“Stop looking at your watch,” Paul said. “Ron and his people aren’t going to be able to trace this call.”

How did Paul know he was looking at his—?

Sebastian turned around, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck when he faced the windows at the front of the house.

“That’s right—I’m watching you right now,” Paul said. “Through a sniper scope.”

Not Paul, Sebastian thought. Guidry. Guidry was the sniper. But a round wouldn’t penetrate the windows. The original glass in all the windows had been replaced with a flexible polycarbonate designed to stop even high-caliber rounds.

Or maybe Paul was simply messing with him. Maybe Paul had installed his own cameras in here, in the house, way back when, before the summer, before everything turned to shit. Maybe Paul had been listening in for months, collecting intel.

Heavy footsteps echoed across the ceiling. Ron’s people, Sebastian knew, had binoculars equipped with thermal-imaging technology that could the detect heat signatures of people crouched behind cars, even walls. They were no doubt rushing to the windows to search the area. Sebastian heard muted conversations, Ron talking to the men positioned outside, in and around the neighborhood. They had sniper and combat scopes equipped with thermal imaging and night vision and—

“I’ve changed my mind,” Paul said.

“About what?”

“Everything,” Paul replied, suppressing a yawn. “Frank inspired me. Frank’s death. I kept thinking about the look on your face when I blew Frank’s head off his shoulders, and then I started asking myself, Why give up Ava’s little girl when I can do so many wonderfully creative things with her? Like, say, drop a finger every now and then in the mail to her mommy. Or you. Do you think Grace could hold her baby without any fingers?”

Sebastian kept the terror from reaching his face, his voice. “I’ve been running tests using Jolie’s blood. You were right. The results are remarkable. Spectacular. But it’s never going to work.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“The test subject we used died a few days after the transfusion. His blood wouldn’t clot properly—more or less turned into a hemophiliac, so he bled out.”

It was true. Maya had shown him the results the day Faye Simpson had driven him to the Wellness Center: Sixto Ferreria had hemorrhaged.

“You can see the results for yourself,” Sebastian said. “It’s all on video.”

“Speaking of which, I have something special planned for Grace tonight. Do you prefer video, or would you like me to send you pictures?”

“I know you gave Sophia Vargas a transfusion using Viramab. I don’t have to tell you that won’t deliver long-term results. You’re not going to build an empire that way. And that’s what you want—an empire. You can have mine. Pandora, the donors and infrastructure, all the money and the secret cocktail combination to—”

“But you’ve already given me what I need—something far more important,” Paul said. “I’ve hurt you. Knowing that you’re out there, suffering, in agony; knowing that you’ve become one of the walking wounded, going through your days with a noose around your neck; knowing that I can, at any time, tighten the noose—well, you can’t put a price tag on that kind of love.”