Chapter 21 · The Ring Drinks First

The blood vial was the size of my pinky finger, and somehow it felt heavier than a gun.

I had it pinched between two fingers over a steel sink in the Sane estate’s medical wing. One twist of my wrist, one little splash down the drain, and Vera could test whatever fake sample I left behind.

Easy.

Except the ring on my hand had gone hot enough to hurt.

Not warm. Not glowing-pretty. Hot like somebody had pressed a cigarette into my skin and held it there.

“Quinn.” Ronan stood in the doorway behind me. “Don’t.”

I looked over my shoulder. “You got a better plan?”

His jaw tightened. He’d changed out of his dinner jacket, but there was still a dark stain spreading under the black shirt at his side. Silver wound. The stupid kind that didn’t stop hurting just because you put expensive clothes over it.

And he was pale. Not regular pale. Dead guy in a crime show pale.

“We leave,” he said.

“Through what, exactly? The front door where Vera’s got her little press circus waiting? Or the back hall full of guys with silver knives?”

“We find another route.”

“Right. Great.