Chapter 18
Ronan
The penthouse is silent.
“Prudence?”
No answer.
I drop my keys on the counter and move through the kitchen. Her mug sits in the sink—rinsed, not in the drying rack. She always places it in the rack. I cross to the living room. There’s a book lying face-down on the couch cushion, spine cracked, pages fanning. Prudence treats books with the careful reverence of a woman who spent nineteen years without access to simple pleasures. She would never leave it this way.
“Prudence.”
The bedroom door stands open. I cover the hallway in four strides.
The room is empty, so I check the bathroom. That’s empty too.
On the nightstand, a glimmer under the lamplight catches my eye. It’s her rings—her platinum and diamond wedding set. She’d never owned a piece of jewelry in her life. She stared at it for a full minute when I slid it onto her finger, then pressed her hand against her sternum as if she needed to feel the weight of it against her heart.
I pick it up.
My fist closes around the band until it bites into my palm.
Her phone sits propped against the lamp base. I pick it up. The screen is unlocked and when I swipe, it opens to the photos app. Her last entry is a recorded video.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and tap it to begin playing it.
Prudence fills the screen. She’s been crying—her lashes are clumped, her eyes are pink, and she has tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Ronan.” Her voice is fractured but bears the formality she’d been slowly losing—the cadence of the Enclave, each word placed with the careful precision of a girl reciting catechism. She’s regressed. Whatever happened between my departure and this video dragged her two weeks backward.
The woman on this screen has been filled with fire and brimstone scripture.
“I must speak plainly. I owe you that much.” She swallows. Her hands fold in her lap—left over right. “I am a dark mark upon your soul. Every pleasure I have taken from your life has stripped a layer of protection from you. Every night I have spent in your bed has blackened your spirit. Every kindness you have shown me has been repaid with the corruption of my presence.”
What the fuck?! My grip on the phone tightens.
“I am returning to my people. I must undergo penance. I must be cleansed so that the stain I have left upon you can be washed away. It is the only way.”
She pauses. Her composure cracks—a fissure running through stone—and for a breath, the woman I’ve been falling in love with surfaces beneath the programming. Her lower lip trembles.
“Please do not come for me. If you love me—” Her voice breaks. She presses her knuckles to her mouth, holds, and forces herself to continue. “If you have any care for me at all, you willlet me go. Let me atone. Let me save your soul from what I have done.”
Another pause. She lifts her chin, and tears spill from both eyes.
“I love you, Ronan. Loving you is the gravest sin I have committed, and I would rather burn for eternity than watch you suffer on my account.”
She reaches for the phone. The angle shifts as her arm extends?—
And the video ends.
My blood runs cold. Then it ignites.
I dial Cillian. He picks up on the first ring.
“She’s gone.” My voice doesn’t sound right. What comes through is raw and serrated. “Buford got to her somehow. She’s gone back to that fucking cult.”
A beat of silence. Then Cillian, ice-cold and operational, responds, “I’m calling the others. Don’t move until we get there.”
