Page 48 of Autumn Ritual

Now, I really needed to talk to him, and there was no telling when he would sneak back to the lake house. My stomach flipped as the trees crooked their skeletal branches in greeting. Raven Manor loomed before me as the car slowed to park. The doctor’s words from this morning rang in my head. It wasn’t the flu, and my cancer wasn’t back. I should have felt relief. But for once, my inner squirrel was quiet as the diagnosis pulsed through my mind.

Thick grey clouds blanketed the sky.

Cam hadn’t been at his house. And I didn’t have the patience to wait in his driveway for him to appear. So, I’d hunted him down.

I cracked the door and stepped out. A gust of wind sent a shiver of foreboding through my body. The urge to puke spiked, and I bent over the door, breathing carefully through my nose.

I will not be sick!

Not here. Not in front of the don.

When I managed to make it to the front door, my chapped lips were bleeding from picking the skin. This was not how I imagined unmasking the monster who’d been my constant companion these last seven weeks.

In the distance, I swore Fate cackled at me. Here I thought I was the writer of my destiny, when in reality I was just a character.

I shook myself, lifted my fist, and knocked. Silence echoed the broken clatter. Chewing on my tender lip, I pressed the doorbell.

“I was coming—” the don barked as he threw open the door.

The king of the killers opening his own front door was almost comical. Didn’t he have servants? I smiled, almost relieved by my squirrel brain. There had been too much on my mind, and I was glad that quirk wasn’t broken.

“Sara.” Don Ravello looked me up and down. “What can I do for you?”

I squared my shoulders. “Where’s Cam?”

The don’s jaw ticked. “Upstairs.”

Oh, good! He was here.

“Can I see him? It’s important.” Something eerie pulsed in the hall beyond. I told myself it was just my imagination and the gothic mansion.

“It’s not a good time.”

The don tried to shut the door. I launched forward, leaning against the thick wood slab.

“Look, I know you don’t approve of Cam and me,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But I have to see him.”

Lucian let out a tight sigh. “He won’t want you to see him. Not like this.”

A shudder rolled down my spine. “What do you mean?”

“He’s hurt,” Lucian sighed.

My heart shot to my throat. A muted roar filled my ears. I was blind. The stairs loomed before me, and somehow, without realizing it, I was climbing.

“First door on the left,” Lucian called out, but his voice was underwater.

I stumbled. The step bit into my shin, and I crashed on the first landing. The flash of pain was a welcome distraction before I began tearing up the rest of the steps.

At the partially open door, I took a ragged breath. Something had happened! It could be anything. The criminal underworld had a currency of guns and knives.

And from the looks of the man hooked to an IV, wrapped in bandages, and completely unconscious, Cam had paid.

“It was a hit and run,” Lucian said quietly behind me.

I gripped the slim post of the old-fashioned bedframe. “Why didn’t you call?”

The don reared back at the venom in my voice, and I would have smiled. If it wasn’t for the bruised and battered prince of darkness lying in the middle of the four-poster bed.