by Elise Noble
“Sky… Is your name Sky?”
“Sky Malone. I don’t have a middle name.”
“First question, Sky. What is this place?”
“The Riverley estate. It belongs to my boss and her husband.”
“It’s a private home?”
“Yes.”
Asher looked around the room, his gaze pausing on the window. Emmy’s horse was running around like an idiot in a far-off pasture.
“It’s…”
“Wow?” I suggested.
He nodded. “I don’t… I can’t… What I did last night…”
“You said you might regret it this morning.”
“But I don’t. That’s the thing—I don’t. When the room started filling with gas, Uncle Saul knew it was poisonous. Dr. Merritt yelled at him to leave, and I begged him to let me go, but he stood in the doorway, and he looked back at me, and he shrugged. He fucking shrugged. And then he left.”
“I understand.”
I really did. If ten-year-old me could have smashed my father into a tree, I’d have done it.
“And Grandma… I’d never seen that side of her before. Never. She was gonna kill you, Sky. I saw it in her eyes.”
“I know. I saw it too.”
“Who…? What…?”
“Somebody I work with. He followed us from the school.”
Emmy told me Rafael had seen us leaving and jumped into his SUV. When he caught up, Asher and I were already down at Saul’s car, and Rafael had crept through the trees and watched. And waited. And listened. And that creeped me out more than a little bit because I’d had no clue he was there. Not even a hint. He was just one more shadow among the trees until he fired the round that had killed Tovah Rosenberg.
“She kept saying we were family, but when it came to making a choice, I wanted you to live, not her.”
“Or you.”
“Or me.” He cleared his throat. “When I was lying there on the ground, you said… You said…”
I remembered, and boy was this awkward. “That life wouldn’t be the same without you?”
“Did you mean it?”
I couldn’t look at him, because what if he broke my heart? In so many ways, I was a coward.
“I did. At least, I’m pretty sure I did because I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, so I’ve got no point of reference and—”
“Sky?”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.” Asher took both of my hands in his. “Last night, I learned who my friends were.”
Then he kissed me—properly—for only the third time, and I knew we’d make it through this. Blackwood had our backs, and we’d get through it together.
My life was still a mess, but now I had friends, a proper home, and a job that challenged me in ways I’d never thought possible. And I also had two men. One who would kill for me, and another who’d die for me.
What more could a girl ask for?
Speaking of men, one of them had gone missing in action. Rafael had found me at the rented house last night and checked I was okay, but I’d barely seen him since. And I needed to thank him. If he hadn’t been such a sneaky bastard, either me or Asher would be dead right now. Quite possibly both of us. Rafael had also shown up at the debrief in the afternoon, but Rune was getting ready to leave for England with Alaric and Beth right afterwards, and by the time I’d finished saying goodbye to her, Rafael had vanished again. His Navigator had gone from the parking area by the stables, and when I borrowed a car and drove to his house, he wasn’t there. My text went unanswered.
“Has anyone seen Rafael?” I asked the group hanging around in the kitchen at Riverley Hall. Mrs. Fairfax had set up a buffet for dinner, and the gannets had descended. “He’s not here, and he’s not at home.”
“We drove past him,” Hallie said, breaking off from her discussion about a new case. Something about a cussing parrot. “He was heading towards Richmond.”
“Richmond? Any idea which part?”
Was he working tonight?
“Probably he’s going to his apartment,” her friend Mercy said.
His…apartment?
“But he has a house. Right here.”
“And an apartment in the same building as us,” Hallie said. “You didn’t know? It’s on the third floor, but he doesn’t go there much.”
“Just with girls,” Mercy added. “But he never stays the night. Sometimes we find them wandering in the hallway the next morning.”
Hallie giggled. “One looked so sad I took her for breakfast.”
Rafael had a fuck pad in town? That made me feel… Actually, I wasn’t sure how it made me feel. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised because I knew he was no saint. It stood to reason that he had to get his kicks somehow. Then I recalled the tiny stab of jealousy that had knifed me between the ribs when I thought he took random hook-ups to his half-finished farmhouse, and I smiled inside. Why? Because I was the girl he invited into his real home, and when I passed out on his sofa, he stuck around to make me coffee the morning after.
“Wow. Guess I’ll catch up with him tomorrow, then.”
“Want to meet up for dinner later in the week?” Hallie asked. “We’ve missed you.”
“Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
I dished up food onto plates, covered them with tinfoil, and schlepped the whole lot back to Little Riverley. Asher didn’t need to deal with a big crowd tonight. Emmy had suggested a few quiet days, no pressure, just chilling out of the way while the mayhem at Shadow Falls finished unravelling. We’d both need to speak to the police, but Emmy’s lawyer would be running interference. I wasn’t worried. Alaric said the guy was a shark, and I had the whole of Blackwood on my side.
“Dinner and a movie?” I asked as I walked into the living room.
“Don’t you have to jump through a window first?”
“I can do that if you want.”
