I force myself to wait. Ten minutes. Twenty. My timing has to be perfect, I can’t look eager. I pick up the phone, my movements slow and deliberate, as if I’m merely bored and looking for a distraction. I open the browser to the grief forum, my alibi. My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid he’ll hear it over the thud of his fists against the bag.
He moves from the bag to the bench press, the clank of metal on metal echoing through the loft. Now.
My fingers fly across the screen. I don’t have to think about the search terms. They are burned into my memory.
Slate Harbor car crash Route October 9, 2024
The link to the Slate Harbor Chronicle appears instantly. I tap it.
The page loads. The grainy photo of the wreckage. The headline. I force myself to breathe. I scroll down, my eyes scanning the text, my mind bracing itself.
A high-speed, late-night collision on Route 9 resulted in the deaths of two local students, the deceased have been identified as Jade Miller and Leonidas Kostas.
There it is. The name.
Leonidas Kostas. Leo.
A wave of dizziness washes over me. It’s real. The note wasn’t a threat, it was a name. The name of the other person who died that night.
But that’s not enough. Why was Cassian studying it? Why is he obsessed with me? The name is the key, but it doesn’t open the door. I need the connection.
With shaking hands, I open a new tab. I have to be fast. He could stop at any moment. I type the name into the search bar.
Leonidas Kostas Slate Harbor
The first result is not a news article. It’s a link to a local funeral home’s website. An obituary. My finger hesitates for a fraction of a second before I tap it.
The page is simple, respectful. There’s a photo of a young man with a wide, easy grin and dark, familiar eyes. My breath catches. I scroll down past the platitudes—a bright young man, taken too soon, beloved by all who knew him.My eyes scan frantically for the one thing that matters. The family.
He is survived by his loving parents, Dimitri and Elena Kostas…
Dimitri.
The name from yesterday. The man Milo said was angry, the man Cassian had to "handle." My blood turns to ice. It can’t be. It’s a coincidence. It has to be.
My eyes fall to the last line of the obituary. The final piece of the puzzle. The piece that shatters my world into a million irreparable fragments.
…and his older brother, Cassian.
The phone slips from my numb fingers, clattering onto the sofa cushion. The sound is lost in the clang of Cassian racking the weights.
Cassian. Kostas.
Cassian Kostas.
The brother. He’s the brother.
The monster holding me captive, the man who has systematically destroyed my life, the man who assaulted me against a wall… is the brother of the boy who died in the same crash as my sister.
Everything clicks into place with a horrifying, sickening snap. His obsession. His knowledge of the crash. The note. The map. My apartment. Me. It’s all connected. It’s all one tangled, monstrous knot of grief and violence.
I look up, my eyes wide with a terror so profound it feels like my soul is freezing over. He’s standing now, wiping the sweat from his face with a towel, his back still to me. He is no longer just a monster, he is a ghost. He is the living embodiment of the night that destroyed my life.
He turns, and his eyes meet mine from across the loft. The air crackles. He doesn’t know what I’ve found. He just sees me staring at him, but I am not seeing him anymore. I am seeing a tombstone. I am seeing the truth.
And the truth is going to get us both killed.
Twenty Eight
