Chapter 26 · Don't Go Below

"Who the hell was that?"

Kael's hand closed around my wrist before I could pull the phone back. His grip was steel.

"Someone who wants you dead," he said. "Drop it."

"That was my mother's voice."

"It wasn't."

I twisted free and shoved the phone in my jacket. "You don't know what her voice sounds like."

"I know what a trap sounds like." He was already moving, yanking cables out of the wall panel, killing every screen in the vault. "They used archived audio. Spliced it. Whoever's running this op knows exactly which buttons to push."

"Then why did she say your name?"

He froze. Just for a second. Then he turned, and his face was all hard edges.

"What did she say."

"Don't let Kael take you below." I stepped closer. "So where the hell is below, and why doesn't she want me going there?"

"She's dead, Nora."

"You don't know that."

"I know what Selene Crowe does to people who cross her." He grabbed my shoulders, and his fingers dug in just enough to hurt. "Your mother worked for the guild. She tried to flip. They made an example. That's the story. That's the only story.