I grab my phone and dial a secure number, contacting a private crew that occasionally gives me backup. “This is Axe. Niles von Graf is en route to Skara Brae. I need a tactical team on standby, ready to move.”
Forty-Eight
Josie
I’m on a private jet flying over the Atlantic, and even with all this ridiculous luxury, I can’t stop crying. The leather seats are basically hugging me, the air feels like it’s been custom made for rich people, and the engine hum is almost like a lullaby. I’ve never traveled anywhere before—let alone likethis. My dreams of seeing the world were always crushed by two things: my fear of getting sick and the fact that my credit cards are maxed out on insulin payments. And now here I am in a space so fancy I didn’t even know it existed, and I feel like…I’m drowning.
I try to focus on my surroundings, but everything blurs at the edges. Even the bubbles in the champagne glass feel too sharp, too bright. Instead of wonder, a strange heaviness fills my limbs. My thoughts are slipping, scattered like the stars outside the window. I sink deeper into the seat, unable to fight this wave of dizziness that is crashing over me.
Across from me, Niles sits watching me with his usual creepy intensity. He keeps telling me that I’m safe now. His weird calm feels like the opposite of safe.
Time feels wavy; I was at the party, and then Niles said he’dprotect me, and within the hour, we were in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, at a private airport, where Niles’s Bombardier Global 7500 was waiting. Apparently, when you are as rich as Niles von Grafenhagen, you can whisk a woman out of the country without even showing a passport. Or I suppose his contacts at the CIA would have helped him with that part. He says where we’re going is isolated and secure, and there’s no way Axe could reach me there.
I was too overwhelmed and terrified to ask for details. More than that, I feel utterly heartbroken. My mouth has mostly stopped working, and despite the tears flooding my face, I’m almost catatonic. I must be in shock.
It’s like I can still hear the screams—the guy trapped in the lobotomy lab, begging for his life. His voice was shredded with fear. The smirk on Axe’s and Strike’s faces, like they were having…fun. It wasn’t some prank. The sound is stuck in my head, crawling around in my brain like a tarantula.
Why can’t I ever see what’s so obvious to everyone else? My mind spirals, looping with the same questions, all snarled up in confusion and regret. How did I not realize She’s the One was a front and not the groundbreaking AI innovation I so desperately wanted to believe in? How did I not see Axe for who he really is? I feel like I’m swimming through glue, barely keeping my head above the surface. I fold over, pressing my forehead to my knees, trying to anchor myself in the midst of the overwhelming dizziness.
I love Axe—lovedhim, I keep telling myself—and really believed he was my future. I thought he was different. Kind. That he actually saw me—the real me. Not some weak, easy-to-manipulate Josie like everyone else saw. He saw the version of meI wanted to be. Strong. Brave. Someone who could hold her own. But now, with tears blurring my vision and this heavy weight in my chest, I finally get it. I had him all wrong. Just like Bryan. Just like my mom.
He didn’t seeme. He saw a mark.
I fell for it. Hook, line, and fucking sinker.
“We’ll be there soon,” Niles says. “You’re safe now, Josie-Jo.”
Ugh.Josie-Jo?God, I feel like I might vomit. Niles taps my knee with his hand, and it lingers for a second too long. Did I imagine that, too? Why am I having such a hard time thinking straight?
I try to sort through the facts. Axe is a sex trafficker. Is Strike one, too? Where is Honor in all this? Niles is CIA? But he’s also a businessman? With a private jet? Does that make sense?
My head feels too heavy to move, but I catch the sound of a woman’s voice behind me—a slight Eastern European accent lacing her words.
“Just knock her out already. She’s getting on my nerves with all that crying and rambling about tarot cards and her nonna. What the hell evenisa nonna?”
Am I rambling? I can’t even tell anymore. I can’t feel my lips.
“Leave her alone,” Niles says quietly, brushing a finger across my cheek.
Everything feels just out of my grasp. I lean back and close my eyes, because I don’t have the energy to keep them open anymore.
—
Then I’m in a car, the outside world zooming by in a blur. The road is rough, jolting me with every bump. I feel a hand on mythigh—small but firm. My head feels like it weighs a ton, and my thoughts are all fuzzy, like static on a TV. I try to speak, to ask what’s happening, but I’m so tired—tootired. Before I can grab on to any clear thought, the darkness pulls me under.
—
When I wake up again, I find myself in a massive bed, the room around me drafty despite its grandeur. Heavy velvet drapes hang closed, trapping the room in a haze of dust. For a moment, I’m taken in by the beauty of what I can glimpse through the dim light—the majestic canopy bed, the intricately carved wood furnishings adorned with Celtic patterns. But a sinking feeling grips my stomach.
Where the hell am I? Ravenswood?The thought crashes through me. No, I’m really far away from Shelton. I was on a plane. With Niles. Niles, who is creepy but safe, right? And a woman. My mother? No. Nonna? Nonna is dead.Oh, oh, oh, Nonna is dead.This memory is like pressing a bruise.
I float in and out of consciousness. The energy in the room suffocates me, thick and dark. I can almost hear Nonna’s voice, a warning from the grave.Rimettiti in sesto, Josie. Il pericolo è dietro l’angolo!—Pull yourself together, Josie! Danger is just around the corner!No kidding, Nonna.
I try to sit up, but my body won’t cooperate. My heart is pounding, my head spinning. Somewhere, faint and far away, I hear screams. Pleading. Desperate. Or maybe that’s just in my head? Maybe it’s me screaming?
I clutch the heavy blanket around my shoulders, unsure if I’m hearing ghosts of the past or if my own damn mind is unraveling.
Is this how my mother ended up at Ravenswood? One minute she felt rational and sane, and the next her mind felt like a dandelion blowing in the wind?