“I almost puked every time you leapt that gap between the wall and the dorm.” Asher stretched out an arm along the back of the sofa. “How about you just sit down instead?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Snuggling up to Asher was my favourite way to spend an evening, but as the glass-and-chrome grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight, I tucked a blanket over him and tiptoed outside, past the Mustang and over to Emmy’s Corvette. I’d lifted the key from her pocket earlier, after the debrief. Sometimes, just sometimes, I thought I might be able to live up to the expectations she had of me.
For the third time in two days, I heard the quiet snick of a pistol being cocked, but this time, I wasn’t worried.
“Don’t shoot; it’s me.”
Rafael stalked towards me in jeans and a half-done-up shirt. Shoes, but no socks.
“You set off my perimeter alarm.”
Oops. “I do hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
His scowl told me all I needed to know. But he was still polite. When he waved me towards the front door, I walked in front of him, careful to skirt around the pile of bricks beside the porch. A glimmer of light came from the barn to the back, and I nodded towards it.
“We never did go bowling.”
He turned off the alarm and locked the door behind us. “You came over in the middle of the night because you want to go bowling?”
“No, I came over because I never got the chance to thank you properly, and I didn’t want to leave it any longer.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was everything. If you hadn’t—”
“Stop. Don’t dwell on what didn’t happen. I’ve told you this before. Learn from your mistakes, but don’t relive them.”
“I’m trying to do that, but it’s hard.”
Rafael walked around me, focused with laser intensity. He didn’t touch me, not once, but it felt as though he were undressing me with his eyes. I wanted to cover parts of myself with my hands, but it would have been pointless against his X-ray vision. What was he doing?
“W
here’s your weapon?” he asked.
Oh. Shit.
“Uh…”
“If you’d stopped to pick up a gun yesterday, I wouldn’t have had to decorate your boyfriend with his grandmother’s brains.”
“Stopped where? I was—”
“There were three Blackwood cars parked within spitting distance of Martinez’s Mustang. One of them was mine, and they were all loaded with enough shit to start a war. You need to be more aware of your surroundings.”
“Weren’t they locked?”
“Break a fucking window, Sky. Think.”
It hurt, but Rafael spoke the truth. I hadn’t seen the bigger picture.
“Right.”
“But apart from that, you did well.”
Coming from him, those words were the equivalent of a standing ovation. I followed as he walked into the kitchen and took a bottle of Scotch out of his drinks cabinet. He didn’t bother with ice as he sloshed a generous measure into a glass.
“Drink?” he asked.
“I’m driving.”
He poured the Scotch down his throat, slammed the glass onto the counter, and levelled his gaze at me. I didn’t look away, and he barked out an unexpected laugh.
“What?” I asked.
After a second, he slowly extended a hand. “Fuck it. Let’s go bowling.”
“Now?”
One shoulder twitched in a shrug.
Fuck it indeed. I took Rafael’s hand, and we walked out to the old barn.
CHAPTER 44 - ALARIC
SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH, AND Alaric had been on edge all day. Almost a week had passed since the showdown at Shadow Falls Academy, and things were finally getting back to normal. Or as normal as things could be in the new post-Emerald world.
Rune had gone back to school, and yesterday, Alaric had returned to the US with Beth for meetings. The phone had been ringing off the hook this week with new enquiries now that Alaric’s name had been taken off the blacklist. Old contacts were calling, and at this rate, Sirius would be turning away work. Alaric might even be able to toss a few contracts in Emmy’s direction as thanks for the jobs she’d given him when the firm was in its infancy. Outside of Judd, Ravi, and Naz, she was the one person who’d believed in him all these years.
He’d always love her, but not the same way he loved Beth.
Beth. He’d liked her as soon as he met her, even when he thought she was working against him, but nothing had prepared him for what he’d find when he scratched through her prim and proper exterior. Fifty shades of filth hidden under demure little suits and sky-high stilettos. They’d finally achieved one of his life goals on the flight back to the US, and when they’d both squeezed out of the tiny bathroom at forty thousand feet and a grey-haired lady had shaken her head and tutted, Beth had just giggled. Then given him a handjob in first class.
His perfect woman, and she wasn’t a bad PA either. Sirius’s office had never been so organised.
All of which meant he was keeping her. Permanently. Two months, twenty-nine days, and twenty-three hours ago, she’d agreed that three months was an appropriate length of time to wait for a proposal. He had an hour left to wait. The ring was in his pocket, dinner was in the oven, and there was a bottle of champagne on ice. Hell, he’d even arranged both of her wedding gifts. Was he nervous? No. She’d practically said yes already. Gift number two? That made him edgy. She’d said she wanted it, but did she really?
“Ready to eat?” he called up the stairs.
“Five minutes. I’m just changing my clothes.”
Alaric almost asked if she needed a hand, especially with her shoes. She loved fancy high-heeled pumps, and so did he. On her, not himself, obviously—he’d break an ankle if he tried to walk in those things. But that could wait until later. The salmon en croûte would burn if he got distracted. Mrs. Fairfax had said to give it exactly forty minutes, not a moment longer. He had it on the table by the time Beth walked down the stairs, laid out beside steamed vegetables and a bottle of chilled white wine.
