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I want to see what else they’ll do to prove we belong.
I want to believe I can have more.
But the sky fades and fades and fades.
And all I see is foam and dying stars.
FORTY-FOUR
ORION
The chopper cuts over the waves, spotlighting empty, endless water as twilight falls.
No Lilah.
I clutch my neck so hard I draw blood from her half-healed bite.
She’s still with me.
Feeling her—the warm, sugary center of my heart—is the only thing keeping me from full-on collapse.
“There!” Jett points to the shape on the horizon.
It’s a massive fucking super yacht I recognize from Dom’s files.
My gut twists in hope and dread.
Lilah’s okay. She has to be okay.
Hunter takes us down hard.
I’m still bleeding from the car crash, smoke frying my head, but all distractions burn away when the chopper touches the landing pad.
We fall on that shit like wolves.
But the yacht’s empty.
I tear below deck.
Vanilla ice cream teases my nose, sharpening to burnt sugar so warped with anxiety that my heart wants to vomit out my throat.
“Lilah!” I kick down the door to a bedroom, and I don’t know if the empty, sugar-choked room is the best or worst omen.
She was here.
Scent says recently.
Then I creep around the bed and gag.
Dog cage.
Blood on the floor.
The mingled scents of stale sex, roses, and snake scales.
Dominik.
Fuck.
