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I was a bit disappointed Keira hadn’t come to visit me once in the hospital, but then this was an arranged marriage. It wasn’t real, though I had felt like the tension between us had been mutual.

Either way, it didn’t matter; the people I trusted most in this world were gathering around my hospital bed. My inner circle.

I opened the meeting by asking Nika to share what she had found in the footage.

She stared at me, her expression dripping with worry, before her gaze shifted first to my brother, then to Maks. She seemed to be asking, Are you sure you want me to say it in front of them?

The unspoken communication was all I needed to know. My memory wasn’t faulty. The camera had picked up the woman’s changing and becoming a ghost.

“Yes, show us all,” I said in a deep rasp. “They need to know what we’re facing.”

“But it’s fucking impossible, and I checked fifteen times whether the footage was faked, and no, it’s not. And that is not hyperbole. I literally checked fifteen times.” Nika clutched her laptop close to her chest.

“I believe you.” As I sat up in my bed, a pained noise escaped my mouth. “I saw it in person. Impossible as it may seem, the woman is a ghost.”

Mikhail’s brow creased. “What do you mean, a ghost?”

“Show them.” I motioned to Nika. She hesitated for a long, long moment, unwilling to read everyone in on the truth. But then, she opened her laptop, clicked a couple of buttons, and opened the footage. Then she set her computer at the foot of my bed and turned it toward us.

She pressed play, and the entire sequence unfolded again. The boxes looked wet, as if someone had poured water or some other liquid on them. But the camera showed no source of the liquid.

One moment the boxes were dry and the next, they were wet.

The Ghost.

She was the source. I knew it now.

Suddenly, she appeared on the screen out of nowhere. My stomach dropped because it was real. I hadn’t dreamt it.

Around me, the reactions of my men varied. Some gasped, others stiffened, and someone even cussed in Russian under their breath. But we all watched—with no sound—the Ghost confront me and kill Mirko.

We watched as she walked right up to me, the tension thick in the air as we both readied for attack. We were like two tigers preparing to strike. I reached to uncover her veil, and she turned completely translucent, then fully invisible.

We watched her leave me there to die. Watched my skin begin to boil and blister.

Minutes later, she returned, translucent and glowing. The Ghost knelt beside me for a long moment, seemingly lost in thought, before she reached out and caressed my face.

A shiver ran through my body. Her touch was tender and tentative, like she knew me.

How?

Why would she touch me this way?

On the screen, my eyes fluttered open. I spoke to her, and she flinched.

I didn’t remember saying anything to her, and I couldn’t remember what we had said. The exchange didn’t last long, though.

I seemed to pass out again, and she reached out and grabbed my shoulders, turning me translucent and ghostly. At times in the footage, we became fully invisible, and at other times, we looked more like ghosts in a movie.

The footage cut out after the Ghost hauled my body through the wall.

I ran my hand through my hair, sending a sharp jolt through my torso. Silence burrowed into the room, carving itself deep between us. It was one thing to live it, another to watch it, and something else entirely to believe it.

But I had felt her that night. I felt her body disappear between my fingers.

And still it was hard to believe.

The supernatural wasn't supposed to exist. Ghosts were just fairy tales. Stories you told children to teach them life lessons.