We need to get her down. We need to get her to safety. But how, with Rafe so close? One good kick,and he could send the chair flying. I see Molly Ludwig in my dream. Her feet dangling.
“Poor Lainey,” Rafe tuts. “You’ve never been quite good enough, have you? Not for your dad. Not for your mom. Not for me. I don’t know, maybe it’s better to just …” He wobbles the chair.
With a shriek, she totters precariously.
Jude takes an aggressive step forward. “Knock it off.”
“Oh yeah? And what will you do if I don’t?” He gives the chair another nudge.
Lainey shrieks again.
She’s terrified.
It’s written all over her face.
Despite what Rafe has suggested, she doesn’t want to be up there with that rope around her neck.
The ruby is practically glowing.
“Jude,” I say like a warning. His eyes meet mine. If he notices the amulet, he doesn’t let on. He’s too fixated on helping Lainey. But in order to do that, we need to get Rafe out of the way.
“Careful, Cousin,” Rafe says. “You look like you’re about to do something heroic.”
Jude steps toward him, his jaw clenched.
Rafe takes a slow step in return. “Playing the hero has never ended well for your bloodline. Ezra. Amos. Gabriel. Elijah. Each one tried so hard to deny themselves happiness, as if the sacrifice might shield the ones they loved. Same story,different guy. Watching it unfold has grown so redundant.”
I inch behind him, closer to Lainey as Rafe begins circling Jude like a wolf. “I watched them all claw their way through grief. Endure decades of loneliness, wearing their misery like a martyr. As if they had any concept of what true misery felt like.”
Lainey chokes on a sob.
The ruby pulses.
And I recall another dream.
John Vandenberg, shouting.
His son, yelling.
His wife, crying.
His daughter, seething.
So much emotion, it was almost like the rift couldn’t help itself. Couldn’t resist. It needed to feed. Rafe is drumming up that same emotion now, only a hundred times stronger.
And suddenly, I understand.
Ezra’s map.
The red X.
The decrepit mausoleum.
Until the flash of lightning.
For a fraction of second it was there—Dante’s tomb, just out of reach. Because it exists in a different dimension, layered over ours. To get to it, Rafe must go through the rift, and he can’t get through the rift unless he opens it first. To do that, he needs emotion.
Raw, unfiltered emotion.
