Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Erin
The house does not move after Marina dies on-screen.
It’s too much. For all of us. We all need rest.
“We’ll pick this back up tomorrow. We’ll be our own worst enemy if we don’t sleep,” Rafe says.
“Aye,” Blaze jokes. “Bayne becomes a Scottish bear without his beauty rest.”
For once, everyone appreciates Blaze lightening the mood.
I have trouble falling asleep. As does Lucian. The man never seems to sleep. I roll over, running my fingertips over his back until he finally drifts off.
The morning comes too soon. And we all wake with the same thoughts in our minds.
Five days ago, Marina Vale was alive. Now she is not.
Carlos killed her before Isobel ever reached Red Shutters.
Before Iceland.
Before any of us understood we were already standing inside the final move.
We shower and dress quickly since every moment spent outside the war room feels wasted. I eat breakfast because Lucian makes me and because sitting down now is my last chance to see Cass and Ryan, possibly until dinner.
If Carlos doesn’t get to us, or we don’t kill one another by then.
This house is running off tension, adrenaline, caffeine, held together by our joint effort to stay cheerful for one precious little boy’s sake.
Mack stays with Cass and Ryan. They’re attempting a 1,000-piece puzzle. Ryan’s very focused and takes minimal snack breaks, but it’s still almost impossible until Mack showed them how to outline the straight pieces and group the same-colored ones together.
Pretty sure the massive, tattooed walking armor that is Mack is sneaking pieces together when Ryan’s not looking.
Isobel sits across from us, pale and shaken, one hand pressed to her mouth. Blaze is by the wall; fury carved into every line of him. Bayne watches the screen with cold, lethal stillness. Gregory stands beside Rafe, glasses slipping down his nose, his face too pale in the blue glow of the monitors.
Lucian is beside me. Still. Too still.
That is what scares me most. Not his rage. His stillness. The quiet before he becomes something no one can call off. I imagine this was what he was like before he killed Caleb.
Rafe lowers the tablet. “Carlos has Marina’s files.”
Gregory’s voice is quiet. “The warehouse and the Village connect. Significantly.”
The words move through the room like smoke.
Carlos at the center of all of it.
Lucian looks at Isobel. His voice is as biting as the wind that’s beating the house. “Start with Marina.”
Isobel inhales shakily. “Marina kept proof. Photographs. Birth certificates. Death records. Payment chains. Warehouse rosters. Old access routes. Police reports. Bribes. Blackmail. If Carlos touched it, she wanted proof. If Lucian touched it, Carlos wanted proof.”
Lucian’s jaw tightens. “Where and how did she keep files?”
“One paper, one digital. I don’t know where she kept either.”
“Helpful,” Blaze snorts.
Isobel’s hand rises to her throat. “And, I think Carlos may have had a tracker on her.”
The necklace. The pretty gold necklace with the black stone. The one Rafe took from her after finding the dead tracker hidden inside.
“I didn’t know about the tracker,” Isobel says quickly.
I think for a moment. “Could the necklace have been anything else?”
“What do you mean?” Lucian turns to me.
I turn to Isobel. “What do you think?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know it wasn’t just a pendant to begin with.”
“Did you take the entire thing apart?” I ask Rafe.
“We stopped at the tracker.” Rafe thinks for a moment. “There could have been more? Possibly?”
“Worth a look.” Gregory stands to retrieve the necklace.
Rafe opens the pendant under a magnifier. Inside, hidden behind the black stone, is not a chip.
Blaze swears. Bayne takes his first-ever seat at the table. Isobel goes white as the ghost she is.
“It is microfilm,” Gregory breathes.
Blaze stares at it. “Oh, come on. You’re telling me she didn’t know this was here?”
Everyone but Lucian looks at Isobel. She shakes her head. She looks tired.
Her voice is a sad whisper. “Is it Marina’s? She’s the one who gave it to me.”
“Only one way to find out. Scan it,” Lucian says.
Rafe scans it. Images load on the main screen. Pages and pages of documents. A list of names. Payments. Warehouse rosters.
