Elvis seized on the manager's words like a lifeline."Did you hear that?" he said, and the pain in his wrist seemed to matter less now that backup had arrived, now that someone with authority had spoken and confirmed exactly what Elvis had been saying all along. "Did you actually hear what he just said?" His voice climbed with renewed confidence. "Now do you understand the situation you have walked yourself into? Now do you see that there are people in this world who are simply too big for you to get involved with?" He leaned forward as much as Hector's grip would allow. "We are VIPs. Wherever we go, we do not stand in lines. Wherever we walk in, we move straight to the front and we get what we came for and it gets done immediately. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked."He tried to pull his wrist back again and when it still did not move he gave up and just stood there, glaring at Hector with the renewed fury of someone who believes the room has just turned back in

He moved.He crossed the distance between himself and Hector in four quick steps and his hand came up and closed around Hector's throat, not a gentle grip, not a warning grip, the full, furious grip of a man who had made a decision he had not entirely thought through yet.Hector's free hand came up immediately.He caught the manager's wrist the same way he had caught Elvis's, the same clean, quiet motion, the same absolute stop, and now he was standing in the middle of the lobby holding two men by their wrists simultaneously, Elvis on one side still unable to pull free, the manager on the other side having just discovered the same problem."What," Hector said, his voice perfectly level, "do you think you are doing?"The manager pulled.His hand did not move.He pulled again, harder, throwing his weight behind it, and the only thing that accomplished was the arrival of real pain, the deep, grinding pressure of fingers around bone, and his expression shifted rapidly from fury into somet

The director's jaw tightened so visibly that the muscles in his temples became sharp lines beneath his skin.He looked at the manager.The manager, who had been standing there slack-faced and disoriented just a moment earlier, now seemed to collapse from the inside out. His knees gave way in a slow, ungraceful descent, and he landed on the marble floor of his own lobby with a sound that echoed off the polished walls, his head dropping forward, his hands coming to rest palm-down on his thighs as though he needed something solid beneath them to confirm that he was still in the physical world."My goodness," he said, and his voice had become something small and hollow. "He did what?" He looked up at the director with eyes that had lost all the fire they had carried minutes earlier. "I did not— I was only— I did not actually—""Shut up," the director said.The two words landed like a door slamming closed.Behind them, Elvis and Victoria had gone very still. The confidence that had been ra

Victoria drew herself up to her full height, and when she spoke again her voice had found a second wind, fueled by something that had moved past ordinary anger into the colder, more deliberate territory of someone making promises they fully intend to keep."You must be terribly sick," she said, and she looked at the director the way people look at things they have already decided to discard. "Let me say it again so you understand me clearly. You want me. Victoria. Of the K9 family. To stand in a queue because of him?" She let the word hang in the air like something soiled. "Never. That will never happen. Not today, not in this lifetime."She straightened the strap of her bag with a sharp, precise motion."And as for this disrespect you have just shown me, this utterly shameless disrespect, let me make you a promise right now. This establishment is at risk. You are at risk. Your position, your title, everything you have built in this place." Her eyes were steady and cold. "My grandfath

Elvis nodded immediately."Yes," he said. "I recognized his face. You have absolutely nothing to worry about." He pulled out his phone and turned it over in his hand, the gesture deliberate and full of intent. "I have someone who works in the security department of this establishment. Getting the CCTV footage of what just happened will take one phone call. Maybe two." He looked back toward the entrance. "And then we track him. I will track him personally. I will get to the root of who he is, where he came from, what he thinks he is doing. That bastard cannot do this and expect to walk away scot-free. It is not going to happen. I will crush him. Crush him so badly he will wish he had kept his mouth shut."Victoria was staring at the entrance.Her jaw was tight. Her arms were folded across her chest. The fury radiating off her was visible, almost tangible, the kind of anger that sits just beneath the surface waiting for a direction to move in."That face looks familiar," she said quietl