"Let’s go home," I say. "I need to burn this hotel down."
We walk out, leaving the evidence of our victory recording the empty room.
The Untouchable has been touched.
And the Monsters are the last ones standing.
CHAPTER 30
THE HIDDEN PULSE
POV: IVY
The smell of turpentine used to be my comfort.
It was the scent of creation, of escape, of the hours I stole for myself before Silas Vane walked into my life and burned the world down. It smelled like freedom.
Today, it smells like rot.
I stand in the center of my studio—the glass-walled sanctuary suspended above Central Park—and clutch the edge of the drafting table. My knuckles are white. The morning sun pours in, blindingly bright, heating the air until it feels thick and soupy.
I swallow hard, fighting the wave of nausea rolling through my stomach.
Don't throw up.
If I throw up, Silas will know. He monitors everything. My location. My spending. My heart rate.
I glance down at the platinum band on my ankle. It glints innocently in the sunlight.
85 BPM.
Elevated, but within the "creative exertion" range he accepts. If I vomit, my heart rate will spike. He’ll get an alert. He’ll call. Or worse, he’ll leave his meeting at the new headquarters and come home, tearing through the city like a storm to check on his property.
I breathe in through my nose, counting to ten.One. Two. Three.
The nausea recedes, leaving behind a cold sweat on my forehead and a hollow, gnawing ache in my womb.
It’s been three days.
Three days of waking up with the taste of metal in my mouth. Three days of fatigue that drags at my limbs like wet wool. Three days of forcing myself to eat eggs at breakfast while Silas watches me, his eyes dark and satisfied, unaware that I am fighting the urge to gag with every swallow.
I turn away from the canvas. I can't paint today. The reds look too much like blood. The blacks look too much like the void.
I walk to the floor-to-ceiling window.
The city is spread out below me, a grid of order and chaos. We own it now. The Vane empire has swallowed the Sokolov territories. The gallery opening was a triumph. Detective Kane has vanished into early retirement in Florida, broken and discredited.
We won.
We are untouchable.
So why do I feel like the walls are closing in?
I press my hand against the cool glass. I look at my reflection.
I look the same. The same dark hair, the same pale skin, the same eyes that have seen too much. But there is something else. A shadow. A secret.
I pull my phone from my pocket. I open the calendar app.
