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Thisisn’therfucking game.

It’smine.

And this rage, thisneedto cut into him further for hurting her more than any of the others in that damn ledger could...

That fucking rage has no place here.

All this is is a calculated move in a game that will take decades to complete.

Pursing my lips, I begin to whistle. I pull off my shirt. Use it to wipe the blood off myhands. Then I stride across my bedroom to my bedside table, open the drawer, and pull out David’s ledger and a pen.

Opening it up, I crossthe lastname off the list.

And now the real game can begin.

Thirty-Seven

HER

29OCTOBER1947

My throat is closing. My heart is stopping. I cannotbreathe.Something is wrong.

I thrash in my covers, needing to get free. Caden is awake in a moment, out of bed and on his feet, between me and the door, protecting me from a threat he can’t see. Can’t feel.

ButIcan feel it. I can feel my baby boy dying right now. “Leon!” I stumble out of bed, my breaths heaving.

Caden doesn’t turn to comfort me over my panic for our son. His arms raise instead. His fingers twist, magic buzzing between them. He’s reaching out with his power, searching...like a predator trying to find his prey in the high grass of the savannah.

My eyes widen.

My heart trips into my stomach.

Tumbles further down into my feet.

No.

No!

But everything is snapping into place now.

Caden’s cold shoulder to our firstborn. Leon’s heavy guilt. His refusal to be anywhere around me, unable to meet my eye, to bear my touch. A hand reaches to my throat as I take in the lethal stance of my husband. If Leon burst through that door right now, he’d kill him.

Maybe he already has.

Myers left not long after Leon.

“What did you do?” I ask, my love for him climbing up an edge crumbling into the sea.

He turns, his hands lowering as he realizes my scream wasn’t in terror of our son attacking us in the middle of the night. But still his body is guarded, his defenses up. “Sau…”

“What did youdo?”

“I don’t know what –”

“Don’t lie to me!” I charge forward before I even know I’ve moved. My hands are suddenly on his chest, pushing him back. “I canfeelhim dying!”

His eyes widen. “How do –” Then they bunch. “Sau, I am sorry. I didn’t know… If I did…”