Page 100 of The Final Contract

Finn nods once like it’s enough. Like it explains everything.

But my mind is spinning, a million questions colliding all at once.How long? Where? Who’s listening right now?

Lucian doesn’t give me a second glance. He slips the note into his pocket, smooth as folding a handkerchief, and walks straight to the door. Quiet. Controlled. A man who leaves nothing behind but silence.

The door shuts, and I’m still standing in the kitchen with my heart in my throat when Finn clears his throat. His brogue is bright, cheery, almost jarring.

“How about some tea, lass?”

As if nothing is wrong at all.

“Yeah,” I manage, my voice catching. “Tea.”

My hands feel clumsy as I grab the kettle, fill it under the tap. The gush of water is too loud, too bright against the silence, but it gives Finn cover. He leans down, whispers something quick into the ear of one of the other guards. The man nods once and slips out as quietly as Lucian had left.

I want to reach for my phone, to text Killian, to tell him something is wrong. My fingers itch for it, but Finn is there, shaking his head before I can type a word. No. Wordless but clear. Anything electronic could be under watch too.

The kettle fills, and I set it on the stove, twisting the burner on. The blue flame sputters to life, but my insides are still ice.

I sit at the table, nails picking against each other until they ache. My eyes drift, unfocused, until they land on Killian’s jacket still slung over the back of a chair. Black leather, worn and heavy.

I want to put it on.

I want to bury myself in the smell of him, in the heat of it, pretend it’s his arms wrapping around me instead of the empty silence pressing against the windows.

I didn’t even realize I’d taken it until I was lifting it to my nose and breathing it in. Closing my eyes, I use it to cover myshoulders, tucking my arms inside and playing with the jacket’s edge. The dread coils tighter inside me with every second that passes.

Like something is already on its way.

My fingers toy with a hard speck, like a small button in an odd location.

A thought gnaws at me.

Flowers.

Where are the flowers?

They’d been there all along—every note, every shadowed reminder. If it wasn’t a rose pressed into my hand, it was one embossed on the corner of an envelope. A petal drawn in ink at the edge of a letter.

But these last few days…

Barrett Hall’s vandalized car. The hair dumped onto silver platters. The atrium at the Ledger desecrated with spray paint and filth.

No flowers.

Not one.

I can’t shake it. But the speck on Killian’s jacket comes off. It could have been a crumb of some kind, but as I stare at it on the tip of my finger, my pulse thunders.

“Hey, Finn?” I call, turning in my chair. “What’s?—”

The door bursts open.

Gunfire cracks, deafening.

The bullet tears into the stove behind me. Gas meets spark.

The explosion is just enough to rip me off my feet. The blast throws me hard to the ground. My ears scream with a high-pitched ringing that swallows every other sound.