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ChapterForty-One
GRACE
It broke my heart to watch Cole holding his mom’s bloody body. He kept saying, “This is why there are rules.” And then, “Mom, I’m sorry. I failed you. I won’t make this mistake again. Just open your eyes. Please. Come back to me.”
Cole broke the rules with me and felt responsible for her murder. Not like he could have prevented it.
Rhys must have heard my screams because he lifted me off the wet floor, cradling me in his arms. “It’s okay, princess. I got you.”
My asshole fiancé was the last person I wanted to console me, but I needed someone to hold onto with how hard I shook. I didn’t care that it was Rhys.
“Drake will be here soon.” He carried me to the surveillance room and grabbed two guns he had stuffed into his waistband. “Don’t open the door for anyone else.”
I nodded, and he locked me inside to search for the intruder.
Drake arrived at Fort Marshall minutes later. He entered the room, dressed in a black suit with a red tie hanging loosely around his neck, a black Spider-Man shirt beneath his partially open oxford. “Where’s Cole?”
I wiped at the tears dripping down my cheeks. “In the natatorium. Rhys is looking for the person who killed Willow.”
Drake raked a hand through his dark hair and sighed. “I’ll find whoever did this to her.”
Drake’s eyes were red-rimmed and glassy from crying. Willow was his aunt. She was a mom to all of us—including me.
I’d already lost my parents and understood Cole’s pain. My mother’s death was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That awful night sparked a chain of events that led my life to spiral for years. Not until I arrived at Fort Marshall did I finally feel like I had a family again.
Now it was broken.
Drake sat behind a desk with several computer monitors. He entered his credentials, his fingers flying across the keypad. I couldn’t read what he typed on the black screen with white writing. It didn’t look like any program I had ever used.
Drake was a hacker and The Devil’s Knights’ secret weapon. He flipped between five screens, entering code to jump to specific points in the camera feed. My jaw dropped in surprise when he found the assailant entering the property from the backyard.
The mansion sat on the edge of a cliff, which had to be at least fifty feet from the beach. And yet, he made it look effortless as he climbed the hillside.
I pointed at the screen. “How is he doing that?”
“Special tech that lets you grip the rocks. I produce something similar at Battle Industries.”
I stared at the dark-haired man with ink on his arms climbing onto the grass in Cole’s backyard. “So, he just walked in from the veranda without the guards noticing him?”
Drake nodded. “He must have known the guards’ shift changes.”
“Grace, you should leave.” Drake paused the video. “I don’t want you to see what comes next.”
“No, I need to see it.”
He tipped his head at the door. “Trust me. You don’t want to see this. It will haunt your dreams for the rest of your life.”
Drake sounded as if he spoke from experience. And after considering what this would do to me mentally, I took his advice and stepped into the hallway. I still had flashbacks of my mother’s murder, though I still couldn’t piece together all the details of that night.
I heard Willow’s scream on the surveillance video through the crack in the open door.
“No, you can’t have her!” Willow yelled. “She’s not here. So get out!”
“Kisais here,” the man said in a thick Russian accent.
My dad called mekisa.
Russian for kitten.