Isobel gasps. “This is hers. It’s hers. Why hide it in the necklace?”
Blaze scoffs. “See? She knows what’s in there. It could take days to get through this. I’m telling you we—”
“I’m only here two more days, Blaze, but if you mention interrogating a woman again,” Bayne swears under his breath. “I’ll still have time to wring your neck.”
“She’s an enemy—”
“Wait.” Rafe holds up a hand.
The room goes silent. He’s found something.
A line circled in red. Words too small for me to read from where I sit. Gregory pulls the screen closer, reading, “TWELVE SECOND DELAY AUTHORIZED.”
The room holds its breath. The next image appears. A map. Not Bachman Village. Not exactly. An old industrial block. The warehouse.
Lucian and Isobel try very hard not to look at each other.
For once, it doesn’t even bother me. I’m starting to feel bad for both of them. It seems as if neither of them wants to be tied to the other.
If I’m the anchor that moors him, she’s threatening to pull him under.
The third image loads. A photograph of a signature. Back-to-back letter B’s light up the screen in gold.
A Bachman authorization seal.
Lucian’s voice is almost too quiet. “That’s my father’s seal.”
Rafe studies the image. “This proves his seal was used. Not that he used it personally.”
“What does it mean?” Lucian’s hand slips out of mine. I let it.
Now, I know he’s not taking his love with it.
Then Rafe’s tablet chimes.
One sound, and the whole house becomes a popsicle.
Rafe looks down. His expression hardens. “Another message. It’s the same sender as the one who sent the last video…”
We all think of Marina, her death, and how this is all related.
Gregory inspects the screen. “It’s got to be from Carlos.”
“Wait…” At the mention of Carlos, Isobel half stands from her chair. “The necklace.”
“What about it?” Blaze asks before Lucian can.
“What if Marina gave me the microfilm because she was going to leave Carlos?” Hope edges into her voice. “What if she wanted to turn away from him?”
“Like you have?” Blaze says, bored.
“Shut up, Blaze,” Bayne says. “Let her speak.”
Blaze shoves the end of a pen in his mouth to stop himself from retorting. I’m starting to wonder if, by some miracle, those two share DNA because they fight like Cass and I do.
Isobel looks away from us, pacing a strip of floor behind her side of the table. She’s talking mostly to herself. “What if… what if she knew I was going to turn against him?”
Lucian’s voice is deadly. “You swore you told no one.”
“I didn’t.” Her eyes snap to him. “I still swear.”
Blaze tosses the pen onto the table. “Then how would she know, and what does that have to do with any of this?”
“My god. Will you let me speak!” Elegant Isobel loses her composure, throwing her hands into the air. “I swear your wife must be the most patient woman in the world.”
“She is. Patient and sweet and kind and nothing like you. And instead of being with her, living in our beautiful home, in our amazing Village, I’m stuck here in this haunted ice cube trying to eliminate your psycho boyfriend.”
“Ex,” she says, “boyfriend.”
“Like it matters!” Blaze roars.
I try to make peace. “Guys. We’re starting to remind me of Ryan when he was a toddler. We all need a snack and a nap.”
Lucian’s voice cuts through the madness. “How did she know?”
Isobel falls back into her seat, cupping her head in her hands. “I don’t know! Okay. Maybe she sensed it or—”
Wait.
“The maid,” I say. “The staff member you said traveled with you. Could she have gotten word to Marina?”
Isobel looks up, thinking, then she almost smiles at me. “It’s possible.”
Then her face falls.
And my stomach twists, the vision of her in that concrete room flooding in.
And I tell the room what she’s thinking. “If Marina knew you were coming here, she may have somehow gotten the maid to hide the film in that necklace.”
Isobel starts slowly, laying out her thoughts as she speaks, “And Carlos was planning all this. It was all coming to a head, and Marina knew he was going to be asking for the hard copy.”
“And she wouldn’t give it to him,” I whisper, Marina’s face haunting my thoughts.
Isobel locks eyes with me. “And he interrogated her to find it.”
