Dez grabbed her gun and ran down the hall, forcing herself to remember that Brutale would never have let her live either.

Mace stopped beside the hung body of a hyena. He rose up on his hind legs and sniffed her. He smelled Dez faintly and knew she’d done this.

He followed behind Smitty and the Pack, but stopped when he saw what they were looking at.

The hallway split off into four directions. And they smelled Dez all over.

Sissy Mae sent several of her females down one tunnel. Smitty sent a few females, including his sister, and a few males down two other tunnels.

Mace took a step toward the last tunnel but stopped when he knew someone watched him. He saw a pretty little girl, no more than eight or so, staring at him. She looked up at the hyena hanging from the pipes; back at Mace; and, with a heart-stopping smile only hyena children seemed to possess, suddenly turned and screamed, “Giiinnnnaaa!”

Shit! Mace and Smitty exchanged a glance, then charged down the fourth tunnel.

One hyena alone could cause enough damage. But a Clan of forty or even eighty? He had to get to Dez before she fell into the middle of them or they found her. Otherwise they’d all be dead.

She turned the corner and faced another set of long hallways. What a freakin’ maze. A well-lit, confusing maze. Every corner she turned introduced her to another row of long hallways. Choosing one led her to another corner with another set of hallways and on and on.

Christ, what did she get herself into?

She stopped and took a breath. Yup. She was lost. She would have gone for her cell phone, but she’d dropped that in the alley behind the coffeehouse.

She took another breath. She would not panic. She’d get out of here. For the thousandth time she shook out her left hand. Her wrist had subsided into a dull blinding pain.

Dez moved down another hallway. She marveled at the silence. If she didn’t know a club stood right above her…hell, she couldn’t even make out the bass from the speakers. It seemed like all the walls were soundproofed.

Of course, that didn’t make her feel any better. Because no one would hear her screams.

She came to another corner and stopped. Down one of the long hallways, she heard men arguing.

She moved quickly toward the sound as she pulled her Glock from her holster. She had no idea who she would find, but Dez prepared herself to be sweet as sugar or threaten to blow their heads off. Whatever got her the fuck out of here.

She followed the voices. Her body tense, her gun clasped in both hands and away from her body. She pushed her back against the wall as the arguing turned violent. Someone was getting the shit kicked out of him.

“Do it! Do it!” a deep voice snarled.

She turned the corner and raised her weapon. Dez took in the scene quickly. One man down, a large boot against his shoulders holding him in place. The boot belonged to Patrick Doogan. Sherecognized him immediately now. One of his idiot brothers held a .45 aimed at the back of the vic’s head. The third brother crouched beside him, the hand not in a cast buried in the vic’s gold hair, pulling his head back to spit into that beautiful face.

Damn, even her shotgun wouldn’t help her here. She needed her M-16. But she didn’t have that either.

As a cop, she needed to scream “Freeze! Put your hands above your head and step away from the gorgeous guy!”

Fuck that. She remembered how fast Mace and Brutale moved. She didn’t stand a chance with these three.

So, without warning, Dez shot the one holding the gun. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, knocking him back, the gun flying out of his hand. The other two were so startled they jumped away from their target. They were armed, but they hadn’t gone for their weapons yet, mostly because they’d tucked them into the back of their tailored slacks.

“Get up!”

The vic looked at her, and immediately she recognized Brendon Shaw.

“Move!”

She wasn’t about to get any closer, but she wasn’t sure if she was asking the impossible as well. Severely beaten, he must have fought back. But he somehow managed to stand and stumble over to her.

“Keep going.”

He did as ordered. Dez backed away, her eyes locking with Patrick Doogan’s.

“I’ll find you, bitch. I’ll find you and fuck you and kill you.”

Dez didn’t bother answering him. Why? She knew he meant it. Instead, she kept backing up, until she got around the corner. She grabbed Shaw’s jacket and dragged him, but he wouldn’t move.

She turned around and immediately stopped breathing. They all watched her with those cold brown eyes.

A hyena suddenly appeared from the back. The others separated, giving her a path to walk through. She came up to Dez and stood before her. A dead hyena body in her mouth, the rope still around her throat.

She knew this was Gina. Especially when she spit the corpse out at Dez’s feet.

“Tell me you didn’t do that,” Shaw whispered, most likely because he’d lost so much blood.

“I really wish I could.”

“Damn.” He tried to push her back behind him. A surprisingly heroic gesture from someone she’d called “rich scumbag” in her head since he held that conversation with her tits the other evening.

She did appreciate his attempt at protecting her, but they were beyond that now. In fact, the phrase “completely fucked” kept rattling around in her head.

Dez grabbed Shaw’s jacket and took a step back, but the Doogan brothers came up behind her. She realized with what quickly became overwhelming despair that the two groups had her trapped between them. Both wanting to see her dead.