Page 158 of Hidden Echoes

My blood runs cold.

"Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"You go home before he finds out."

I glare. "You’re just trying to manipulate me into going back."

"No." She shrugs. "Like I said, it’s much more convenient for you to stay out of my life. I have better things to do than babysit. But you and I both know how this story ends. You’re not that stupid, Mia."

This is what Paulina loves to do—torture Nico’s illegitimate children. Laura. One. Me.

She hates our existence with every fiber of her being.

But she has a point.

My father will kill Zane. And I just painted a target on his back.

The Society of Crow can protect him—for now. But that protection won’t hold if Zane keeps putting himself in danger by being with me.

"I see you’re finally realizing that I’m right," Paulina hums, satisfaction dripping from her voice. "See? I don’t even need revenge. You do stupid things all on your own. Luckily, I know you’ll make a mess, and I can suggest handling your divorce discreetly. I have contacts."

My jaw tightens. "Why are you helping me?“

"I’m not helping you, I’m helping myself. What part of ‘I’m living perfectly fine without being your nanny’ do you not understand, brat?"

I snort.

I won’t make a deal with the devil, and I know she’s trying to manipulate me into submission, but before I can even respond, Carter’s voice cuts through the tension, rasping in disbelief.

“Are you… Nico Riviera’s daughter?” His eyes widen, the realization sinking in. He finally grasps the weight of the situation, but I know—I'm the last person he should be dealing with when it comes to his drug problems.

“I almost forgot about you,” Paulina sneers, her voice dripping with disdain.

But before Carter can open his mouth again, a gunshot rings out, the sharp crack of the bullet slicing through the air. The sound is deafening as it shatters through his skull, the impact spraying blood and bone in all directions. His head snaps back violently, blood pooling beneath him in a grotesque puddle.

A scream tears itself from my throat, raw and shattered, as I watch the life drain from his eyes, his cold, dead gaze locking with mine.

“Did you like him?” Paulina scoffs, looking down at his lifeless body. “If I had known, I would’ve tortured him more.” The words drip with venom as she steps closer, the madness in her eyes fueling the twisted satisfaction of what she's just done.

No. That bitch. I feel bile rise in my throat, the taste of it burning, but the agony in my chest is so much worse.

Carter’s dead—his skull split open, blood spilling from the ruin of his head in grotesque arcs.

His vacant eyes stare at me, unblinking, like they’re accusing me, like it’s my fault, and I can’t escape the weight of that.

And then, like a whisper in the back of my mind, Lara’s voice. Soft. Pleading. She told me she wanted to make things right with him, withCarter, that she could fix things.

I remember her words like they’re a lifeline, but they slip through my fingers now, like smoke, vanishing in the face of his blood-soaked corpse.

My heart is pounding, but my mind is spinning—no, it’s cracking. The world blurs, twists, everything warping like a nightmare, and I don’t know where I am anymore.

My thoughts start to race, like I'm trapped in a whirlwind of guilt and panic. I should have done something, I should have stopped it, but I couldn’t.

The walls close in around me, the voices—Lara’s voice, Carter’s, Paulina's mocking laughter—are all jumbled, overlapping, screaming in my head.

My chest tightens, my breathing coming in quick, shallow gasps as I struggle to hold onto what’s real, but the line between reality and madness is getting thinner, fading away.

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