One

      Laylah Aal Shalaan felt a shiver burn down her spine.

      It wasn’t the below-zero Chicago December evening. That would have caused ice, not fire, to shudder through her veins.

      This sensation had scalded through her so many times during the past few weeks, it was as if she were having hot flashes. Which would be some record at age twenty-seven. But then she held other unwelcome records. Like being the only female born to her family in forty years. Why not throw in premature menopause, too?

      Not that she really thought abnormal hormones were at work here. An outside influence was. One she couldn’t detect when she’d tried to investigate it, though she’d been certain of its cause for some time.

      Someone was watching her.

      This felt nothing like having the security detail she’d once had breathing down her neck. Those men had never tried to hide themselves, and to hell with her personal space. Though she shouldn’t have resented them. They’d been doing their job. Of course, with her safety no longer among anyone’s priorities for the past two years, there were no more guards dogging her steps.

      Not that she thought that she needed protection. She observed normal safety protocols, like anyone who lived in Chicago did. And since she’d exiled herself from Zohayd and come to live in the Windy City, she always had.

      Until tonight.

      Usually she would go home with Mira, her business partner and roommate. But Mira had left to see her father, who had been taken to the E.R. in another state. So here she was, alone at night for the first time in more than two years, leaving the deserted building from the back exit that opened onto an equally empty back street.

      Not that that had anything to do with what she now felt.

      She’d entered the building accompanied by the sensation of being enveloped in that watchful force field. She’d stepped out only to be caught in its electrifying embrace again.

      Strangest part was, she didn’t feel threatened by that unwavering intent. Just burning with curiosity and… excitement?

      She looked across the street at three parked cars. The nearest had a man slamming the hood, getting inside and driving away with the exhaust firing. The next one, also nondescript, was pulling away from the curb, too. The farthest one, a late-model Mercedes with dark windows, looked empty.

      Before she could decide where the influence was radiating from, the second car suddenly floored its engine.

      Before she could draw another breath, the car screeched to a halt beside her and its doors burst open. Four men exploded out. She’d barely taken two running steps when they swarmed her.

      Hulking bodies and coarse faces, distorted with vile intent, filled her vision. Blood and time thickened, hindering her heartbeat and reactions as hands sank into her flesh, each dig creating a bolt of outrage and terror.

      Dread exploded in her chest, fury in her skull as she lashed out with everything she had, even as shards of dialogue lodged into her brain.

      “Iz only one, man.”

      “Tom said there’d be two. You better not pay half now.”

      “Iz the one we want. Ye’ll get yer dough.”

      “You said she’d fall at ‘ur feet sniveling but she ain’t no pushover. She almost kneed me.”

      “An’ she might’ve scratched m’eye out!”

      “You quit snivelin’ an’ stuff ‘er in the car.”

      Each word sank a talon of realization into Laylah’s brain. This wasn’t a random attack. They knew her routine.

      No. They couldn’t be the presence she’d been sensing!

      They dragged her closer to the car. Once they shoved her inside, it would be over.

      She exploded in another manic struggle, drawing blood and shouts of pain and rage until a jackhammer collided with her jaw. Agony turned her brain into shrapnel.

      Suddenly,