Kallum drags his thumb down the inside of my wrist, and I clench the ring tighter.

“Because I have to be,” I say, the words torn through a racked sob. “Because even after everything you’ve done…god, I’m still in love with you.”

For the briefest second, his expression shifts. The subtle groove between his brows deepens. A hard swallow tenses his jaw. Then his heavy exhale traces a path down the contours of my throat in the wake of his heated gaze.

He links my wrists together in one hand and drops his other to my collarbone, his touch branding. “Trust me.”

That’s the only warning I’m given before his hand collars my throat. The sudden pressure ramps my heart rate. My eyes flare wide. “Kallum⁠—”

“Think back.” His tone is a gruff command. “Go back to that moment right before he attacked you. Wellington said something to you. What was it that set you off, Halen?”

He squeezes, his grip on my throat constricting my airway, and adrenaline pours into my bloodstream.

“What did he say that made you swing that weapon?”

Crushing pressure builds in my chest until my vision darkens. Like a reel flicking between past and present, the features of the man before me harden into the face of another—his dark, furious eyes seething with rage, his teeth gnashed and his breath as vile as his twisted features.

During Emmons’ attack on the dam, something was triggered. There was a fragment right on the periphery, a tease of a memory that felt within my grasp—and as Kallum seals off the air from my lungs, that moment in time crashes to the surface

Then suddenly, it’s Percy Wellington strangling my neck.

“I’ll show you, bitch.”

Blackness rims my sight as I gasp for air. I’m tunneling under too fast. As desperation claws my insides, I kick out, trying to break free, but the vise around my neck only cinches tighter. Then I feel the anguish take hold.

I was ready to stop fighting, to give in and let go. Until…

“Are you an investigator?” The man’s breath reeks of alcohol. “Did that slut send you?” His callous laugh elicits a spark of anger. “Are you here for that couple? That fucking wreck?” he seethes through clenched teeth, his hands closing tighter around my throat. “It was an accident. You’ll never prove anything. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Oh, god.” I merely mouth the words, frantic for air that won’t come as bile burns like acid at the back of my throat.

The reel won’t stop flipping. I see my thumbs mash his eyes. I feel the heaviness of the tool in my hand. I feel the iron reverberate off his skull.

I see the blood.

My vision blurs as tears well in my eyes, and I’m pleading for the images to stop.

With a fierce groan, Kallum releases me, freeing my throat and wrists at once. I fall against his chest and swallow down air into my deprived lungs, hungrily breathing in his scent. He presses his mouth to the top of my head, our heavy breaths the only sound in the still room.

Wellington killed them.

Critical mass is reached when the gravitational force of matter halts the expansion of the universe.

Everything grinds to a halt.

Still struggling for a breath, I curl my fingers over the warmth of Kallum’s skin, the ring clasped in my fist. “It was him,” I say, my voice raw, throat enflamed. “He was the one who hit my parents and just left them to die.”

Kallum’s strong arms enclose around me, where I’m comforted by the solid feel of him before I’m lifted up against his chest. I drape my forearms around his neck, buried in the pocket of his shoulder as he carries me into the living room.

“Wellington thought his wife had hired me,” I say as he deposits me in front of the fireplace. “That I was there to investigate him. Because I had been following him…he’d seen me. He thought I knew about the hit-and-run.”

After I’m draped in a fleece blanket, Kallum sets a glass of water on the hearth. He then kneels before me, his beautiful features cast in sharp relief by the firelight. My gaze travels over him, taking in the inked sigils and scripted tattoos as if for the first time. I’m rocked with a shiver, unable to deny the truth as my eyes sweep up to find his.

“Synchronicity,” I whisper.

“Everything connects.”

The history lesson Kallum gave me in the killing fields our first night on the case wasn’t really about the case at all. It was about me. About us—our history.

Everything connects.

History repeats itself.

Three is the magic number.

A shared, hidden wisdom.

“Shit,” I mutter. With a shaky hand, I drop the ring next to the glass, then lower my face into my palms. I suck in two deep, sobering breaths to cleanse the lingering ache from my lungs.

Delicately, Kallum hooks his finger under my chin and forces my face up. “Keep going,” he says, an echo of my own words.

“You knew,” I say, the accusation clear. “You knew it was Wellington who killed my parents. How?”

His eyes catch the blaze of the fire as he tenderly strokes my jawline. “I saw Wellington’s car,” he admits, lowering his hand. “It was something petty I did, slash his tires just to fuck with him.” He shrugs, indifferent. “But on that particular morning, I saw the dents, the smashed headlight. The silver paint deposit. The evidence of an accident. Then the news hit campus of a couple—Silvia and Darrin St. James—who had lost their lives due to a hit-and-run and their daughter who was seeking information. It didn’t take a genius to link the pieces together.”

I swallow hard and touch my throat that still flames. “Kallum…I… Why didn’t you just tell me it was him?”

He releases a rough exhale. “Wellington had his car towed within an hour to repair and hide the damage.”

I shake my head. “But there was still a record of him doing so, it still could’ve proven⁠—”

“Would it have been enough to give you his name?” He cuts me off, his intense gaze hard on mine. “To arrest him? See him imprisoned? If he even would’ve been. Would it have been enough, Halen?”

The same question he asked of me once already. Only now, I understand why he needed the answer from me.

“No.” I blink away the remaining tears. “I wanted him dead.”

The confession tumbles out easily now, no resistance. No guilt. Maybe because I was primed, or maybe because it’s simply the truth. When I made the connection to who Percy Wellington was that night—right in that blink of a moment—I swung that tire iron with one intentional outcome.

To end his life.

“That fury in you needed to punish, and it would have eventually, in the most destructive way to destroy you,” he says, his tone of voice somber now. “So I gave you a killer to chase, a villain you could punish. I created the darkness that you needed to feast on, sweetness.”

The Harbinger.

The serial killer spawned from my pain, Kallum brought into existence. Resurrected like a shadow monster from the darkest abyss.

And I didn’t just chase that darkness, I immersed myself in it. My obsession with catching the Harbinger became my reason to bathe, to get dressed, to eat. Breathe.

Until my wreck.

Kallum doesn’t need to voice what transpired afterword. I barely lived through it. Who was behind the wheel that night—me or my shadow? No matter what the accident report cited, I was the one driving. I was responsible. My guilt tore through me, annihilating. I might have never resurfaced.

The only thing that awoke me from my catatonic state was the Harbinger’s next murder.

“I had to keep you alive.” Kallum’s clashing gaze searches mine. “Three murders, three crime scenes. Designed for you. On the anniversary, I was giving you what you needed, letting you catch their killer. Even if you never made the association to Wellington, you would feel the totality. I had it all planned out⁠—”