Page 175 of Taming Seraphine

The next photo is of Anton standing in the middle of the lake, wearing waders and holding up a large fish. I zoom in on the picture with my fingers and examine his face. He’s grayer, a little rounder, and smiling, but I could never forget those eyes.

There’s no mistaking it.

Leroi is working with Anton.

Anton is the man who completed Leroi’s first disastrous kill, cleaned up the crime scene, and saved him from death row. He’s the man who trained Leroi to become a professional assassin, the man Leroi considers a father.

I’ve been such a fool.

All this time, I thought Leroi finding me was a lucky coincidence. All this time, I thought he was the enemy of my enemy. I thought he had taken me in out of the need to pay forward a favor he’d received as a teenager.

But I was wrong.

It all makes sense. Only three people could access that basement: Dad, Gregor, and Samson. If Anton never entered alone and always had to be accompanied by one of the twins, how did Leroi get in? Maybe it took Anton all this time to work out how to break through Dad’s security.

My gaze darts to Miko.

He’s one of them, too.

Bile rises to the back of my throat, and I swallow back the bitter tang of betrayal. Betrayal would mean Leroi was an ally who stabbed me in the back.

It can’t be betrayal when he had a plan from the start. Either he and Anton were working together to acquire me for their firm, or Leroi was training me for Anton as some kind of twisted Father’s Day gift.

That’s right. I remember how Anton used to leer at me and make me change into those horrible little outfits as part of my training. If he had been alone, he would have done more than just look.

What if sex with Leroi was part of my training?

A shudder runs down my spine.

Step one would be to train me to have sex with men without wanting to kill them. Step two would be to get me addicted to sex. Step three would be sex with Anton.

I reach beneath the computer tablet, my fingers tightening around the hilt of the knife. Every fiber of my being screams at me to plunge it into Miko’s neck and then hunt Leroi down to make him pay for his lies. I squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, and force myself to stay calm.

Lashing out won’t solve anything. If I stab Miko, they’ll know I’m on to them and their plan. They’ll be prepared for me, and I’ll lose the element of surprise.

I need to be like Leroi and play this smart.

I’ll use everything the bastard taught me to survive this trio, use them to eliminate Samson, and escape them with Gabriel.

“Here we are,” Miko says.

My head snaps up as he turns into a street of two-story pastel-colored houses set within well-manicured lawns. In the distance, a dark-haired man hugs a blonde woman from behind.

As we drive closer, the man’s face comes into focus. It’s Leroi.

My heart rate spikes, but then it crashes when I look at the woman he’s holding.

Her blonde hair is the exact shade that mine used to be before the coffee dye, and it’s styled in a familiar layered bob. I can’t make out her features, since she’s bowing her head, but something about her looks achingly familiar.

My breath hitches. No. It can’t be. When she raises her head, and I catch sight of the blue eyes that have haunted my dreams, only they’re streaming with tears and the rest of her face is twisted with anguish.

All the blood drains from my face and into my thrashing heart.

This can’t be possible, but it’s there before my eyes.

It’s Mom.

Mom is alive.

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