He was misunderstood, wild, and alive.

And he had a mother—a very angry one at that.

One Harry Fairhurst should not have crossed.

“Holy shit, this place is colder than Vaughn’s heart,” Knight complained, pretending to rub his arms, even though he was clad in a pea coat that probably cost more than a Fairhurst painting.

Hunter, a Boston native, wore a light bomber jacket and a patronizing smirk, wheeling the one suitcase they’d brought with them.

“Did you bring what I asked you for?” I hissed, flipping the keys of the rental car I’d picked them up with from Heathrow.

Dad had asked if I wanted him to do it—he was staying at the same cottage Mom and he had rented when I’d moved in here—but I’d told him I didn’t want him to get involved. Unlike Knight and Hunter, he asked questions. My friends were another story altogether. Knight had trashed art worth millions of dollars, burning it to the ground, and didn’t even wonder why. That’s why they were perfect for this job.

The automatic doors of the airport opened, and we all walked across to the Vauxhall Astra I had waiting. My friends looked at the silver car with a mixture of disgust and horror.

“Shit, man, you really don’t want to get laid here.” Hunter shook his head. “Do you have something against British girls, or…?”

“It’s a rental,” I barked, grabbing his suitcase and hurling it into the open trunk of the car. “And chasing tail is not an Olympic sport for me as it is for you. Now, I’ll ask again—did you bring it?”

He knew exactly what I meant. It was too specific for me to buy here, in the UK. It could be traced back to me, and that was a risk I couldn’t take. Hunter, on the other hand, had no problem buying it from a Canadian dude who drove all the way to Boston to hand it to him in person. Untraceable.

“Of course we brought it, fucker.” Knight laughed, tapping the roof of the car and sliding into the passenger seat. “Why else would we bring a half-empty suitcase? So we can shop at goddamn Primark?”

I slid into the driver’s seat, buckling up. Hunter got in the back.

“Tell me you don’t shop at Primark,” Knight said, dead serious, after a beat.

I shrugged. “They have good socks and jeans.”

“Jesus.” Knight dug his palms into his eye sockets at the same time Hunter laughed and said, “Goddamn, you are something else.”

We spent the rest of the drive catching up. Knight seemed genuinely happy, which didn’t surprise me, because he’d finally gotten what he always wanted: Luna Rexroth. Hunter lived in Boston and seemed mysterious about his time in college. I knew he had a job lined up, working for his family’s business once he graduated, and that his future had been written in blood the day he was born, but he never seemed to want to talk about it. And naturally, I wasn’t one to poke.

When we got to their Airbnb condo in Reading, everything had already been readied. The security cameras upfront were working, blinking their red dots at us and recording everything. I slid into the garage, took the thing I needed from their suitcase, and drove back to Carlisle.

I couldn’t help but make a stop at Lenora’s room. I got as far as her door before pressing my forehead to it and taking a deep breath.

There wasn’t any point in seeing her again.

It would just make shit harder.

I knew she was on the other side.

Alone. Soft. Beautiful. Mine, for now.

I turned and walked away, feeling for the first time what it meant to have a hungry heart.

Harry Fairhurst wasn’t born yesterday.

Shortly after I broke his arm, he’d booked a ticket to Brunei, in Southeast Asia, known for its beautiful beaches, exotic rainforest, and ability to hide there without a trace—the perfect haven for a child molester. Luckily, I’d calculated his moves, no matter how fast, swift, and smart. Right now he was still in his St. Albans house, packing up and getting ready to leave for the airport.

The first thing I’d done today was slide a letter under Len’s door. I wasn’t dumb enough to discuss what I was about to do in said letter—I trusted her, but how was I to know it wasn’t going to find its way to unfriendly hands? The second was to head to my cellar and pretend to work as if nothing had happened.

When the clock hit three, I went to Hunter and Knight’s apartment, passing the security cameras and making sure my face was visible. The perfect alibi. Once inside, I jumped out the back window, ran across the street to another rental car—this time a Kia—and drove to Harry’s.

I parked at the fringe of the neighborhood, where the houses kissed the woods, took out what Hunter had gotten for me, and walked the rest of the way to Harry’s house. Rather than open the door with the key I’d gotten my hands on, I jabbed my elbow through one of the windows, making it look like burglary. I stepped through the shards of glass, a replica of Tutankhamun’s Death Mask on my face and shoulders—the mask my friends had brought from the US—gloves on my hands, and my weapon dangling from my fingertips.