Chapter 220

Kegan began to pull the wheelchair back toward the house.

“Cailin!” Hilliard lunged forward and seized the iron bars of the gate. “I won’t stop! I will tear this city apart!”

“You already did,” Cailin said, without looking back. “There’s nothing left to tear.”

The gates slammed shut with a definitive, metallic clang.

Hilliard stood gripping the cold iron, watching them disappear up the driveway until the darkness swallowed them whole.

He was locked out. Again.

And this time, he knew he deserved it.

Hilliard didn’t leave.

He leaned against the hood of the Aston Martin, staring at the closed gates. The rain started again — a slow, miserable drizzle that darkened his shoulders and ran cold down the back of his neck.

Gavin stood beside him, holding an umbrella out. Hilliard waved it away. He wanted the cold. He wanted the discomfort. It was the only thing that still felt real.

“Sir,” Gavin said carefully. “Your mother is calling again. Fifth time.”

“Let it ring,” Hilliard muttered.

“She sent a text.” Gavin hesitated. ” ‘Emergency. Police involved.’ ”

Hilliard exhaled. “Probably Charla faking a heart attack because I blocked her number.”

He took the phone anyway. He answered.

“What, Mother?”

“Hilliard!” Jeraldine’s voice was unrecognizable — not shrill, not cold. Terrified. “They sent a video. Oh god, the video.”

“Who sent a video? Slow down.”

“The kidnappers! Charla — they have her. They cut off her finger, Hilliard. I saw it. I saw them do it.”

Hilliard straightened. “What?”

“Gregg is talking to the FBI now. They sent a file to your secure email. They said — they said it’s the price.”

“Price for what?”

“For Cailin,” Jeraldine sobbed. “They said, ‘An eye for an eye, a finger for a finger.’ They want us to suffer the way she suffered.”

The blood drained from Hilliard’s face.

He opened his email. It was there — a video file from an encrypted sender. Subject: Payment Due.

He pressed play.

The footage was grainy. Charla was tied to a chair in a dark room, screaming. A masked man held her hand flat against a surface. A knife caught the light.

Hilliard looked away before the blade came down, but he heard the scream. It was the same scream he had heard over the phone earlier. The one he had mocked.

The video ended on a close shot of the floor, and then a voice, calm and unhurried: “The debt is paid.”

Hilliard let the phone drop. It clattered on the wet pavement.

He looked up at the gate — at the eagle crest welded into the iron.

The Vault. Kegan.

“An eye for an eye,” he whispered.

This was not a random kidnapping. It was retribution.

Kegan had taken Charla. He was torturing her. Because of what she had done to Cailin.

And Cailin was inside that house right now. Did she know?