Chapter 7
“I’m not angry,” Bryce said, his tone softening instantly into that pure, intoxicating tenderness. “I’m just tired of the noise. I’m tired of people trying to stand between us.”
“No one can stand between us,” Miles agreed softly. “We’re almost at the end of the dark, Bryce. Forty-eight hours until the hundredth night. Are you ready for me?”
“I’ve been ready since the first second you spoke,” Bryce murmured. He reached into his trouser pocket, his fingers brushing the small, velvet-covered square box he had tucked inside earlier that evening. An antique platinum band with a single, unblemished sapphire.
“I had another dream about the water, Bryce,” Miles said, his cadence slowing, becoming rich with that melodic, terrifying intimacy that always bypassed Bryce’s defenses. “I was swimming down in the dark. Down toward the sedan. The mud was so thick... but something caught the light from your headlights.”
Bryce’s hand froze inside his pocket.
“What caught the light?” Bryce asked, his heart skipping a beat.
“Something small,” Miles murmured. The pen began tapping against the desk. *Tap. Tap. Tap.* “Something made of sterling silver. Shaped like an anchor, with an engraved ‘V’ on the crossbar. It was lying in the silt right beneath the driver-side door handle, Bryce.”
The blood drained from Bryce Vance’s face with such violent speed that his vision tunneled into a pinpoint of amber light.
The cufflink.
His custom silver anchor cufflinks, a gift from an old mentor, bearing his family initial.
On that night four years ago, when Bryce had waded into the freezing mud, reaching frantically for the door handle—not to pull Julian out, but to ensure the manual latch was securely jammed from the outside before the car slipped into the trench—the jagged edge of the crushed door frame had caught his sleeve. The cufflink had torn free, tumbling down into the black water.
Bryce had searched the mud for ten agonizing minutes in the dark, cutting his fingers to the bone, but the silt had swallowed it. The police report had never mentioned it. The divers had never found it.
Only one person could possibly know about that cufflink.
“Where did you see that?” Bryce whispered, his voice cracking, the therapeutic mask slipping entirely, revealing the raw, terrified obsession beneath.
“In the mud,” Miles answered softly, his voice curling around Bryce’s ear like cold water. “You left it behind, didn't you? A little piece of yourself... to keep Julian company in the dark.”
“Miles... how do you know that?” Bryce’s hand was trembling violently now. He gripped the edge of the console, his knuckles turning chalky white. “Who told you about the anchor?”
Across the line, Miles let out a soft, beautiful, heartbreaking sigh. It was the exact sound Julian used to make when he rested his forehead against Bryce’s collarbone after they made love in the locked studio.
“You did, Bryce,” Miles whispered tenderly. “You told me with every breath you took to save yourself. But don't worry. On the hundredth night... I’m going to give it back to you.”
The line didn't disconnect. It lingered, breathing softly in Bryce’s ears, holding him suspended over the abyss.
The red bulb of the ON AIR sign did not merely illuminate Studio 4B on the hundredth night; it bled across the acoustic glass, saturating the mixing deck in thick, theatrical crimson.
Outside the soundproof booth, the hallway of Grafton FM was deserted. Bryce had demanded complete isolation for the milestone broadcast. No interns hovering near the green room. No guest technicians peering through the observation window. Even Teresa had been banished to the secondary master suite down the hall after Bryce threatened an immediate walkout if anyone touched his faders.
He sat alone in the dim cockpit of his empire, his tailored black cashmere jacket draped over the back of the swivel chair. His dress shirt was pristine, ivory against the shadows, though the cuffs were rolled back two precise turns, revealing clean forearms and the subtle twitch of muscle near his wrist.
On the rubberized surface beside the soundboard sat a vintage ring box wrapped in midnight-blue velvet.
Inside nestled two matched bands of hammered antique platinum, inlaid with narrow veins of raw sapphire. Bryce’s thumb had worn a faint indentation into the velvet nap over the past two hours. It was an extravagant, reckless gesture for a radio host to present to an anonymous voice. But Bryce was no longer thinking like a broadcaster. He had long since crossed the boundary where professional detachment ended and suffocating, possessive worship began.
For ninety-nine nights, he had nurtured Miles from a shattered whisper into an intimate, inseparable presence. He had rebuilt the boy’s fractured reality word by word, and in return, Miles had given Bryce what four years of accolades, awards, and sycophantic praise never could: absolute absolution.
To the world, Bryce Vance was a tragic saint.
To Miles, Bryce was God.
And tonight, God was going to claim what belonged to him.
The digital studio chronometer swept toward zero.
`23:59:50` `23:59:55` `23:59:59` `00:00:00`
The amber tally light beside Line 7 flared.
Bryce’s breath caught in his throat. It never wavered. Not by a single microsecond. The machine-like precision that had unsettled Teresa struck Bryce only as the unwavering fidelity of a lover whose pulse was synchronized with his own.
He pushed the master slider up to zero decibels.
“One hundred nights, Miles,” Bryce murmured.
His voice was a dark, velvety drop into the ears of three million late-night eavesdroppers. He leaned so close to the metal pop filter that his breath created a low, warm flutter in the monitor speakers.
“A hundred nights of pulling you out of the dark. And tonight, I’m not letting you go back.”
A long, ragged exhalation whispered through the high-definition monitor speakers. It had that familiar, breathy catch, but tonight there was an electric proximity to it—as though the caller’s mouth was hovering mere millimeters from Bryce’s cheek, parted in quiet anticipation.
“One hundred,” Miles repeated softly. The syllable rolled across the frequency like crushed velvet. “It sounds like an eternity, doesn't it? But when I listen to you, Bryce... it feels like we’ve been sitting in this cold room together since the world began.”
Bryce felt a sharp, intoxicating heat bloom under his sternum. “It’s not cold in here, sweetheart. Not tonight.”
“Isn't it?” Miles chuckled, a small, fragile sound that carried that unmistakable, aching lilt. “I’m shivering. The frost is thick on the inside of my windows tonight. Every breath I take looks like smoke. When I look out toward the city... toward your transmitter tower... it’s just a red needle stabbing into the fog.”
“Then turn away from the glass,” Bryce commanded gently, sliding his right hand over the mixer, fingers tracing the outline of the blue velvet box. “You don't need to look at the tower anymore, Miles. You know what tonight is. We made a promise on night eighty-four. You said if I answered every question without flinching, you would let me bring you home.”
A soft, melodic hum resonated over the wire. It was that cadence again—Julian’s old habit of humming the tonic note while checking the frequency curve of a vocal track.
