My stomach knots.
I curl my fingers around the edge of the chair, forcing my shoulders back, willing my pulse to steady.You’re imagining it, I tell myself. It’s nerves, adrenaline, nothing more.
Then the room blurs.
Cold floods my limbs, fast and invasive. My muscles go slack, turning to sand beneath my skin. Colours smear, the clean linesof the room blurring at the edges, and the glass slips from my fingers, shattering across the marble with a sound that feels impossibly loud.
My heart slams against my ribs. I try to stand—try to call out—but my legs refuse to obey.
The door clicks open.
Footsteps approach. Slow, measured, precise.
Close enough now that I can feel the shift in the air behind me.
“Hello, Lily.”
A man’s voice—smooth, confident, chilling in its ease.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you and seeing what all the fuss is about.”
The room folds in on itself. Darkness, sharp and intimate, swallows everything. And I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel the gravity of him in the space, claiming it before I even know his name.
Chapter 43
After hours of poring over intel, rounding up runners to man the ports, hacking into the city’s CCTV, and—at the same time—working on a way to get Lily out without tipping Antonio off that we’re onto him, I should be ready to crash by the time I step into my old flat.
Instead, there’s a restless energy under my skin. A low, insistent warning I can’t shake.
Every second Lily is in Lyon, alone, is a second too long.
Cora and Owen think waiting until morning is our best move. Send Liam and Aidan first thing, let them get Lily quietly to a safe house before Antonio realises the net is tightening.
It’s clean, logical, smart.
And it doesn’t sit right with me at all.
Dropping my keys, I have my phone in hand, before I can talk myself out of it. After our night in that hotel, I’ve made an effort not to obsessively check the cameras in Lily’s flat, but like all addicts, I find myself needing a hit. In the morning, I’ll call her. Explain things and bring her home. But for now, I need to see her with my own eyes, reassure myself she's okay. That she’s safe.
Glass of vodka in hand, I pull up the feed. Her living room is in darkness, as is the kitchen. Typical for this time of night, but something in the quiet scratches at me. There’s an eerie stillness that feels off.
Heart in my throat, I click to the bedroom.
Empty.
A faint pressure builds behind my ribs, the kind that whispersyou’re missing something.
She should be in bed right now.
I replay the footage again.
Then again.
She’s not there. Not in the doorway, kicking off her shoes. Not in the kitchen making late-night tea. Not crawling into bed with her hair a mess and her oversized T-shirt slipping off one shoulder. There’s no sign of her at all.
Just a cold silence.
My pulse ticks faster, hard enough I feel it in my throat. I flick backwards in the timeline, jaw tightening as the footage rewinds in a fast blur—her bed, her desk, her kitchen—until finally, she appears on screen, rushing out her front door.
