I never thought Sasha, trying to butter up Hugh, would lock me in Caesar's enclosure and then inject it with enough stimulant to make it go berserk.

"Ten! Nine!"

I started the countdown, each number forced out between clenched teeth.

In the enclosure next door, the tiger caught the scent of my blood and went crazy, slamming into the fence between the two enclosures until the whole structure boomed.

"Sasha! Sasha, do something! I'm terrified!" Hugh screamed, his voice so high it hardly sounded like him.

Sasha panicked and babbled, "Honey! Honey, stop counting! Stop! The door's busted! I'll get a tech. I'll get someone to fix it right now!"

I stopped the countdown.

The gash on my arm burned hot. In the beat before Caesar lunged again, I scrambled up the ornamental tree set into the fake rock, hauling myself up with both hands and feet.

Before I could catch my breath, Sasha's voice crackled through the loudspeaker, barely hiding the mockery.

"Oh, no, honey, what are we going to do? The tech says he's off for the day and won't be here until tomorrow. How about you just spend the night there?"

Below, Caesar slammed his massive body into the trunk. The whole tree shuddered, like it might snap any second. I wouldn't last an hour like this, let alone the night.

The blood loss made my head swim, but it was nothing compared to the cold gnawing through my bones. "Sasha, are you insane? You want me dead, don't you?"

Sasha and Hugh laughed over the loudspeaker, not even trying to hide it. "Lucian, you just figured that out?"

She cleared her throat, like she was tilting her phone to make sure the camera caught every inch of my mess.

"Thanks for that thrilling little escape, honey. The viewer count just shot up again! Guess you're not completely useless after all."

A rock whistled past and smashed into the trunk beside me.

Hugh kept scooping up stones and hurling them one after another. "What are you doing up there? Get down! The top donor says that if you fall out of that tree, he'll tip more on the stream!"

Sasha started shrieking too, her voice thin with excitement. "Lucian, did you hear that? Hurry up and get down! If you can't make us any more money, I'm not even buying you an urn after you're dead!"

They treated my life-or-death situation like a cheat code for views.

I held the remote up, ready to say something, when Caesar slammed the trunk again, and the whole tree bucked hard. All I could do was hang on to the rough trunk and feel the splinters bite into my palms.

Seeing how wrecked I was, Sasha strolled to the gate and laughed from behind the bulletproof glass.

"Lucian, quit acting. The real director's secretary called me a few days ago, saying he's overseas on a site visit and won't be back anytime soon. You think I'm buying that you're actually the director?"

My heart lurched. I'd forgotten that, to keep it a surprise, my secretary had been managing my identity for me.

She paused, her voice turning syrupy. "Besides, you're the kind one, aren't you? It's not even closing time. There are still visitors outside. Do you really want to let the predators out and get people hurt?

"Be good. Come down and share a nice little moment with Caesar. That's what everyone wants to see."

My heart sank. Unless I had no choice, I didn't want any innocent person getting hurt.

I'd thought that was my last card, the line she wouldn't cross. I hadn't realized she'd already banked on my kindness and weaponized it.

When I fell silent, Sasha flashed a satisfied smile. "Lucian, you don't have parents or anyone else. You're an animal trainer. If the animal you trained kills you, people will call it a workplace accident, right?

"So just die peacefully. I'll use what you bring in now to raise our kid."

Our kid?

My ears rang. I barely had time to process before Hugh eased up and settled a hand on Sasha's belly, casual as anything.

His voice was syrupy and gross. "Lucian, relax. I'll take good care of Sasha and the baby for you. After all, they're both mine now. Oh, and when you're dead, the zoo should pay out a nice death benefit, right?

"That's a tidy sum. I'll do you a favor and spend it for you."

They played off each other, shameless as hell, and my stomach lurched. I swore if I made it out alive, I'd tear them limb from limb!

Their shameless trash talk lit up the live stream, kicking off another wave of tips.

To flatter the gawkers watching, Hugh grabbed a long pole and jabbed at me through the fence. "Get down! Lucian! Get down!"

The pole caught me right in the wound. Intense pain ripped through me, and my grip nearly slipped.

I clung to the trunk, skin scraped raw and bleeding, twisting away from the pole while keeping an eye on Caesar, who was getting wilder below.

