Frederick Triton in the flesh.
The very man I was running from.
I backed up a pace on instinct, but my heel snagged on a nail sticking out of the floorboard. My arms shot out as I wobbled, and a slight, sharp breath escaped me.
“Who’s there?” Frederick whirled around, his eyes flashing. When his gaze landed on me, they darkened. “Elrich Durand. Thought they’d captured you too.”
Ice rushed through me in a fierce torrent. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was the exact last person I wanted to see.
“Ursuline sent you here, didn’t they?” he said, his eyes narrowing. He took one step forward, looming over me even from the other end of the room. If he closed the distance, I wouldn’t stand a chance. “Their documents won’t do much good if they’re burnt to ash.”
That was when I noticed the container of accelerant on the floor.
My throat tightened. Of course he’d be trying to tie up loose ends. One thing those in society knew how to do was to keep the skeletons in their closets hidden, at all costs.
With Ursuline disappeared and their house incinerated, Frederick could slip out of any repercussions.
“You should’ve just married my daughter, Elrich,” Frederick said. “Not that you’ve got anything going on upstairs, but you would’ve been provided for. Could’ve still lived your own life.” He took another step forward, the floorboard creaking under his weight. “Now I can’t let you leave alive.”
A chill spread all the way through my body. Frederick would get away with it too. Just like he’d gotten away with so many crimes before. With horrifying things. This wasn’t a man before me but a waking nightmare, one that had ruined countless lives.
One that had destroyed Ursuline’s family.
“Your parents won’t be looking for you,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “And you’ll have tragically died in a mysterious fire at your lover’s house. The cops won’t waste a second glance at the report.”
The truth of what he said stabbed me right in the chest. Because at the end of the day, the person who’d come to mean the most to me, the one who viewed me as valuable, had just been dragged away by Alpha Blue. Rage kindled inside me, starting with a spark, a flicker of the starter to dry wood. It spread, those flames licking up my insides, the heat building, building, building.
Frederick Triton had so much blood on his hands.
And unlike with Alpha Blue, where I’d been frozen, in shock from the suddenness of Ursuline’s abduction, here and now, I burned.
I burned for every sea monster who’d lost their life in the mines.
I burned for Ursuline’s sibling, who Frederick had assaulted. For their family, who he hadn’t protected.
I burned for Ursuline, for every loss, every ounce of pain he’d inflicted on them, both physically and emotionally.
A quick scan of the room gave me two things—a black, pointed paperweight on the desk to the right and to the left a bookcase filled with heavy tomes. Either could work to bludgeon, but I’d have to move faster than Triton.
Frederick stepped forward another pace, and my guts clenched.
I couldn’t run from here. Not now.
“Well, well, I was wondering who’d broken through the boundary spell.” Sofia’s voice sounded behind me.
Relief slammed into me fast and fierce. Sofia had arrived.
“Now, what would you be doing rummaging around Ursuline’s apartment?” Sofia said in mock surprise. She stood beside me and tapped her finger against her chin. “Seems an odd thing for an ex-employer to do.”
“Sofia, stay out of this,” Frederick growled. “They’re my contracted employee, and I’m going through documents that belong to me.”
“Because clearly you need accelerant to search for some documents,” Sofia said, arching a brow. “Your arguments are getting flimsier by the day.”
Frederick’s face turned purple with anger. “Your status won’t protect you.”
“Nor will yours,” Sofia said, her voice dark and low, a menace there that would’ve struck terror into me if she weren’t on my side. “Elrich, find the documents. I’ll handle him.”
