Jace hadn’t slept in days. Each time he closed his eyes, his mind dragged him back to that single line on Elias’s phone:

"Did he ask about 2009 yet?"

2009...That year played over and over in his head like a cursed refrain. He had scoured every dark corner of his memory, replayed every tragedy in brutal clarity, and yet—2009 was a void. A year swallowed by grief. The year his parents died.

He had meant to play Elias, seduce him, trap him. But now? Now he was the one somehow ...