Page 27 of Twisted Empire

I shrugged. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, we’ll have to figure it out then. I don’t like how this is interfering with my studies… but I’m definitely never becoming a doctor if I’mdead.”

“Very true. Keep remembering that.” Summer shook a clothes hanger at the screen and then set it aside to pick up a tube of lipstick.

As she applied it, I raised my eyebrows. “What are you getting all dolled up for? Do you have a hot date you didn’t tell me about?” The thought sent a twinge of panic through me—how well did she know the guy? Where would he take her?

Could she really trust him?

But Summer just laughed. “Oh, this is for a shift at the restaurant I said I’d cover tonight. The more makeup I wear, the better the tips. Some of us haven’t found our rich sugar daddies yet, you know.”

She grinned wide to show she was only joking, and I did let myself roll my eyes then.

At the same moment, Beckett pushed past the door to his rooms with an urgency that immediately set my nerves on edge. After one glance at his tensed posture and dark expression, I turned back to the phone. “It looks like I’ve got to get going. I’ll update you when anything else comes up, like I promised. Be careful out there, all right.”

“As you’ve only reminded me a gazillion times.” She made an air kiss in my direction. “Don’t worry about me, bestie.”

As she ended the chat, I swiveled around to face Beckett. “What’s wrong?”

The sound of my question was enough to draw the Vigil guys in from the small terrace off the sitting room, where they’d been taking a moment to relax while I talked with Summer.

Beckett’s gaze swept over all of us. “Doom’s Seed is at it again. Apparently he’s taken the attitude that if he can’t have something, no one can.”

Logan had already been frowning, and the lines around his mouth deepened. “What do you mean?”

Beckett let out a ragged breath and started to pace across that end of the room. “Instead of attacking our properties, now he’s outright destroying them. All across the city—so much of what we’ve worked for… WhatI’veworked for…”

With a sound of frustration, he pulled out his phone and flipped to the photos. Walking over to us, he held it up.

A gasp broke from my lips as I recognized the dance club that he owned, the one where I’d gotten awfully up close and personal with the other guys more than once, now a blackened burned-out skeleton. The only reason Icouldrecognize that charred frame as the club was because of the chunk of its sign that’d fallen to the ground with a few of the letters still visible.

“No,” Slade muttered, his eyes flashing with anger.

Beckett swiped through to another picture and another. “The trucking company—with a bunch of the trucks still inside. An apartment building we own in the city. A department store we took on a few years ago.”

Each of them was equally destroyed, wracked by fire and maybe even explosions to cause that level of damage. Nothing remained but broken walls and heaps of ash-covered rubble.

I winced even harder when he reached the last picture, full of shattered glass and scorched steel beams.

“The new office complex,” Beckett said, his voice getting even rougher.

I knew what that place had meant to him, how much he’d been enjoying seeing his new venture come together—and all the good he’d meant to do with it too. Doom’s Seed hadn’t just destroyed the income Beckett’s family would have made from it but also the pro bono medical clinic that’d been going to serve so many of the city’s people in need.

“Fuck,” Logan said hoarsely.

But then, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was what Doom’s Seed did, wasn’t it? He took good things and ruined them.

“How did he manage to destroy so many locations so thoroughly?” Dexter asked, ever searching for details.

Beckett tucked his phone into his pocket. “All the fires were set overnight with copious amounts of gasoline to ensure they’d spread fast and be difficult to put out. And having so many large buildings go up in flames at the same time stretched the fire department thin, which made it even harder for them to deal with them all.” His head drooped. “Most of the buildings were empty for the night, but the apartment building—not everyone made it out in time.”

I swallowed thickly and stepped forward to grasp his arm. He leaned a little into my touch, so clearly anguished that I wished I knew how to erase all the horror that psychopath had dealt out.

How could Logan’s mom believe sheloveda man who’d do something like this?

Logan squared his shoulders, his tone hardening. “Should we go investigate the scenes? Try to turn up some evidence that could prove Doom’s Seed was involved?”

Beckett shook his head. “My people are already checking for evidence of the perpetrators, but I doubt we’ll find anything we could use. We’ve already seen how good Doom’s Seed is at covering his tracks.”

Dexter had perked up a bit at the prospect of taking action. “We might spot something they’ve missed. With a different perspective—”

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