Page 116 of Tethered Souls

He shakes his head. “Love isn’t weak, you idiot. Being alone is weak. If you weren’t there for me when I was a kid, I would be dead,” he signs matter-of-factly. “Needing you wasn’t a weakness of mine. It allowed me to grow strong.” He smiles at me softly. “You needing her isn’t a weakness either.”

“That’s different.”

“That’s your fear talking.”

I stare at him, then shake my head. “When did you get so fucking wise?”

“When I had to play father to my father.”

My jaw drops along with my mask. Just for a second, then I’m pulling it back up so the damn tears don’t escape my eyes.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” he says with a cheeky grin. “You need to get the room ready before Khalid gets here.”

Turning, giving me privacy to recollect myself, he heads for the room of runes. I watch him go, remembering the last scene he showed me. My throat tight, I pull out my phone.

Hesitate.

Then type a quick text to Micha.

Varius:I don’t care about the time. I want to see you when you get back.

My finger hovers over the send button.

Then the back button.

My shoulder muscles rigid, I shove my phone into my pocket without pressing send. I’ll talk to her later when she gets back. Perhaps I can just fucking ask her if she’s trying to steal the ledger. As dumb as it would be to give her that chance to play me, we could come back from herplannedbetrayal.

But if she actually goes through with it?

If she actually tries to hurt my brothers by selling info that will damn them?

I’d be so fucking angry, I don’t know what I’d do.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.

Upon opening them, I head for the room of runes. I’ll deal with her when she gets back. Right now, I need to focus on learning what Cid knows.

A war is coming, and wehaveto be prepared.

Forty-One

HER

The call from Varius has me itching to go home. Or at least talk to Dayne to make sure the Boss of the Shadow Domain is okay. He sounded tense, on edge, and although I left my friend there to watch over him, I have no way of communicating with him while I’m up here. There wasn’t a bug on my phone recording my conversations that day, so the blackmailer must have gotten it through magic. Which means I can’t use any technology, no burner phone. Can’t trust it won’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Two weeks ago, after I hung up on Dayne before I got his voicemail, he headed straight to Florida. Having suspected he would come to me, I left the letter I wrote at one of our drop-off zones for him to pick up. I told him to deal with whoever was watching him so I could fuck this blackmailer up.

He told me he had dealt with the guy already, having clocked him the day I signaled him something was wrong. The man hasn’t talked yet. He’s tied up and gagged and still with Dayne to keep working on, but he had a burner phone with a single number. So Dayne’s been texting updates to it, giving my blackmailer false intel on his whereabouts.

Leaving me free to hunt the idiot who thought he could hunt me.

Unfortunately, they’re damn good at hiding their tracks. The only lead we have to go on is that damn phone with a single number. Dayne’s been working on trying to trace it, and in the meantime, I have been trying to figure out the blackmailer’s identity.

Rolling over in bed, I glare at the ceiling. This is the first time I’ve slept in in months, it being the afternoon now, and the fucker is ruining it. Once I get my hands on them, I'm going to make them pay for that.

And for threatening Varius’ trust in me.My eyes close as my chest aches.

Then I'm on my feet and moving, getting my bag packed and ready to go. Father and I toasted yesterday. The deal’s been finalized. I’ve set up a meeting between him and the Mattos twins. There’s nothing else keeping me here, and I have an eight-nine-hour drive ahead of me. More with rests as it’s just me driving and the last thing I want to do is die from a crash on the way home.