The lobby of the Grand Imperial was all white marble and gold. It was the only seven-star hotel in Sparta City.Selena had swapped the bunny costume for jeans, a cap and dark glasses. She held Jack's arm with both hands as they crossed the lobby, planning out loud."Two suitcases. Three, tops. Lexi can ship the rest. I'll leave the stage outfits. I'll leave the shoes. Okay, not the shoes."Jack let her talk. She rambled a lot to herself anyway.He was constantly distracted by guards going stiff and saluting him. The black bar on his shirt made him more powerful than a war general in Morgana's administration.The elevator doors slid open, and a young, gorgeous woman stepped out.Juliet Forbes.She was as beautiful as ever, in a cream dress with her dark hair pinned up and diamonds at her ears.But her face had changed. It was calm and perfect, and it gave away nothing at all. Compared to her usual expressive face, it looked like a mask.Jack's heart kicked once, hard. Not long ago, thi

The Mercedes kept rolling toward the floodlit towers of the Sparta border.Jack didn't answer. His hands stayed steady on the wheel, and his gaze never left the road.Beside Jill, Selena had gone rigid. She stared straight ahead and clutched her handbag against her stomach."Jack?" Jill whispered. "Did you hear me?"There was no goodbye waiting at the border gate. There never had been.The orphans were the only excuse that would get Jill out of the Obsidian Palace without questions. She had never once refused a chance to see those children. So Jack had used them.Forgive me, Jill. It was the only way.The plan was simple. Take Jill and Selena out of Sparta tonight. Crash through the border if he had to. Deal with Morgana and the black summons later, from the safety of Springfield.Jill didn't know she was a Cromwell. She didn't know her real mother and father were somewhere inside this city. If he told her now, she would never believe him. She would run straight back to the dictator w

The gas station sat alone on the highway at the edge of Sparta City, lit up white under its floodlights.The governor's motorcade lay scattered across the road. Black SUVs burned on their rims. A state trooper's car had been flipped onto its roof, its siren still whining into the night.Secret Service agents lay dead, guns still in their hands.A gangster held up a bloody earpiece and jeered. "The famous Secret Service! They died faster than my grandma!"The men who had done it stood around the station.Hundreds of them crowded the forecourt and spilled onto the highway with rifles slung across their chests and grenades clipped to their belts.Some wore jaguar heads tattooed on their necks and forearms. Some were still kicking the dead agents and emptying their pockets, roaring at the joke. A few pressed their faces to the station windows to leer at the woman inside.Inside the station, under the buzzing white lights, Ryker Sullivan and Juliet Forbes were chained to two gas pumps.Ryk

Inside the gas station, Juliet clawed at the hand around her throat."Get off me! You monster, don't touch me!"Shrader only pressed down harder. His knee ground into her thigh, and his breath stank of whiskey and gasoline."Stop screaming and give up, sweetheart. Spread your legs for me. Nobody's going to help you, so it'll hurt less if you stop fighting."Juliet thrashed under him until the chain on her wrist clanged against the pump. Tears streamed down her bruised cheek.Out on the forecourt, the drunken laughter turned to shouting. A car crashed onto its roof hard enough to rattle the pumps, and a man howled.Shrader didn't even look up. His boys were having their fun with the local girls. Let them play.Then the gunfire started.It wasn't a few drunken shots into the sky. Every gun on the forecourt opened up at once, a roar that shook the windows in their frames.Screams tore through the noise, raw with agony, and one by one they choked off into silence.Shrader's head jerked up

Juliet broke away from Jack and ran.She stumbled across the road in his leather jacket and threw herself into Ryker's arms, sobbing so hard her whole body shook."Oh God, you're alive! Are you hurt? How did you get out? I thought they killed you!"Her hands flew over his face, his bandaged forehead, his torn suit, as if she had to touch him to believe he was real."I thought I'd lost you," Juliet sobbed into Ryker's shirt.Jack stood alone in the ring of spotlights. Around him the rifles lowered, and the red dots slid off his chest one by one.Only moments ago, her fingers had been laced through his. For a few steps down that dark road, it had felt as if the divorce had never happened. Like she was still his.It had been an illusion, and now the cold rushed back in.Something else made his jaw tighten.Juliet had only heard the gunshot through a closed door. Jack's senses were far more advanced and heightened. He had heard it from outside the gas station. He had heard the bullet punc