Chapter 140
Herod’s phone rang at 3:17 AM. The cheap motel room was dark except for the blue light of his burner phone cutting through the blackness. He squinted at the screen. Unknown number. His finger hovered over the decline button, but something made him answer.
“Hello?”
“They found everything.” The voice on the other end was hushed, stressed, Derek Martinez, his contact at the FBI. “Your business card in the wreckage. Your fingerprints on the detonator parts. Plans for the bombings in your apartment.” Herod sat up, suddenly wide awake. “What plans? I never kept anything in the apartment.”
“Well, someone did. Blueprints of the substations. Notebooks with blast calculations. A journal talking about your hatred for Victoria Kane.”
“That’s impossible. I never wrote any journal.” Herod’s mouth went dry. “What else?”
“Your emails. Detailing everything. The FBI has enough to lock you away forever.” Martinez paused. “I’m risking everything telling you this. My career, my freedom.”
“I appreciate it.” Herod’s mind raced. “Any mention of Rose Lewis in the evidence?”
“Nothing. Not a trace.” Martinez’s voice dropped even lower. “Look, I can’t help you anymore. They’re searching for you everywhere. Airports, train stations, the works. I need to disappear from your life now.”
The line went dead before Herod could respond.
He sat motionless in the darkness, the truth settling over him like a heavy blanket. Rose had set him up. Completely. Thoroughly. She’d planted evidence while he was out. Created a fake journal. Fabricated emails.
And made sure none of it pointed to her.
Herod got up and flicked on the light. The motel room was small and dirty, nothing like the luxury he was used to. Rose had insisted they move here two days ago, claiming they needed to stay hidden.
Now he understood why.
She’d wanted him in this dump, away from his resources, while she set her trap. And he’d walked right into it, blind and willing.
The bathroom door opened. Steam escaped as Rose emerged, wrapped in a thin towel, her hair wet from the shower. She smiled when she saw him, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“You’re up early,” she said, toweling her hair. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I just got a call from Martinez.” Herod watched her face, looking for any reaction. “The FBI found evidence in my apartment. Evidence I never put there.”
Rose’s expression didn’t change. “What kind of evidence?”
“Plans for the bombings. A journal. Emails detailing everything.”
“Someone must have broken in,” she said, turning away to look for her clothes. “Planted that stuff to frame you.”
“The funny thing is,” Herod said, his voice deadly quiet, “Martinez said your name doesn’t appear anywhere in the evidence. Not once.”
Rose stilled for just a moment before continuing to sort through her clothes. “Lucky for me, I guess.”
“No, not luck.” Herod stood up. “Planning. Careful, detailed planning.”
Rose turned to face him, her mask finally slipping. The coldness in her eyes matched the chill spreading through Herod’s body.
“What exactly are you suggesting?” she asked.
“You set me up.” The words hung in the air between them. “You arranged for evidence that points only to me. You made sure you had alibis for both bombings. You’ve been planning to make me the fall guy from the beginning.”
Rose didn’t deny it. Instead, she tilted her head, studying him like a scientist might observe a lab specimen. “And if I did? What would you do about it?”
Successfully unlocked!
The question caught him off guard. He had expected denial, ou
maybe even tears. Not this calm admission.
“I could go to the FBI,” he said. “Tell them everything. About your involvement, your planning.”
“With what proof?” Rose laughed, a harsh sound that scraped his nerves raw. “Your word against the mountain of evidence showing you acted alone? A desperate attempt to shift blame from a guilty man?”
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Chapter 140
She was right, and they both knew it. He had nothing to prove her involvement, while she had carefully built a case that would bury him.
“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking slightly. “I thought we were in this together. I thought…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. It sounded pathetic even in his head.
“You thought I loved you?” Rose dropped her towel and began dressing, unconcerned with her nakedness. “Poor Herod. Always wanting what he can’t have.”
Her casual cruelty cut deeper than he expected. Despite everything, some foolish part of him had believed their connection was real. The nights they’d spent planning, talking, making love, had it all been strategy on her part?
“I gave you everything,” he said. “Money. Resources. I helped you go after Camille. Why turn on me?”
Rose pulled on her shirt and faced him. “Because someone needs to take the blame, and it was never going to be me. I’ve spent my life being careful, covering my tracks. Did you really think I’d risk everything now?”
