Page 123 of The Wrong Man

For a moment, I’m disoriented. The room is dark, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside, and I can’t remember where I am. Then it all comes rushing back. Declan. The house. The note hidden in the floorboards.

He’s coming. Hold on.

I’ve been holding on. For days now, I’ve been holding on to those words like a lifeline. And now, in the middle of the night, something is finally happening.

The shouting gets louder. I scramble out of bed and press my ear to the door, trying to make sense of what’s happening.

“Fire! There’s a fire!” A man’s voice, panicked and loud. “The car’s on fire! Someone help!”

That voice. I know that voice.

Sean.

It makes no sense. It’s impossible. Ridiculous and absurd. But I know exactly what this is.

My heart slams against my ribs. It’s happening. It’s actually happening. Dante is here, and somehow Sean is here, and somehow they’ve found me. Somehow they’ve come for me.

Three different parts of my life, my evil twin, my wonderful friends, and my Dante, have all collided.

I hear footsteps pounding down the stairs. Guards shouting to each other, their voices fading as they rush toward the front of the house. The distraction is working.

I try the door handle, even though I know it’s locked. It doesn’t budge. I’m trapped in here, useless, while everything happens without me.

Then I hear something else. Closer. A thud, a grunt of pain, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor. Fighting, somewhere in the house. Getting nearer.

Please. Please let it be him.

The lock on my door rattles. Is this Dante? Has he found me? Is he about to burst through and sweep me into his arms like something out of a film?

The door flies open, and all my wild hopes die. It’s Declan.

He looks terrible. Wild-eyed, hair disheveled. He’s holding a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a strip of cloth in the other.

“Not a fucking sound,” he hisses, grabbing my arm and shoving the cloth into my mouth before I can react. I gag on it, the fabric rough against my tongue, but he’s already dragging me out of the room.

The hallway sounds like chaos. I can hear more fighting downstairs, shouts and crashes and what might be gunshots. Declan pulls me in the opposite direction, toward his study at the end of the hall.

“If you make any noise, I’ll kill you myself and tell everyone you died in the crossfire,” he snarls. “Understand?”

I nod, because what choice do I have? The gag makes it impossible to speak anyway.

He shoves open the study door and drags me inside. The room is dark, lit only by the glow from the dim lights in the garden below. But I can see the mantlepiece with its gun. The window overlooking the back wall. The closet with the slatted doors.

Declan opens the closet and shoves me inside.

I stumble, catching myself against the back wall. Declan yanks me around and quickly handcuffs my wrists to the clothes rail above my head. Then he slams the door shut.

The closet is small, cramped, full of coats that smell like dust and expensive cologne. But through the slats, I can see the whole room. The mantlepiece. The gun. The door.

“Stay quiet,” Declan hisses.

The study door bursts open.

And Dante is suddenly here.

He’s magnificent. Terrifying. Dressed in black, gun in hand, radiating violence like heat from a flame. His dark eyes scan the room, and land on Declan.

I hear Declan inhale sharply, and then something strange happens.