Page 66 of Black Ledger

Nervously, I twirled a strand of my silver-white hair around my fingers. My hair had leeched all its color after what happened, and now I struggled even to dye it. It never held dye for long.

So I wore wigs to fit in… and hunt my prey.

“It’s definitely possible,” Emma said slowly. “It’s hard to know how your condition affects your mental health. There isn’t any research.”

I shook my head: psychologists and their research.

Emma noticed. “What I mean to say is that it’s possible your condition contributes, but trauma could also cause flashbacks like this.”

I nodded. “Right…”

“But since we don’t know, it seems like the first thing we need to do is come up with a plan for when these flashbacks happen. And they will.”

“I don’t want them to happen.” I squeezed the pillow harder.

Emma tapped her notepad with her pen. “The goal is to stop them, but in the interim, they may still occur, so we need a plan. First, let’s talk about ways to ground yourself when you feel one coming on.”

Emma went over about five grounding techniques, from naming five things I could see to holding something cold to cognitive phrases I could repeat in my head to tapping and breathing techniques. Then we came up with a plan for what would happen if a flashback happened while I was with Severin. A plan that included a lie. Given what could trigger it, we decided to go with a story close to the truth: that I had been assaulted and sometimes I had moments. It was close enough to the truth to work.

“So, do you feel more ready to go to Severin’s house tomorrow?” Emma asked.

No. I inhaled sharply. “Yes, I guess…”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

Istepped out of my black SUV with tinted windows, my two Irish guards following on my heels. My phone rang, and I glanced down at the screen.

Sabine was calling again, for the third time in three weeks. I ignored the call. I took two more steps up the gravel driveway, and my phone buzzed again. This time, it was Seraphina Keres calling, the consultant from the FBI on serial killers.

I pushed my side button again, ignoring the call. There was absolutely no way those calls weren’t related. Sera and Sabine were good friends and often worked together on projects. We were sometimes like Greek Furies, seeking justice together, and I sometimes aided them in their causes… especially Sabine, since she had once saved my life.

But I had a job to do and Russians to hunt. I could save their serial killer issues for later.

Unless… they were trying to warn me that the FBI was onto my victims. Hardly. All my targets were made men or men who simply disappeared, and my face would never show up on surveillance footage. I was a ghost. Besides, I always wiped the footage. So it was nearly impossible for me to get caught.

No, I was fine.

So why were they calling?

My phone buzzed again, and I groaned. “The absolute worst fucking timing, Sera,” I answered, holding the smartphone up to my ear.

“Good to talk to you, too,” Seraphina said on the other line.

“Is this vitally important?” I asked.

Seraphina let out an audible sigh. “It’s about the Embroiderer. You were⁠—”

And that’s where I cut her off. “Great, well, good talking to you, Sera, but I’m incredibly busy.” I hung up and put my phone on my most restrictive Do Not Disturb. I turned to my guards. “Sorry about that, gents. Shall we?”

Neeve would not have approved of me ignoring Seraphina’s call, especially about the Embroiderer, but as I told her the other day, I am only one person. One vigilante man-hunting killer. Sera and presumably Sabine could hunt down the Embroiderer without me.

I glanced up at the menacing mansion standing before me. Goosebumps rose on my arms. This place always made me feel a little sick, and I was intentionally walking back inside—a place I once thought of as a prison, until I knew what confinement actually was.

My two Irish guards, Donal and Liam, whom I once thought of as babysitters but now considered friends, stood beside me. They were two of Cormac’s most trusted men and knew exactly why I was here. They hunted the Lethean Order too. Because the Order had gone after one of their own, and now the Irish and I would destroy every single piece of them.“Do we knock?” I asked, awkwardly, as I stepped up to the massive carved wooden doors. Everything about the Russian compound was built to intimidate.