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Chapter Thirty-One

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

Present

My blood was on fire, and I wanted to kill Severin Volkov.

I had started to think he knew nothing about the Order or the missing girls. I was beginning to trust him.

But Severin Volkov was a master manipulator and a cruel liar.

They’d taken the girl, moved her, and now my likelihood of finding her before she was murdered was dismally low.

Now that I was truly awake and able to think, it was clear to me that Severin had planned everything. He’d seen the video of me rescuing Neeve.

Seen my weaknesses and found a way to exploit them.

He knew changing forms too many times would wear me down. So he came up with a plan that would force me to switch between them.

Then something even stranger happened: my abilities started to malfunction. A strand of my hair changed color, and it still hadn’t turned back.

I wasn’t ready for that level of attack, and so I lost the girl and the likelihood of finding her again was almost nonexistent.

I’d been one of the longest-held Forgotten in history. Three years was unheard of. Most girls lasted a year, tops. They either found a way to kill themselves, died accidentally at the hands of a Lethe, or were murdered deliberately.

Some of the biggest donors just wanted to kill the girls.

Others procured girls specifically to become victims of serial killers.

Lazy serial killers, if you ask me. At least do the work of hunting them yourselves.

The Man in Black was a lazy killer.

Well, he did far worse than that, too.

I mean, he’d partially blinded me and then killed me a year later after Blackwood returned me to my prison cell.

But I was getting close to discovering the Man in Black’s identity, but I still hadn’t quite figured it out.

But soon.

Oh, was I going to enjoy killing him!

Because I was not a lazy serial killer. I was a serial killer’s nightmare.

And unfortunately, I was very much in my serial killer personality right now. Fury pulsed through my bones, and the smallest thing could set me off.

And because the universe liked to play sick little jokes on me, I was forced to attend a charity gala on Severin’s arm at his club.

In fairness, it had been two weeks since the failed rescue.

I’d been unconscious for four days—not counting my conversation with Severin.

The only good part about tonight, though, was that Vesper, the incredible singer, was gracing the stage again. And once again, Callum was essentially drooling over her.

Or at least the mafia equivalent, which meant glaring at the stage like he wanted to devour her or kill her. Which option appealed to him more wasn’t entirely clear.