Brooke Beretta _best_ <FULL>

Seven hundred thousand dollars was more than she'd made in the last three years combined. It was the kind of money that meant she could stop taking commissions for a while, maybe even buy that derelict firehouse in Portland she'd been eyeing. But it was also the kind of money that came with strings attached—strings that could strangle you if you weren't careful.

She opened the book and read aloud. The words were not English, or any language Brooke knew, but they came out of her mouth like they had been waiting there for a hundred years. The thing wearing Julian Cross's face screamed—a terrible, high-pitched sound that went on far too long for a human throat. Then it collapsed into a pile of dust and old bone. brooke beretta

"There never was a door," Brooke said. "That's what the book finally showed me. The house wasn't a key. It was a cage. And you—you're not Julian Cross, are you? You're what's left of Silas Ashworth. The part that got out before Evelyn could trap it." Seven hundred thousand dollars was more than she'd

"Indeed," Cross replied smoothly. "Which is why the fee is seven hundred thousand dollars. Plus all materials. Plus a fifty-thousand-dollar advance for your inconvenience. Do we have an agreement?" She opened the book and read aloud

The first floor was mostly intact, though water damage had ruined the parquet floors and wallpaper hung in sad ribbons. The second floor held six bedrooms, each with a fireplace and a view of the overgrown garden. The third floor was a labyrinth of servants' quarters and storage rooms, many of them locked. The keys were long gone.

Cross's face went through a series of expressions—confusion, anger, and then something that looked almost like relief. "The door," he said. "Is it still there?"

"Ms. Ashworth's will stipulates that the restoration must be completed by someone with no prior knowledge of the house's history. No research, no archival digging, no interviews with local historical societies. You work only from the original blueprints and what you find on-site. And you must live in the house during the restoration."