Page 18 of Swan River

And now there were only five.

She shook her head. It was a ridiculous thought. He wouldn’t have had to kill one of them to do it. He’d just fire them. Tear them apart that way.

But when Asher took a call and spoke quietly into the phone, saying, “It’s done,” all the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

When he looked up, he caught her gaze, and she sent daggers into him, burning him with an intensity that had him frowning.

If he was behind this, she’d make it her mission to destroy him bit by tiny bit.

? ? ?

LEYA

Her hand shook so hard the phone fell from her grasp, and her knees gave out.

Special Agent Kent caught her, picking up the phone and listening to the voice on the other end repeating what they’d told her.

Pain lodged somewhere in her stomach, dragging through her as he set her down on a couch in the living room of the hotel suite.

Had this been what it felt like? The knife slicing through Landry’s throat?

“What is it?” her mother asked, rushing over to them.

“She’s dead…she’s dead…someone killed her,” Leya tried to say, but it came out as a garbled collection of words that made no sense.

It was the broody agent who explained it to her mother.

Her mother was not a woman who was afraid. She cut brains open with a steady hand regularly, and yet Leya saw the fear that crossed over her features.

They stepped away as her mother’s voice dropped so she wouldn’t hear. Except, she did because her brain was hypersensitive, trying to process everything, trying to not feel the agony.

“You don’t think…the white supremacists that have been coming after…” her mother’s voice faded away. “They all look so alike…”

Holden Kent sent a look in Leya’s direction. He hesitated, but then he shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“Think?! Think isn’t good enough, Special Agent Kent. Find out. Find out for sure.”

He nodded and left the room.

Her mother returned to her, wrapping her tight against her chest with the scent of Chanel drifting over them. It didn’t provide Leya the comfort it normally did. Instead, the pain in her grew until it felt like it would become the only thing she knew.

Was Landry dead because they’d thought it was Leya on the shore? A warning to her father to give up his nomination as vice president?

? ? ?

ADRIA

Lana was the female bodyguard who’d taken Adria from Grand Orchard to the cabin in the middle of nowhere. The bodyguard’s phone rang not long after they’d settled in. Hope and fear cut through Adria. She needed them to find her sister whole and well. Lana’s eyes cut directly to her. The bodyguard’s cheek ticked, her jaw tightened, and Adria could read the truth.

It wasn’t good news.

Tears welled in Adria’s eyes before Lana even opened her mouth.

“It’s not your sister. We’re still waiting to hear from your father. This. This is about your band. About Landry.”

Adria stared at her, not quite comprehending even as she spoke, the words blending into nonsense. Something about Landry and her throat and the fact that she was no longer with them.

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