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His words sent a shiver down my spine, and I felt a sudden urgency to uncover the truth. Whatever had happened here, it had left an indelible mark on this place, and I feared it would forever change me as well.

I turned to him, my eyes searching for answers. “And the drawings?” I asked.

Sinclair’s gaze darkened as he stalked toward me. His hand shot out fast as lightning as he held my neck hard in a crushing grip, and he sneered vehemently. “I never mentioned any drawings.”

My heart hammered in my chest as Sinclair’s grip tightened around my neck. I struggled to breathe, my eyes darting around the room, searching for an escape. The house seemed to pulse with a malevolent energy, as if it, too, were holding its breath, waiting for my answer.

Clawing at his hand, trying to remove the unremovable appendage, he seethed. “What the fuck did you do, Thena?”

The pressure on my throat made my vision swim, black dots threatening to swallow the edges of my world. Still, I met Sinclair’s gaze, forcing myself to stay present, to hold on to the thread of courage inside me. My voice came out as little more than a rasp as I smirked, and my knee came up and connected with his groin. The second his hand left my throat, and he fell to his knees, I kicked him away from me and laughed. “Fuck you, Sinclair. Did you think I wouldn’t know this place? I was here when he took her away. I was the one who ensured her incompetency! I fucking know she gave birth to his child, and when I find the fucking brat, I am going to kill him right in front of her before I put a bullet in her head. August is MINE! He has always been mine. I gave him two children. Everything I’ve done has been for him, and I will not allow you or anyone else to destroy what I’ve worked so hard to accomplish!”

“You’re crazy,” Sinclair gasped, cupping his balls as he looked up at me from the floor. His breath ragged, hatred smoldered in his eyes, and he pressed a trembling hand to his bruised groin as the echo of my laughter ricocheted through the hollow walls, mingling with the shadows, but fury and fear warred inside me.My confession hung heavy in the air, a raw wound exposed to the flickering gloom.

“What did you do to her, Thena?”

His question sliced through the charged silence, each syllable sharp as broken glass. For a moment, I teetered on the edge of sanity, my breath catching in the stagnant air. The house seemed to listen, its lingering shadows swelling with anticipation of what I might say next.

Sinclair pushed himself upright, his face twisted with pain and disbelief. It took all his strength to stagger to the battered armchair, his fingers digging into the worn fabric as if hoping it might anchor him to reality. I could see the war raging within him, the desperate attempt to piece together the fragments of truth I had just unleashed.

I paced the floor, my footsteps echoing in time with my pounding heart. The names, the memories, the secrets—they all tangled in my mind, weaving a tapestry of guilt and ambition. My confession tasted bitter on my tongue, but it was too late for regret. I had crossed the threshold, and there was no turning back.

Sinclair’s voice was hoarse, nearly broken as he asked again, “What the hell did you do to her, Thena?” His accusation hung between us, heavier than the dust in the air.

I stopped, facing the window where light bled through cracked glass. My reflection stared back—wild-eyed and unrepentant. The truth was a living thing, writhing beneath my skin, begging for release. But before I could answer, a distant sound—a floorboard creaking, a door shifting somewhere in the dark—reminded me that we were not alone in this house of ghosts. Something—or someone—was listening.

Sinclair followed my gaze, dread dawning across his features. The boundaries between the past and present blurred, and everyshadow threatened to bear witness to the sins carved into these walls.

The silence pressed down once more, thick and suffocating. My answer, whatever it would be, would change everything. I drew in a shaky breath and let the darkness gather my words, ready to spill them into the light, where only the house would remember. But I froze when Gideon Scott made his presence known and behind him, the man I hated more than August, Montana Stone, who growled, “What the fuck did you do with my brother’s wife?”

The room seemed to shudder as Montana’s voice crashed through the tension, his footsteps deliberate, heavy with purpose. He stood framed in the doorway, shadow stretching across the warped floorboards like a judgment. The air grew colder, laden with the weight of unasked questions and the promise of revelations too painful to bear.

Montana’s accusation hung in the thick, chilling air, more accusation than question, its force threatening to splinter the fragile reality that barely contained us all. Gideon lingered in the shadowed gloom behind him, his jaw clenched, eyes fever-bright with suspicion and something that looked too much like death. Shadows, restless and sharp, crept along the walls, every one of them crackling with secrets best left unsaid.

My lips parted, but no words came; the confession I carried squirmed and twisted, a serpent in my throat. I glanced at Sinclair, but he only glared back, sweat beading along his brow, his pain momentarily forgotten as he waited for me to damn myself to Hell. I could sense Montana’s impatience—his knuckles whitening around the battered doorframe, his gaze fixed on me like a silent threat.

“I did what no one had the stomach for,” I said at last, my voice soft but unyielding, the words tumbling into the gloomwith the weight of a curse. “I severed the past. I burned it down so all of you could escape what was coming.”

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Even the house stilled; the creaks and moans folded in on themselves as if the building itself braced for my revelation. Montana’s nostrils flared, his fury barely contained. Gideon took a single step forward, boots whispering across the splintered wood.

“And where is she now?” Gideon’s question was quiet, but every syllable landed like a blow.

I let the silence stretch, tasted the iron tang of inevitability. The truth was out there, pacing just beyond the threshold, begging to be let in. “She’s gone,” I whispered, for all of us, for the ghosts pressing in, for the sins I could no longer outrun. “She’s gone, and no one will ever find her.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, or maybe it was just the house settling—a reminder that this was only the beginning, that my real reckoning had yet to come.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Montana

“That bitch is bat-shit fucking crazy!” I shouted as I paced Sinclair’s cabin. “You saw the way she was acting, spouting shit that made no fucking sense. How the hell can we believe anything she says now?”

“I agree, Montana, but you must understand what she said makes sense to her. We just need to decipher it all.” Sinclair sighed, picking up the tumbler of whiskey beside him as if this conversation was nothing more than fodder for a Saturday brunch.

“I don’t have time to decipher the rantings of a madwoman. My brother is hanging on by a thread. He can’t take much more, Sinclair. Morpheus was fucking crystal clear. If I want Bane back, I have to locate Gabriella.” Plopping my ass into a chair, I leaned forward and grabbed my head. “Fuck me. I wish my dad was still alive so I could fucking kill him myself.”

“Would it make a difference?”

“No,” I sighed, shaking my head. “I can’t lose him, Sinclair. August has stood by me all these years. He never said a word. He trusted me, believed every promise I made to him. He never deviated. He kept his end of the bargain, and I’ll be damned to Hell if I walk away from my best friend now. I won’t do it.”