Page 84 of The Final Contract

It’s me and Killian. In the car, after last night’s party.

“How the fuck?—”

It’s taken when we pulled off onto the shoulder. When I was fucking him. My head thrown back, his mouth on my breast. Someone was right fucking there.

How the fuck could someone have been there?

“Killian!” My voice cracks like glass.

Ascream rips through the hall, sharp enough to spear my chest.

“Seraphina!” I’m already moving, storming out of Lucian’s office, frantic, my heart pounding with every step.

She bursts from her dressing room at the same time, eyes wide, breath heaving. Relief and concern collide so hard inside me I nearly stumble.

We collide in the middle of the corridor. My hand catches hers, and I hold tight.

“Angel, what?—”

She shoves something into my palm. A picture.

I glance down, and my insides catch fire.

It’s us. Her straddling me in the McLaren, dress bunched around her waist, my hands locked on her hips. Feral, intimate. Someone was there. How?

The edges of my vision go red.

“Drone,” I grit out, every muscle coiled like a tripwire. “Had to be a fucking drone.”

We’re still moving, rushing toward the noise ahead.

The atrium opens up before us, the sound of gasps and murmurs echoing through the vast space. My stomach drops.

Red paint drips in thick, slow rivulets down one wall. Over it, in black spray paint, two words scream out:

TIME’S UP.

The floor is littered with photographs—me and Seraphina. Some are still falling, fluttering like snow from the upper levels of the atrium, tossed down for all to see.

Her face and mine. Our bodies—sprawled open for the world to pick apart.

Around us, Companions, staff, guards—all crowd the railings above, staring down in stunned silence. Lucian’s at the far side of the ground floor, his expression thunderous, already barking orders into his phone.

But the truth is a blade in my gut.

The Ledger has been breached.

And the message is clear—nowhere is safe for her.

I don’t waste a second and whistle once, sharp. Finn knows the call and his eyes snap right to me. “Get her out. Straight to the penthouse.”

Beside me, Seraphina stiffens. “No.”

“Angel—”

“I said no.” She rips her hand from mine, her eyes blazing even as her breath shakes. “You can’t just send me away?—”

I turn on her, chest heaving, fury and fear boiling over. Both my hands come up, cupping her face, forcing her eyes to mine. I kiss her hard, desperate, swallowing her protest before she can finish it.