Mel smacks Henry in the back of the head again, “No, you dumbass. You don’t, and since we’re not on Oprah, let's get moving. You two can kiss and make up later. That’d be something worth seeing, am I right?” Mel waggles her eyebrows at the tech guys, Marty, and me, while Sean presses his eyes closed, channeling enough patience not to kill her.
CHAPTER 3
The tech guys ring the doorbell. When no one answers, they walk around back and pull open a panel on the side of the house. They put something on a wire and nod at Sean. Marty heads to the back of the property, watching to make sure we aren’t ambushed.
Sean, Henry, Mel and I enter the small, musty-smelling house through a back door. Twin beams of light cut through the darkness as Henry and Sean flip on flashlights at the same time. Something is beeping. Henry rushes off in the direction of the sound, Mel close behind him. I stay with Sean.
“What are we looking for?” I ask, sweeping my eyes around the room. This room has old lady furniture and smells like mothballs.
Sean drags the beam of light across the room and whispers over his shoulder, “Alarm system.”
Mel’s voice comes from around the corner, her head poking from behind a wall of yellow paint with stuffed birds sitting on branches that stick out of the wall. “Got it. Come this way.”
We walk into a small hallway closet that must have been a bathroom at some point. It’s now filled with security cameras and a hugeass computer humming quietly against the far wall.
Henry snaps at me. “Come here and place the bead on top of the unit.”
I hand him my bracelet, and he removes the bead, placing it on top of the enormous machine, but it doesn’t stay put. It rolls back. Henry frowns, glances around for tape, and pinches his hand across his brow when he doesn’t find any. “Design flaw. These should have an adhesive.”
Sean offers, “We can stop and grab tape before hitting the main house. For now, do this.” He grabs a pencil and then places the bead in front of it. It stays put. “You’ll have to stay in here to make sure it doesn’t slip and fall off.”
“Noted. I planned on it anyway.” Henry nods and points toward the screen showing the security feed. “Watch.”
The image on the screen plays backward, showing us leaving the house in reverse, while the timestamp continues forward. It’s surreal.
“It’ll look totally normal. We can walk around as we please, but the recording will show only the empty house.” Henry sits at the control panel, uses the keyboard to pull up the recorded video of us coming inside and deletes it. "The only proof we were here is now gone." He glances at Sean. “As long as no one comes around, this works fine.”
“Do I need to take the bead when I leave?”
Henry nods. “Yes, if it all possible. I only have two prototypes.”
“Can’t you make another?” Mel asks.
Henry rolls his eyes and gives her a contemptuous expression. “No, I can’t just make another. There’s not enough time or materials. Plus that little bead cost nearly a hundred grand to produce.”
Mel glances at her wrist and grins. “So what you’re saying is I should sell it?”
Henry walks over to her, lifts her wrist carefully and presses his finger to the bead. “If you sold it for six figures, you’d be a moron—as you so delicately put it. It’s worth millions.”
Their eyes meet, and he continues to hold her hand for a moment. Mel shudders and blinks rapidly, before looking away. Damn, that’s funny. They had a moment. Mel isn’t going to like that.
I smile to myself and ask Sean, “So what now?”
Sean is wearing dark jeans with that sexy black sweater that clings to his chest and hugs his arms. Coupled with his scuffed shit-kickers, he looks like a badass. He pushes his hair back as he looks around the room, letting his eyes rest on me. His expression softens. “Now we dig through her stuff and see what we find.”
“I’ll rummage through the hard drive and see what pops up.” Henry slips into a small chair in front of the computer and starts clicking keys, pulling up files, and rapidly scanning them for information.
Sean wanders out of the room and down the hall. We come across another old lady sitting room, complete with rose-colored furniture and musty stench. Sean motions for us to head upstairs. When we reach the upper landing, he turns and gestures toward a bedroom door. It’s locked. He pulls out a small device, pushes it in the keyhole, and presses a button. The telltale sound of the bolt scraping open reaches my ears.
Sean pushes the door slowly and glances inside before freezing in his tracks. He’s holding the door half open, half closed, immobilized. Rage flashes in his eyes only to almost immediately dissipate. The anger on his face morphs into something else, something unrecognizable.
“Mother?" he asks. "What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER 4
I step around the door and peer past Sean to see her. Constance Ferro sits disheveled in a scorched red robe. Chains encircle her wrists and ankles, extending to rings bolted into the wall. I can’t process what I’m seeing. She died. Her funeral came and went. Constance is dead. I saw her severed arm. I watched Sean try to save her from the rubble when his home exploded.
I blink, gaping at her. “What the hell?”
Constance isn’t herself. She’s pale, weak, and seems equally shocked to see us. “Sean? How did you find me? How’d you know I was alive?” Her voice rasps and is no louder than a whisper.
He stares at his mother, speechless.
I walk over to her. “Who did this to you?”
She arches a brow at me as I study the chain trying to find a way to free her. “You’re still around? Sean, it’s delightful to see your taste in women remains trashy even in the darkest of times.” Her tone lacks its usual bravado, but the old Constance is still in there, brewing beneath the surface.
“Avery is my fiancée, and you will speak respectfully,” Sean says, his voice monotonous, without a trace of malice or anger.
Constance laughs lightly as if at afternoon tea. “Be serious, Sean. You can’t marry her. Do you know who her father is?”
“Yes, I do.”
She blanches. “Well, then. I suppose if you want to bring more murderers into the world—”
Sean turns on his heel and leaves the room. His footfalls fade as the shadowed stairwell swallows him whole.
I glare at Constance like she’s mental. “Do you want us to leave you here?”
She laughs again like this is some cosmic joke. “You can’t free me. These restraints are mortared into the wall, and the key to the lock is with your charming half-brother. Tell me, did you have a reunion? Were there balloons and cake?”
I kneel down and get in her face. “No. In fact, Vic already tried to murder Sean and me. The bastard wants to kill me then do unspeakable things to my dead body. So, no, we’re not besties and whatever he did to you—I know he has worse planned. Tell me, Connie, do you want us to leave you here for him? Or do you want to leave?”
Her aging eyes turn glassy, and she swallows hard. I think she’s going to say something nice, but, instead, she hisses, “You won't get a dime of Ferro money.”
I don’t respond to the statement. My brows lift and my arms fold over my chest. “Do you want to die here? It looks like Vic Jr. set everything up flawlessly. He likes to torment people, and, with the world thinking you’re dead and buried, he can take his time.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t take me. He’ll know it was you and your true mission here will be ruined. Sean knows what he’s doing. Leave me. Come back when you’ve slaughtered that son of a bitch.”
Her request makes my blood run cold. She means it, every word.
“We can’t leave you behind—”
“You can and you will.” Constance doesn’t say another word. She arches a single brow at me, a dismissal, my cue to leave.
I make a strangled sound in the back of my throat and leave the room. I find Sean at the bottom of the staircase, sitting on t
he last step, his head in his hands.
I place my hand on his back and lean into his shoulder, breathing in his scent. “So that happened.”
“She’s alive, but I can’t save her. If I take her, Vic will know we were here. If I leave her, he’ll torture her. How am I supposed to walk away? She's my mother, Avery.” Sean looks at me, his blue eyes filled with pain.
“I’m not sure it matters what you do—she refuses to leave. I tried to get her to come. She threw me out.” I try not to laugh, but I can’t help it. “She’s something else, isn’t she?”