Page 156 of Unholy Bonds

“Well, he’s too late, Red. No one can protect me from you,” he said as he stood up. He stalked toward me and pressed me against the wall. “Rishi isn’t going to find your secrets.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll think of something. Now we have to leave.”

“I can’t get caught. Not when the bastard is still out there.”

The uniforms at the scene weren’t looking at me like I was a suspect. I let out a long sigh of relief when I didn’t see Detective Rishi with handcuffs to arrest me. I was… in the clear for now. He’d soon find some things and connect the dots. I had no idea how I was going to stop him.

I walked toward the bench where Detective Myers was standing with a tall woman. She looked new here. Detective Myers stopped me when he saw me.

“Doctor West, I want to warn you that it’s…” He wiped his face with a sigh.

“Who is it?” I already knew it must be someone I knew. But…

My mind immediately went to Irene. Could it be? No, no, she was safe with Enzo, and no one knew.

“It’s… it’s Amy,” Detective Myers said with a shaky breath.

“Amy? Our Amy?” I blinked. “Amy Walden?” I ran toward the bench, and sure enough, there she was, wearing… the lipstick, the wig, the dress, and the heels. The shade of her lipstick was Crimson Noir.

The sweet, sunny Amy Walden looked pale. She was fucking dead, and I was the only one to blame.

“No. How could she be…” My fingers trembled. All these women were dead, and it was all because of me. I thought I had finally stopped him. How wrong I was!

I wanted to scream. I wanted to rip myself into pieces until this feeling of helplessness would leave me the fuck alone.

I whirled toward Detective Myers. “Where’s Detective Rosario and the other woman The Strangler killed?”

Detective Myers flinched back as if I had kicked him.

“Detective Rosario is at the second crime scene. Doctor West… it wasn’t a woman. It was…”

“Who the fuck is it?”

“It was Detective Rishi Patel. The fucking bastard killed one of us, and he’s going to burn in hell for that.”

The world went black.

57

MODUS OPERANDI

RYDEN

Iran toward Yara, pushing away the uniforms trying to stop me. I couldn’t let her fall apart—not here, not now. When I reached her, she was sitting on the ground, shaking her head, looking pale, confused, and broken.

“What happened?”

“The second death…” Detective Myers looked at me with a sad smile. “Sinclair, it’s Patel.”

My eyes widened as shock, anger, and denial pulsed inside me.

“Patel? Rishi? Wh-what? What are you… Detective Myers? It can’t be. I just saw him yesterday and…”

I wasn’t lying when I told Yara he was a friend. Of course, he didn’t know all my fucked-up secrets, but he was someone I considered a friend.

“Why are we not there?” I asked with a frown.

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