“And she still wouldn’t tell him,” I say back.
“And it got her killed.”
“She was strong,” I tell her.
We almost smile at one another. Three women locked into the sisterhood of living in a man’s world.
Rafe brings our attention back to the screen. “Ready for our next message from Carlos?”
Our silence is an agreement.
He hits a button and a file begins downloading.
ERIN.
My name fills the screen.
Lucian moves so fast I barely see him.
One second and he is beside me.
The next, he is between me and the screen, rage pouring off him.
“Do not open it.”
Rafe’s eyes lift. “Lucian.”
“I said don’t open it.”
The room goes deadly quiet.
My mouth goes dry.
My knees are not steady.
But I step forward.
Lucian turns on me. “No.”
My name on Carlos’s file. Lucian’s terror in the air.
Everyone watching to see whether I let him decide what parts of my own life I am allowed to face.
I stop beside him.
“Open it,” I say.
His eyes burn into mine. “Erin.”
“Partnership,” I remind him.
The word hits him harder than any accusation.
His face tightens. “You don’t want this, Erin. Not here.”
I see the fight inside him. The panic. The command. The need to lift me, lock me away, and burn the file unread.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re all in this together.”
“Not all of us,” Blaze mutters at Isobel.
“Play it,” I whisper.
Lucian turns back to Rafe. His voice is raw. “Open it.”
Rafe does.
Photographs fill the screen. Me outside the apartment before the first night. Me with Cass.
Ryan walking into school.
Bambi’s building. Us playing outside.
Timestamp after timestamp after timestamp.
My body goes cold.
It’s me. One the screen.
In the dress.
It’s that night. I’m standing outside his building.
My jaw is set, determined.
In my eyes? Pure terror.
Beneath the image, a note appears.
SHE WAS NEVER YOUR MISTAKE TO MAKE
The next line loads slowly, as if Carlos wants every word to have teeth.
THE MORETTIS MAY HAVE SENT HER
My stomach drops. Lucian knew what direction this would go. He wanted to save me from the shame that flows through me, now.
Another line appears.
I CHOSE HER TO SEND
I KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE
The room goes to another level of silence. The kind that presses against your chest making it hard to breathe.
Carlos worked through the Morettis. Carlos was behind the first night.
He knew me. He knew Caleb.
Somehow, the two are connected more deeply than I could have imagined.
Caleb, Carlos, the Morettis and their whispered instructions. Beneath my desperation, Lucian’s arrogance, and the transaction I have spent months trying to turn into something real.
He did not force me through Lucian’s door.
But he knew Caleb, knew the path he made for us, the one that made me desperate enough to walk through that door with the fob in my hand.
The screen changes again.
A message thread.
Moretti names. Payment routes. A reference to “the girl.” A note about the fob. A line about using family pressure.
Cass. Ryan. Debts.
A final instruction:
SEND HER TO LUCIAN
SHE’S THE PERFECT REPLACEMENT
Someone swears. Maybe Blaze.
Maybe it’s me.
Lucian reaches for me. I step away before he touches me. His face changes as if I struck him.
But I can’t let him hold me right now.
Not with Isobel in the room. Not with my betrayal lit up for the entire room to remember.
I came to Lucian as the enemy’s delivery girl. I came to him with soft skin, a cheap dress, and a threat in my hand.
I came to ruin him.
My eyes move to Isobel before I can stop them. She is staring at the screen, pale and still.
Of course she sees it.
Of course she understands.
The woman who once went with Carlos and left Lucian in the fire is watching the woman who walked into his bed carrying a Moretti weapon.
The room tilts.
How am I different?
The thought tears through me before I can stop it.
How am I different from her?
Isobel believed Carlos and walked away.
I believed my own excuses and walked in.
She left him to burn.
I came to help burn down everything he had built.
My throat closes.
“Erin,” Lucian says.
His voice is rough. No command now. Only pain.
My pain.
I shake my head, not at him.
At myself.
At the screen.
At every version of me who thought love could erase the way we began.