Page 2 of Girl, Bound

One ring. Two rings.

The line connected,but Eric heard nothing.

Because a suddensearing pain lanced through his neck.

Eric's knees buckled,betraying him. The world tilted, and as the ground came up to meet him. Ericcrashed to the pavement, his head bouncing off the tarmac with a meaty thudthat set his skull ringing like a bell. Numbness flooded his body, anylingering thoughts rendered to meaningless cotton fluff in the storm.

His phone fell fromhis hand, shattering beside him. Numbness sprouted through his limbs. Eric’smind screamed commands, but his body refused to obey. He clawed against theasphalt, but Eric was no longer in control of his actions. He was at the mercyof something else, something Other.

Breaths came fast. Hisheart rate shot up to dangerous levels, and Eric’s overriding thought was thathe’d fallen victim to a heart attack.

‘Help—’ he tried tocall, but the words died on his tongue. Shadows crept closer, the edges of hisvision darkening. He lay immobilized, the cool concrete beneath him offering nocomfort, only a hard truth. There was no escape, no reprieve from the judgmentthat had found him here, alone, in the company of death.

Then, through the hazeof his fading vision, he saw them.

Two polished shoes,gleaming in the moonlight. The kind that clicked authoritatively throughSeraphic Labs' corridors. They paused by his head in a momentary hesitation.

A sickening clarityovercame him.

This was no heartattack.

Someone had poisonedhim.

Now, he recognized thesigns. An alien toxin. Icy fingers of shock gripping his system. He’d beenchemically paralyzed, made a prisoner in his own flesh.

Panic clawed at Eric'sinsides, a primal urge to flee, to fight, but it was like screaming into avoid. The toxins from the prick in his neck leeched away any semblance ofstrength. The figure bent down, movements blurred and surreal as if underwater.The figure loomed, and instinctively, Eric knew the man in front of him was thereaper, come to collect his due.

As consciousnessfaded, a final realization crystallized in the void. He had played God, and nowhe would face the consequences. The choices he had made, the lives he hadgambled, had come around.

Two hands graspedEric’s limp form and dragged him towards the waiting maw of the body bag.

And the darknessswallowed him whole.

CHAPTER ONE

Ella’s apartment was atomb, silent save for the hum of her thoughts. She glanced at her watch; thenight had swallowed hours whole, but there was no going back now. Ella neededanswers.

She stood before theconspiracy board, a web of red string and newspaper clippings, each connectiona desperate plea for sense in a world gone mad. The events of the past fewweeks played out before her in a strange theater of blood, bodies and questions.

Ella's eyes dartedfrom one pin to the next, tracing the invisible threads that bound them. It wasall too perfect, too neat. The work of a mastermind, or a monster. An angel ofdeath, whose wings cast shadows over her life.

She'd never been onefor tinfoil hats and basement-dwelling paranoia, but the evidence wasundeniable. Anyone who wronged her, anyone who dared to cross her path, met agrisly end. But why? What twisted soul would take such an interest in her life,in her pain?

Ella's gaze landed onthe latest addition to the board. Trevor Garbett, who she also knew as MiaRipley's ex-husband. Two nights ago, he’d been found him on a roadside, abullet hole through his temple. Another body, another message. Ripley hadspilled the details once his body had shown up - he’d tried to blackmail her,but Ripley had resisted. Two days later, a dog walker had found his corpsecurled up like a fetus in some layby.

If she wanted to makeany sense of this, she had to dissect it from the beginning, right from herdeadly dance with Logan Nash. Her gaze shifted to his image, the face pinned atthe start of this deadly chain. Logan Nash's sneering mug shot stared back ather. The man responsible for her father's death, the ghost she'd chased for aquarter-century, finally within the confines of justice—or so she had believed.She’d made it her mission to find him, to make him pay for shattering herworld.

And she had. She'dtracked him down, gotten him locked away in a safe house.

But someone had beatenher to the punch. They'd breached the safe house, put a bullet in Nash's brain.

Next came RandallCarter, the former FBI director. He and Mia Ripley, her partner, never did mesh— professional oil and water. And Ella, by association, found no favor in hiseyes. The day after Carter’s promotion to the upper echelons of the Bureau, Carterwas gunned down outside his home. Ella had seen the CCTV footage in all itshideous glory. A lone figure dressed in black, a Glock 17 lacing his palm.

Hazards of the job?Politics?

Or a clear message, awarning to those who stood in Ella’s way?

Focus. She needed tofocus. The attacker had moved on from Carter, reaching out with violenttendrils towards someone closer to her heart.

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