The moment Caesar coiled to spring, I launched for a shorter ornamental tree nearby. Caesar missed, hit the ground hard, and let out a roar that shook the air.

The blast of sound threatened to split my eardrums, and the blood loss left my head swimming.

Caesar was already too far gone. No matter how I tried to calm him, he wouldn't listen, his bloodshot eyes pinning me in place. Despair washed over me.

Just then, the walkie-talkie clipped to my collar crackled to life. "Lucian? Lucian, how is it going over there? Is the assessment done?"

It was Wayne Griffin, my coworker.

Like grabbing a last lifeline, I jabbed the transmit button with shaking fingers. "Wayne! Hel—"

Sasha's bright voice cut into the channel, drowning out my weak call. "Wayne, don't distract Lucian. He's settling Caesar. No chatter. This is a critical moment."

She was on a walkie-talkie, too, and cut my line.

All I could do was listen to Wayne's apologies. "Oh, sorry about that. I thought Lucian was done. He's really dedicated. I'll let him get back to it."

There was a crackle, then silence.

My hope guttered out.

In the split second I went blank, Caesar seized his chance. His huge body launched up, his paw raking across my back. My shirt tore, flesh peeled, and a pain I couldn't name tore through me from behind.

His weight ripped me off the trunk and slammed me to the ground. Everything inside me felt shoved out of place. The pain nearly blacked me out.

The metallic tang climbed my throat, and Caesar's breath blasted my face. When he opened that bloody maw and lunged, I snatched a broken branch and drove it between his jaws with everything I had.

Caesar shook his head in pain.

I seized the opening, tumbled away, and scrambled up the nearest branch on all fours. The near miss left me gasping, and the searing pain tearing across my back nearly knocked me out.

Then, Sasha's voice crackled over the loudspeaker, breathless with excitement. "It's raining tips, folks! Huge thanks to our top donor!"

Hugh hollered up at me in the tree, "Come on down, Lucian! Didn't you say once you build enough trust with the animals, you can touch them? So why aren't you touching the lion now?

"Come on down. Go bond with your precious boy, then!"

Sasha's voice rang out again, cruel and almost cheerful, "Lucian, to make sure you're really enjoying yourself, I cleared out every staff member from the predator zone. Right now, it's just me and Hugh. No one else is here to save you."

I lay sprawled on the rough branch, heaving and coughing up blood. The blood loss had my head spinning, but my will to live was razor-sharp.

I had to stay alive.

That thought pushed down my anger and humiliation. I swallowed my pride and begged, "Sasha, let me out. I swear I'll let this slide. We'll make it a clean divorce. You can have all the assets. Please."

Sasha sneered, idly picking at her fresh manicure. "Don't kid yourself. I don't believe for a second you'd go through this and just let it slide. You're hard to kill, you know that? Just like your dead grandma."

"He just loves you too much to die on you," Hugh jeered from the sidelines.

Sasha looked up at me, shaking on the branch, barely hanging on. For once, a flicker of pity crossed her eyes.

"Lucian, since you love me so much, I'll be generous. I'll tell you the truth. I pulled your grandma's oxygen tube out. That's why she died."

My mind went blank as if a hand were closing around my throat.

"She was just like you are now, clutching my pant leg and begging. She cried half the night before she finally stopped breathing. Watching her was fun."

The last tether in my mind finally snapped.

Grandma raised me, skimped on her own stomach cancer treatment, and emptied her savings to send me overseas.

She kept outrunning the disease, slipping death's grip over and over. In the end, she died in despair because of Sasha, the vicious woman I married.

I never should've left Grandma with her just to go overseas and train as an animal trainer.

The searing pain in my back and Caesar's roar felt a world away. A tidal wave of hatred and regret slammed into me.

I stopped caring about anything else. I yanked the remote I'd treated like a good-luck charm from my pocket and mashed the buttons mapped to every electric fence gate in the predator zone.

"Sasha, you're going to pay with your life!"

Weren't they here for the live stream thrill? Fine. I'd give them a real show.

A shrill alarm blared through the entire zoo. Sasha and Hugh screamed in panic.

"What's happening? What's going on?"

"Lucian, what buttons did you push? Wait. Is… Is that remote real?"

They stared, terrified, as the electric fence gates unlocked with a heavy thunk. One opened, then another, until a dozen or so predator enclosures snapped open on their own.