Chapter 3

Sera's POV

Just as that massive, freezing body was about to tear me apart, a choking stench of burning motor oil flooded my nose.

At that exact second, an ear-piercing heavy metal ringtone detonated in the dead silence of the room.

It was the phone in Kael's pocket!

The deafening noise acted like a sledgehammer, fracturing Kael's attack. He froze mid-lunge. The terrifying, vacant hostility in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by absolute panic.

He scrambled to pull out his phone. The pale glow of the screen lit up his face. I watched as his expression plummeted into ashen dread the moment he read the Caller ID.

His adam's apple bobbed. He stared at the screen for three agonizing seconds before answering.

"Mave?" he croaked, his voice unnaturally tight.

Taking advantage of his distraction, I clutched the medical scissors and slid against the wall, inching toward the front door.

But the second my hand brushed the cold doorknob, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from the phone, pinning me to the spot.

"Kael! Oh my God! Help me—" Mave was sobbing, gasping for air so violently the sound almost shattered the phone speaker. "Lunn is dead! He's dead!"

I whipped my head around, staring at the phone in pure disbelief.

What? Lunn is dead?!

"Calm down, Mave. Breathe!" Kael’s words fired off like a machine gun, his pale face turning completely bloodless. "Tell me exactly what 'dead' means! What happened to that idiot?!"

"An hour ago... just an hour ago!" Mave screamed hysterically into the receiver. I could hear the muffled sounds of things being smashed in the background. "He went to race on the Outer Ring. His car smashed into the barrier and was totaled! The precinct just called. They said he was killed on impact—they didn't even leave me a whole body to identify!"

"Oh my God, Mave..." Kael inhaled sharply.

My brain completely short-circuited. The room spun around me.

If Lunn died in a car crash an hour ago... then who the hell was frantically calling me five minutes ago, sending me pictures of Kael's blown-up motorcycle?!

"Kael, I'm dying..." Mave wailed, her breathing growing sharp and erratic. "Please come get me. I can't breathe... The baby was kicking just a minute ago, and now it's not moving at all! It hurts so much... Please, I can't lose Lunn's baby!"

"Hang on, Mave!" Kael’s voice shook. "Sera and I are driving over right now!"

He hung up. The living room plunged back into a suffocating silence.

Kael spun around, violently sweeping the clutter off the coffee table.

"Dammit! Where are they?!" He tore through the room like a caged animal, then snapped his head toward me, a terrifying urgency in his eyes. "Sera! Where are your car keys?! My bike is trashed. We have to take your car to get Mave right now!"

My back was pressed flat against the wall, shrinking into the shadows of the hallway. Both my hands were clamped over my right pocket—where my metal keys were resting cold against my leg.

"Where are the keys?!" Kael lost the last shred of his patience. He marched toward me, his towering frame casting a suffocating shadow over me.

"Stay back!" I aimed the scissors at his chest, my voice hoarse from absolute terror.

"Sera, are you out of your mind?! Mave is going to die!" His roar echoed through the old house. "Lunn got himself killed because he's a reckless idiot. Are you seriously going to stand there and let his wife and kid die too?! Give me the damn keys and let's go!"

A monstrous sense of absurdity gripped my heart like a vice.

Lunn called me, claiming Kael went over a cliff and blew up, sending photos as proof and warning me not to trust the man standing in front of me.

But Mave was on the phone, weeping that Lunn had been reduced to roadkill an hour ago.

Someone was lying.

The living room was dead silent. Eleanor’s coffin looked exceptionally sinister bathed in the broken moonlight pouring through the window.

Instead of retreating, I stepped forward. Gripping the surgical scissors, I lifted my chin and stared straight into Kael's violently constricted pupils.

"Stop acting! Look me in the eyes, Kael. Tell me—are you the dead man, or is it Lunn?" I demanded, grinding out every word.

Kael froze, the muscles in his jaw twitching. "Sera, what the hell are you talking about?"

I unleashed a desperate scream: "Lunn texted me five minutes ago! He said you crashed and burned at the bottom of the ravine tonight! But Mave says Lunn became a pile of ground meat an hour ago!"

Watching his body visibly stiffen, I screamed the fatal question:

"Between you two so-called brothers—who the hell is actually dead?!"