head comes to Ryodan’s jaw, and since I know he’s six-foot-four, she’s got to be all of five-foot-ten, plus two inches of thick combat boot soles.

They both begin to shift subtly as if they’re fighting a silent war of the wills with their bodies. Ryodan’s stance becomes even more aggressive, intimidating, coercing. But unlike Dani, who would have backed away, Jada molds herself farther into his space, demanding her share of it.

For nearly a minute they stand there like that, staring at each other, trying to force the other to yield in some small way.

It’s Ryodan who breaks the volatile silence. “I’ll give you a choice. Kill me.”

“By definition ‘choice’ mandates a minimum of two possible avenues of action.”

“I wasn’t done. Or kiss me. But do one or the other. Before I do one or the other to you.”

Jada stares at him a long moment, then slowly, deliberately, presses the full length of her body up against his naked one, black leather to nude man, soft, feminine curves to heavily muscled, scarred chest.