“What?”

The duchess hadn’t heard him.

Lucian didn’t repeat himself. He gave her a small wave and watched her board the jet.

Only after the plane had gone did he get back into the car.

He loosened his collar, leaned against the seat, and closed his eyes. Dark shadows lay beneath them.

There’s no chance left.

The words stayed with me.

Perhaps being a ghost made me more sensitive to the feelings of the living. The loneliness coming from him was almost unbearable. Defeat. Helplessness. A grief with nowhere to go.

How deeply did he love that woman?

I reached toward his profile.

“Who is she, Lucian?”

He couldn’t answer me.

He drifted off during the drive, only to jerk awake from a nightmare. His eyes were bloodshot.

When the car stopped, Miles opened the door.

“We have Slade. He isn’t going anywhere. You’ve barely slept for two days. Why don’t you rest before you question him?”

They had caught Victor Slade?

Before the police had?

The last red light of sunset fell across Lucian’s face.

Was he really trying to find me?

He valued efficiency and hated pointless trouble. If all he wanted was confirmation that I was dead, he didn’t need to go this far.

He ignored Miles and strode into Rosehaven Estate.

Slade was being held in a warehouse behind the main house. His hands and feet were bound. An iron collar circled his neck, attached to a heavy chain hanging from the ceiling.

Lucian’s footsteps sounded unusually clear in the enormous room.

Slade looked up.

For a second, I saw something cold and bloody pass behind his eyes, as though he had pictured what this man might do to him. He shuddered despite himself.

He was a man who feared very little. Yet even he could feel the absence of warmth in Lucian.

“Mr. Blackwood. We meet again.”

They knew each other?

Lucian looked down at him as though he were already a corpse.

“Where’s Stella?”

Slade laughed. The chain rattled.

“You saved her two years ago. You couldn’t protect her forever.”

My blood would have turned to ice if I’d still had any.

He was the man who had kidnapped me two years ago.

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

“Where is she?”

Slade ran his tongue over his lip.

“Fairhaven’s most beautiful woman. She tasted pretty—”

Lucian hauled him up and drove a fist into his face.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Bone cracked. Blood splattered.

Then I remembered what Julian had implied: that Lucian had hired my killer.

If Slade died here, Julian could claim Lucian had silenced his accomplice.

“Stop! Lucian, stop! You’re going to kill him! That’s what they want!”

Miles lunged forward.

“Get out of my way!” Lucian snarled.

Miles caught his raised fist.

“If you kill him, no one will know where Stella is!”

His fist stopped an inch from Slade’s face.

For a moment, he didn’t move.

Then some of the madness receded from his eyes. He shoved Miles away and kicked Slade between the legs.

The man who had endured the beating in silence finally screamed.

He collapsed, writhing on the floor.

Good.

There was one problem solved at the root.

Miles’s phone rang. He listened, then looked at Lucian.

“Detective Hayes is at the gate. He has a search warrant.”

Lucian took a cloth and slowly wiped the blood from his fingers, one at a time.

“Bring him here.”

Miles left.

Lucian ordered the guards to unbind Slade.

Then he picked up a knife and drew it across the back of his own hand.

I stared.

He put the bloodied knife into Slade’s hand.

For the first time, Slade looked genuinely frightened.

“A wanted fugitive breaks into my home and tries to kill me. I have no choice but to defend myself.” Lucian’s voice was almost conversational. “Will your master be pleased with that outcome?”

So Slade had been trying to make Lucian kill him.

And Lucian had seen through it.

This man was terrifying.

“No!” Slade rasped. “Kill me!”

He tried to drive the knife into his own heart.

Lucian caught his wrist and snapped it.

“One last time. Where is Stella?”

Slade’s eyes fell on the bracelet.

Then he laughed, wild and breathless.

“Which piece of her do you mean?”