I couldn’t do it. Not all through the afternoon.
I stopped drifting around the house enough to put the TV on once another twenty minutes had crawled on by, expecting to see my face staring back out at me like usual. Only it wasn’t my face staring back out at me. Not this time.
As it turns out, I wasn’t quite prepared for it.
I knew we were in some serious trouble the moment the photograph came up onscreen.
If you have any information about this man, journalist Terence Kingsley, then please call the number below.
Oh fuck.
They knew about Terence Kingsley.
The face on the photograph wasn’t Lucian, but it was close enough to pass by at a glance. He was wearing the same style shirt and the same glasses—right down to the exact mahogany shade frames.
My blood froze and my heart stopped, because if they were associating Terence Kingsley with me and my disappearance, if they knew I’d seen Terence Kingsley in my apartment just before my abduction, then we were in deep fucking shit. I was hoping my letter would have drawn the attention away from his visit but it was only a matter of time. It had always been just a matter of time.
The number onscreen was scrolling.
If you have any information about this man, journalist Terence Kingsley, then please call the number below.
If you have any information about this man, journalist Terence Kingsley, then please call the number below.
If you have any information about this man, journalist Terence Kingsley, then please call the number below.
There were people from the Work Truths auction we’d been at, talking about how they’d seen him there, including my cousin, Harriet. It broke my heart to see her like that—tears streaming down her cheeks. She was genuinely asking for news on the journalist, but it was her naivety asking, loud and clear. There was no way in this world that people wouldn’t know. That people wouldn’t see the connection, the similarity between the Morelli god and the posh British journalist he’d been so good at pretending to be.
Yeah, sure, there was no doubt about it. The pieces were piling up around us. The picture onscreen was just another huge pointer linking Lucian Morelli to me.
We were running out of time.
If you have any information about this man, journalist Terence Kingsley, then please call the number below.
If only I had a cell, maybe I would. Maybe I’d tell them that journalist Terence Kingsley headed back to the UK a few days ago and I saw him leave. Something, anything just to get them off track. But I didn’t. I had nothing. It was just me, with my legs pulled up and crossed on the sofa as I rocked back and forth, staring at that photo onscreen.
I leapt out of my skin when I heard a car pull back up in the driveway. Thank fuck for that. Thank fuck Lucian had made it home.
For the second time that day, I twisted the key in the lock and raced on out of there to meet him, and this time I got further. I was racing, rushing… only it wasn’t Lucian’s Merc that was waiting for me outside when I screeched to a halt on nervous legs.
It wasn’t the strength of Lucian greeting me when a tall stranger stepped out of the driver’s side and came after me.
No.
Oh my God, no.
My body was on autopilot as I turned around and made a dash back to the safety of the house, but it wouldn’t have mattered, not for anything. My body would never have been fast enough.
I was back up at the porch when the man’s hands grabbed me from behind and slammed me right on into the hallway. I had no idea who I was squealing against as he spun me around and threw me right up against the wall.
“Little bitch Constantine,” he snarled. “We knew it. We knew you two were holed up together in some fucked-up little shit show of a haven. Where is Lucian?”
I stared blankly, every inch of my skin prickling as I tried to work out just who or where this guy had come from. He had a scar down the right side of his face, a brute in the most brutish sense of the word. Dark and deadly with heavy eyebrows that made me feel like a useless little girl.
“Who are you?” I asked, and his eyes were nothing but vile as he stared down at me.
“I could be anybody,” he said to me. “Everyone is coming for you, bitch. Morellis, Power Brothers, your own fucking family.”
It broke my heart that he was right.
It also broke my heart that I may never see the love of my life again.
One thing for sure was that I was never going to betray Lucian Morelli. The guy before me could do whatever he wanted, but I wouldn’t be revealing anything about the man I loved.