With Ties That Bind: Book 3 (The Broken Bonds 6)

I open my laptop and shuffle through emails and the notes on my desk, the messages left for me over the weekend.

Junk. Junk. I toss the letters in the wastebasket as I go, then halt. I glance at one I just discarded and lift it off the top of the pile.

It’s addressed to Avery Johnson, Medical Examiner, which is perfectly normal. But it’s the logo in the upper left corner that makes the fine hairs on my skin lift.

The Alpha’s signature—his brand.

“Dammit.” I drop the letter and dig out a pair of gloves from the lab coat hanging on the back of my chair. Thinking better, I fetch a new pair from my table, so there’s absolutely no transfer to the letter from whatever I used the gloves for previously.

I fight the gloves on past shaky hands. I should call Quinn before opening it. I go to do just that, and freeze.

Whatever awaits me inside that envelope could lead us to the Alpha, but more likely, it’s something damning against me. Something the Alpha wants to taunt me with, or else he’d have exposed me by now.

Quinn has suffered, has been forced to choose me over the job—and he’s put his reputation and convictions on the line. Whatever waits within will only test him further, and selfishly, I don’t want to put that on him unless it can’t be avoided.

I need to know first.

I grab supplies from the lab, ignoring Aubrey’s curious glare. Luckily, the techs and interns arrive, filling the lab with enough distraction to allow me to sneak back into my office.

I lock my door and dig up my handheld ultraviolet light. It’s not ideal for proper document examination, but I want to make sure there’s nothing dangerous inside.

My heart sinks. This feeling of betrayal to my field isn’t truly comparable to what grieves Quinn, but it pains me all the same. I shouldn’t be opening the letter without proper analysis first.

Fuck it. I dumped all over my field the day I doctored my captor’s COD report. I prepare a solution to lift the adhesive, then run a swab over the envelope flap. The corner begins to peel away, and I help it along by carefully separating the layers.

With a full breath, I slowly extract the folded letter with a pair of tweezers. Only one page. No detection of chemical smell—but then, the Alpha has his own lab, his own scientists, that I’m sure are capable of lacing paper with any number of poisons.

I shove the fear aside. Focus.

Once the letter is spread before me, I question one last time if

I’m prepared. If I can handle this alone. Carson is stationed right outside the lab. He would at least be a witness.

I can’t chance that he’d leak this. I just can’t trust him completely.

The script is neither feminine nor male. I have no official graphology training, but I have learned the basics over the years. The handwriting is blocky and written in a heavy hand.

Creative…and very determined. If the Alpha wrote this letter in his own hand, that’s a frightening combination.

Avery,

In a life dominated by control, words are the one thing I allow to be chaotic. Their beauty, their ever-changing quality to always be improved upon—there are no limits to what can be created with an enchanting line of prose.

So, I’m gifting these lines to you. My only medium in which I can express, can convey, your importance to me.

I fear you’re being taken for granted and your talents unappreciated in your current vocation. It’s true that we must pursue—with utter determination—the field in which we are passionate about. But I ask you: are you so passionate for death?

Don’t answer that right away. Save your justifications. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to declare your job worthy, giving your team the imperative little puzzle pieces to nab offenders. Those wrong-doers. But think about it for a moment.

How many do you capture? How many more are set free? Forensics is always advancing, yes. Your skills and the talents of your peers amplifying daily to introduce innovative technologies to “hunt down the bad guy.”

Have you ever seen Scarface, Avery? That scene where Al Pacino, playing the role of “the bad guy,” says goodnight to the onlookers, the judgers? Such a classic. Yet it’s what he says right before that is significant. Allow me to paraphrase: good people are not so good, they just know how to hide.

We all hide—even I have to hide behind an alter ego.

And we’re all bad when you cut right down to the quick. There is always an onlooker, an outsider, scrutinizing and judging our existence. For example: how would your colleagues feel about your assistance to Agent Bonds, when you altered a death report?

Some might say, in that sense, you’re a very bad girl.