Page 174 of Taming Seraphine

When bullets pierce through the door, I dive to the ground.

Thank fuck I didn’t drop my guard and answer the ring. It was only a matter of time before this place was found by Samson’s second team of assassins.

SIXTY-EIGHT

SERAPHINE

The woman rattles off an address that I don’t catch, but Miko enters it into his phone and tells me it’s a short way across town. I walk on numb legs, my pulse pounding in my ears. All this time, I imagined Gabriel being held in a darkened room just like me, but that couldn’t have happened if this woman knew where he moved.

I slide into the front seat of the car and stare at the gun.

What if he escaped, found somewhere to live, and started a new life? My throat tightens at the suggestion that he didn’t think that I also needed saving.

“Sera?” Miko asks, breaking through my foggy thoughts. By the exasperation in his voice, it sounds like this isn’t the first time he’s tried to catch my attention.

“What?”

“Put the gun back in the glove box.”

He fires up the engine, and the voice on his phone gives his first direction.

While Miko pulls out, I place the pistol on top of the other one and slide the knife beneath the computer tablet.

“Can I play the zombie game?” I ask.

“Sure,” he replies, his eyes on the road. “Passcode is 1677.”

With the knife nestled between my thighs and the computer tablet, I enter the numbers and open the photo app. Most of the thumbnails look like porn. I scroll further down to the ones with fully clothed people in them and find one of Leroi sitting on a deck chair with a cooler full of beer.

My lips quirk at the memory of him sitting like that in the dark while I dug a grave, but I don’t linger on that memory. Too many weird things are happening at once. Leroi’s father figure, who just happens to be named Anton, coming to the apartment, and finding out Gabriel has a forwarding address, has left me reeling.

The next few images are of a fishing trip with Miko and Leroi at various stages throughout the day.

“What are you doing?” Miko asks at a stoplight.

“I forgot which one was the zombie app, so I’m browsing your fishing photos,” I say.

“Sure you’re looking at the fishing?” he says, his voice hopeful.

He’s probably accusing me of salivating over his dick pics. I’m too preoccupied with recent revelations to comment on something so trivial, so I hold up the tablet with a picture of Miko grinning with a fishing rod.

He smiles. “Leroi always takes us out of town to unwind after a big job.”

“Where do you go?”

“Anton has a house a few miles out of town by the lake. It’s surrounded by woodland, so it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere. He says it’s perfect for clearing your mind.”

“Is Leroi planning another trip there?” I ask, already trying to calculate a way to hunt down Anton. “I can’t imagine killing the entire Capello family and demolishing one half of their mansion being a small job.”

“But it’s not finished,” he replies with a shrug.

I wait for Miko to say more, but the light changes to green, and he steps on the gas. He wouldn’t tell me if there was another reason Leroi wasn’t taking his vacation. He wouldn’t reveal that Leroi doesn’t want me to meet Anton. Miko’s too clever. Besides, if I pressed, he would say Leroi still needs to kill Samson.

My gaze drops down to the fishing photos. Some of them are videos and look like they’re being shot by a third person and not with the camera held on a tripod. I continue scrolling, desperate to see the face of their companion.

I stop at one photo of a large man with long gray hair streaked with black, but it’s shot from behind. It could be Anton the handler, but I can’t be sure. He stopped visiting the basement after I completed the Montesano mission.

Shallow breaths escape my lungs as I click on the next video. The man holding the camera points it at Leroi and asks him what he’s caught so far. I don’t hear Leroi’s response because I recognize that gravelly voice. It’s him. The handler who put the collar around my neck and forced me into a life of degradation and death.

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