Page 78 of Bound

Gregory’s voice is low. “You’re close enough for me to look for heat signatures within the building. Rafe?”

“Got it.” Rafe pulls a screen from his pocket and presses buttons.

“That’s strange,” Gregory muses like he’s back in the library.

“Don’t waste words,” I snap.

“Sorry, it’s just that there is only one heat signature. He’s inside.”

“Just him.”

“Only him.”

“That can’t be right.”

Rafe says, “It’s our tech. It’s right.”

I look from him to Blaze. “Then I go alone.” I push the door open without listening to their protests.

And I’m suddenly back in the office of Bachman Jewelers. I’d envisioned myself here a dozen times, paying for the four-carat princess-cut ring that was to be Erin’s.

Carlos stands in the center of the old office. And he is alone. Frighteningly alone. There is no other person in this building. Only the two of us.

Does he have no men? Or does he have a plan so devious he needs no one other than him to destroy us?

Gray coat. Black gloves. Silver at his temples. Elegant as ever in his composure. I can’t help but feel that familiar tug in my chest. He was once my mentor. It’s difficult to shuffle every emotion into a new box.

Carlos smiles. “Lucian. My boy.”

My boy.

What he first called me when he swooped in and took me under his wing.

My mouth is sawdust. “Carlos.”

“You made it.”

“What is this?” My mouth almost gapes as I stare at the wall behind the man.

Screens line the brick wall behind him. Images dance and flicker on the screen.

Erin at the gate. Isobel in white. Marina’s dead body splayed out on a concrete floor, covered in blood. The warehouse in flames.

My father’s car.

He brought every ghost to watch.

I cross the room slowly. I can’t tear my eyes from the center screen. CCTV footage of a street. A car that looks a lot like my father’s. Is that the shape of my mother in the passenger’s seat?

We’d suspected Carlos ordered their murder, but to see a car that may be theirs on that screen…it’s unnerving.

And that’s exactly how he wants me.

I force myself to look away from the screen and at him. “More of your emotional warfare.”

“Is it working?”

“Yes.”