Lucian glanced at the screen, frowned, and rejected the call.

It rang again immediately.

“Sir.”

Miles had received a message, too.

“Hayes is outside with his people. Our men are holding them at the entrance. Reporters are there as well. Someone told them Pearl came here tonight for a private rendezvous with you.”

Pearl came back to life.

Color returned to her face.

She hid her relief, shifted her eyes, and changed her story.

“I admit I had surgery,” she sobbed. “But it wasn’t Stella. She’s family. My sister-in-law. How could I use her face and eyes? A kind woman with a terminal illness donated them before she died.”

“You’re lying!”

I threw myself at her throat.

“They’re mine! Mine!”

My hands passed through her again and again.

Hope vanished.

I sank to the floor, furious and helpless.

One more word.

If she had said my name, the Whitmores couldn’t have escaped the connection to my death.

But she would never admit it now.

Public attention could make an ordinary person impossible to ignore.

Pearl already had the reputation of a brilliant artist and beautiful heiress.

With reporters and police outside, if she failed to leave Rosehaven safely, even Lucian would struggle to walk away untouched.

She wasn’t clever enough to arrange this.

Someone was helping her.

Vivian couldn’t have created this much pressure so quickly.

Someone else was pulling the strings.

Perhaps the same person who had sent Pearl to seduce him.

Someone who knew Lucian was dangerous and wanted him on their side.

I thought of K’s wall of photographs.

Tessa and I were only two of them.

Perhaps even that wall showed only a fraction of the victims.

Hayes was the one calling.

At Miles’s urging, Lucian finally answered.

“Mr. Blackwood. Please. Can you go two days without causing trouble?”

Hayes sounded exhausted.

“I know Pearl’s there. Let her go. Too many people are watching. If something happens to her, this gets out of control.”

“You think that frightens me?”

Having dealt with him before, Hayes knew exactly how difficult he could be.

He tried reason.

“I know you hate Stella. And apparently everyone related to her. But Pearl is a different person. Taking your revenge out on her is unreasonable.”

Cold filled Lucian’s eyes.

“You and your people are useless. You couldn’t even discover she took Stella’s skin and eyes. She just admitted it.”

I drew a breath of relief.

At least he hadn’t lost sight of it.

“No.” Hayes was certain. “That’s impossible. Stella is probably in Veyra. There’s a strong chance she’s alive.”

“Don’t believe him!” I shouted. “I’m dead!”

Lucian’s expression changed.

The gun lowered a little.

His lips moved.

Two seconds passed before the words came.

“What did you say?”

“She may still be alive. K belongs to a major international human-trafficking organization. Slade was connected to it, too.”

Hayes continued solemnly.

“Several of his victims were missing organs. Because they had been dismembered, we couldn’t establish exactly what had happened. And K had more than one base in Fairhaven.”

My spirit went cold.

“We just found another location. He didn’t manage to destroy everything on the computers. There are records of people who disappeared around the country over the last three months. Stella’s among them. They were smuggled into Veyra.”

I closed my eyes.

They had prepared everything.

Perhaps the moment Lucian began closing in on K, they had begun building another lie.

Miles had unlocked Pearl’s phone.

He opened the video she had received. His face paled.

“Look at this, sir.”

I struggled up and went over.

The footage was dark.

A raised platform stood beneath theatrical lighting. People spoke in several languages off-camera.

Clearly, it hadn’t been filmed here.

A host in a clown mask spoke in Veyran.

“Lot Twelve. Tonight’s main attraction. Bidding is open.”

He stepped into the shadows.

A red curtain drew back.

A spotlight revealed a naked woman with chains around her wrists and ankles.

I saw her face.

Cold swallowed me.

She looked almost exactly like me.

In that dim light, the resemblance was enough.

Even I could barely distinguish us.

What chance did Lucian have?

“I wasn’t lying.”

Pearl approached, red-eyed and aggrieved.

She clutched the hem of her dress, trying to look gentle and understanding.

“I know you were worried about Stella. You lost control. You didn’t mean to hurt me. Don’t worry. I won’t say anything to the reporters.”

Lucian looked at her coldly.

“Only dead people never talk.”

Her face drained.

Before she could answer, a guard struck her at the side of the neck.

She collapsed.

I stared.

Lucian sent himself a copy of the video, deleted the original from her phone, and tossed the device onto her.

“Take her out the back. Dump her at the Whitmores’.”