Page 80 of Bound

“I don’t have to. There are mercenaries killing your women right now.”

“Lucian,” Rafe warns.

“Don’t fall for it, big brother. He’s only saying it because he knows his feeds are down.”

Panic palpitates in my chest. Can Gregory still see Erin? I can’t ask because I can’t show my cards.

He looks at me with hatred so pure it almost shines. “The girl you bought. The ghost you mourned. The child you lost⁠—”

“And you, the man who wanted nothing more than to be me.”

He laughs once, ugly and hard. “Love made you stupid. As you are right now. I can hear Erin’s screams.”

“Lucian, do not lose your shit,” my brother hisses in my ear. “Hold tight, everyone.”

And the screens go dark once more.

Only one comes back. The one in the center. But it no longer shows my parents. Gregory brings back the live feed of the girls. Erin and Isobel are safely tucked into armored cars and driving away.

Alive and well and safe.

I shake my head. “You never understood, Carlos.”

He sneers. “What?”

“You can destroy the Village, but it’s only houses. Buildings. The people who lived in them still love one another. You can take their homes, but the Village is the people in it.”

“Touching,” he spits. His weight shifts and so do his eyes. He’s losing whatever ground he thinks he held.

Only then do I realize he’s lost the Morettis’ backing as well. And the Hoax. Marina must have been the last one to betray him.

Everyone has turned their backs to him.

“You came here alone, Carlos,” I say. “And when I kill you, you will die alone.”

He comes at me with a knife hidden in his coat.

No theater now.

Only rage.

I meet him halfway.

His weakness makes him slow. I catch his wrist, twist until bone gives, and drive him into the brick wall hard enough to crack old mortar.

He gasps.

I see the warehouse. The men.

Isobel in white.

Gregory as a boy.

Erin walking into my penthouse with a fob in her hand and fear in her eyes.

Everything Carlos ruined.

Then I see the only thing that matters.