“You look beautiful,” he said when she finally appeared. Not that she didn’t always, but she rarely wore four-inch Louboutins for a quiet dinner at home.
“So do you. Handsome. I mean handsome.”
Alaric pulled out her seat and poured her wine. He’d never lived with a woman before, but it was worth the wait. Getting up in the mornings was so much easier these days.
“I hear Killian Marshall went home this afternoon,” Beth said.
“He did.”
Strangely, Alaric had become quite fond of the man over the last few weeks, despite their difficult start. Marshall kept his mouth shut regarding the precise details of his illicit dealings, but they’d had some interesting discussions about art in general and art theft in particular over late-night glasses of Scotch. Alaric liked to think they’d stay in touch.
“Do you think he’ll go straight?”
“Yes. I actually do.”
“What about Hugo Pemberton?”
That was a trickier question. He was still handling stolen paintings, undoubtedly, but after some serious contemplation, Alaric was inclined to agree with Marshall over him. Better for the world’s missing treasures to be kept in tip-top condition until they were eventually found than for Sirius to turn a relatively harmless old man over to the police. Besides, they had someone monitoring him. Gemma was still working at the gallery by day and staying at Judd’s place in London by night.
“Reckon we’ll leave him alone for the moment as well.”
“I can’t pretend that I’m not still a teensy bit annoyed that he fired me, but I think that’s the right decision. And I suppose, really, I should thank him. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Strange how things turned out, isn’t it? For everyone.”
“I’m so glad Vanessa has a place at a new school. Sky and Asher both seem fond of her, and I wouldn’t wish another year at Shadow Falls on anyone. Apart from perhaps that Deandra girl. From what Sky’s said, she seems ghastly.”
“Karma moves in mysterious ways.”
When it became clear the academy would be closed for a month at least while the FBI dug into the backgrounds of all the staff and decontaminated the cellar, Black had pulled yet more strings and gotten Vanessa accepted at his old school. Rybridge Prep counted the current president among its alumni, and its reputation was second to none. Vanessa would be boarding, but Alaric had a feeling they’d be seeing a lot of her at Riverley on the weekends.
He nodded at Beth’s plate. “How’s the salmon?”
“Very—”
Beeping cut her off mid-sentence, and Alaric tensed. It was time. He’d been waiting for this moment for three long months. He fished his phone out of his jacket pocket to shut off the noise, only to find it wasn’t his alarm ringing. When he looked up, Beth was tapping away at her phone screen.
“Sorry about that.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know if you remember, but three months ago—”
Now Alaric’s alarm went off, and what could he do but laugh?
“You beat me to it. Seems great minds think alike.”
“You did remember?”
“I was hardly going to forget.”
“Sorry. It’s just that being married to Piers for so long… He forgot every birthday and every anniversary. Anyhow, enough about him.” She smiled brightly and fumbled a gold band out of her cleavage. “I bought you a ring and everything.”
Alaric slipped a velvet box out of his pocket. “As I said: great minds. Give me your hand, Beth. In marriage and in life.”
“But of course.”
Thank goodness for that. The ring fit perfectly, the same way Beth fit him.
“An emerald?” she asked.
“I thought it was appropriate.”
She slid her ring onto his finger, and that was it—they were both officially off the market. Alaric abandoned all thoughts of dinner, walked around the table, and kissed his girl stupid to seal the deal.
“So
…” she said once they came up for air. “What’s an appropriate length of time to wait between engagement and marriage?”
“Five minutes?”
“Be serious.”
“I am. I’ll fly you to Vegas right now if you want.”
“Ugh, no. I’m not getting married in Vegas. That’s so tacky.”
“Don’t say that to Emmy or Black. They got married there. Twice.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“They’d better not be. I have big plans for tonight.”
Beth’s eyes widened, and she put on that breathy voice that made him hard every time.
“Precisely how big are we talking?”
“Eight inches?”
“I think it’s closer to nine.”
The champagne could wait. Alaric scooped Beth up in his arms and carried her out of the dining room.
“Bedroom? Or do you want to bend over my desk ag—”
Bzzzzzzzzzz.
Who the hell was at the gates? Emmy was under strict instructions to keep her crew away from Hillside House tonight, and the other members of Team Sirius were in England. Nobody else even knew where he lived now.
“Get rid of them,” Beth mumbled. “Please.”
“I will.”
It was probably canvassers, or someone trying to sell him a new religion, but he picked up a gun just in case. You never could be too careful. And there were still three paintings missing from the Becker Museum. Were they all cursed? Very likely, because when Alaric checked the screen on the entry phone, the sight before him was worse than he’d ever imagined. He’d rather have faced a hit squad.
“Oh, shit.”
“What? Who is it?”
“My parents.”
“Your parents? I thought you didn’t speak to them anymore?”
“I don’t.”
Not for eight years, anyway. Not since they’d found him guilty of all charges and cut him off. He was tempted to leave them outside in the rain, but he knew his father too well—if Bancroft McLain had decided he wanted to talk to his son, then they’d be talking, sooner or later. Best to get it over with.
Beth kissed him softly on the cheek. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”