“So what happens next?” Herod asked, feeling hollow. “The FBI catches me while you walk away clean?”
“That’s one option.” Rose sat on the bed, crossing her legs. “Or we could make a new plan.”
Something in her tone made him wary. “What kind of plan?”
“We still need to hit the main control center. One final blow to bring down Camille and Victoria.” Rose smiled, the expression not touching her eyes. “You’re already facing life in prison for the first two bombings. What’s one more? Especially if it means hurting them where it counts?”
Herod stared at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You want me to keep helping you, knowing you’ve set me up to take the fall?”
“I’m offering you a chance to complete what we started.” Rose stood and moved toward him, placing her hand on his chest. “To make Victoria and Camille pay, just like we planned.”
Her touch, once exciting, now made his skin crawl. Yet he couldn’t pull away. Despite everything, some broken part of him still craved her approval, her touch, her presence.
“And afterward?” he asked.
“Afterward, I help you escape. Get you out of the country with new identity papers, enough money to start over.”
It was a lie. He knew it was a lie. Yet he found himself considering it, weighing his options. The FBI was closing in. His life
as he knew it was over. What did he have to lose by playing along with her plan a little longer?
“You’re asking me to trust you,” he said. “After learning you’ve betrayed me.”
Rose’s fingers moved to his face, tracing his jaw. “I’m asking you to finish what we started. Together.”
“Until you no longer need me.”
Her smile turned predatory. “Everyone leaves eventually, Herod. At least with me, the ride is exciting while it lasts.”
Herod searched her face, looking for any sign of genuine feeling, any crack in her perfect mask. He found nothing but cold. calculation.
“You never cared about me at all, did you?” he asked.
“I cared about what you could provide,” Rose answered, her honesty brutal. “Money. Connections. The means to hurt Camille. And you delivered beautifully.”
The admission should have angered him, should have sent him storming out. Instead, it created a strange calm. The final illusion had been stripped away. He saw Rose clearly now, not as a partner or lover, but as a user. Someone who took what she needed and discarded people when they were no longer useful.
Just as she had done with Stefan. With her parents. With Camille.
And now with him.
“We need to leave this motel,” Rose said, moving away to pack her bag. “The FBI might trace Martinez’s call. I know another place we can stay while we plan the control center attack.”
Herod watched her efficient movements, the way she packed only essentials, ready to disappear at a moment’s notice. She was offering him a poisoned choice: continue helping her and face certain capture afterward, or try to run now with the entire FBI hunting him.
“What’s it going to be, Herod?” Rose asked, zipping her bag closed. “Are you in or out?”
The smart choice was to run. To get as far from Rose as possible. To try to save himself.
But where would he go? His accounts were frozen, his home watched, his face on every news channel. And the thought of being alone, without Rose, created a hollow feeling in his chest that frightened him more than the prospect of prison.
When had he become so dependent on her? When had she become his entire world?
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Chapter 140
“I’m in,” he said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
Rose’s smile was triumphant. “I knew you would be.” She tossed him his jacket. “Now let’s go. We have one more job to do”
As they left the motel room, Herod felt like a man walking to his own execution. Rose had destroyed him, used him, set him up to take the fall for her crimes. Yet here he was, following her into the night, unable to break free from her gravity.
He could still turn around, still go to the FBI and tell them everything. They might not believe him, but at least he’d have tried to do the right thing.
Instead, he got into the passenger seat of the stolen car Rose had acquired, watching as she started the engine.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Somewhere they won’t find us,” she answered, pulling onto the empty street. “Somewhere we can plan our final move.” As the city lights blurred past, Herod realized the truth about himself. He wasn’t just Rose’s victim, he was her willing accomplice. Too weak to leave. Too broken to fight back. Too addicted to her presence to save himself.
The knowledge should have shamed him. Instead, it brought only a dull acceptance.
Rose reached over and squeezed his hand, the gesture almost caring. “It’ll be over soon,” she promised. “One more job, and Victoria and Camille will pay for everything they’ve done.”
Herod nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He knew what “over” meant for him. Prison, if he was lucky. Death, if he wasn‘
- t.
But as the car sped through the night, taking them toward whatever end Rose had planned, he couldn’t bring himself to care. He had given her everything, his money, his future, his freedom.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
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