Sobs swelled in my chest, and I held his shoulders, wanting to just wrap my arms around him because he was probably right.
“Or you can come to Homecoming with me,” he said, giving me a choice. “Tomorrow night.”
Homecoming?
The phone rang again, but we just stared at each other, me in his arms and my legs dangling.
I couldn’t go to Homecoming. I didn’t have a dress. I didn’t dance. I didn’t want to be around his people.
Martin would never allow it.
People would just laugh.
I pushed against his hold, diving down to the floor for my cardigan as the phone rang and rang. I looked back up at him, covering myself with the sweater.
“No,” I said. “You can go now. I’m sorry I stopped you.”
He advanced on me, but I turned and ran, slipping on my sweater as I dashed into the kitchen for my phone.
I answered. “Hello?”
“What the hell were you doing?” Martin snapped. “I’ve called four times.”
I almost turned to see if Will was behind me, but my heart was beating so fast, I was afraid Martin would hear the shake in my voice.
“I’m sorry. I…” I stammered. “I fell asleep with my phone downstairs.”
“Of course, you did.” His tone was clipped. “We’re expecting wind tonight. Make sure the windows are closed, the garbage cans are stored, and the…”
But my mind trailed off as he barked in my ear the same orders I’d heard a hundred times.
I licked my lips, still tasting Will and feeling the emptiness grow and grow behind me as I heard the front door click shut.
I wanted to cry.
Martin eventually hung up, and I came back to the foyer, seeing that Will was gone.
I stood there for a minute, sick of the guilt and self-hate. I’d done it again. I was a bitter, condescending coward, and hopefully, he’d move on to someone like him. Happy and bubbly and…fun.
At least I wouldn’t be at Homecoming to see him enjoy someone else.
Taking myself upstairs, I checked on my grandma one more time and then entered my room, closing the door and plugging my phone into the charger.
Walking over to the window, I watched the candle flicker, debating for a moment to leave it alone.
But I didn’t believe in anything.
Least of all, Reverie Cross.
I blew out the candle, the room going dark.
Except for the two headlights that came into view, shining outside my window. I straightened, looking out to the curb and seeing a matte black car suddenly speed off, its tires peeling and screeching as it raced away.
I squinted, but I couldn’t see well without my glasses that were still downstairs where Will left them.
It wasn’t a truck—I don’t think. It wasn’t Will.
And then I saw it. The glimmer of gold coming from the tree outside.
It shook and jingled in the light breeze, the bronze chain draped over a branch that was empty before.
I inched closer. What the hell was that?
Will
Present
I jerked as Aydin grazed me with the scissors, the small blades slicing through the thread.
A cigarette hung from his mouth, and I pulled it out, taking a drag as I sat on the table in the kitchen and he stood next to me, removing the stitches at the top of my arm where it met my shoulder. Just a small cut from taking a tumble in the woods last week before Emmy arrived.
I stared off, watching her as he worked.
She was sly. I’d give her that. Spending years getting the shit kicked out of her had taught her how to hide.
Emmy moved around the kitchen, back in the black pants she’d arrived in, but wearing one of Rory’s white T-shirts as she fried up meat and added peppers, onions, and cheese.
She stole glances over at me every now and then, and I kept my gaze locked on her.
A piece of bread here, a wedge of cheese there. Some cheese cloth to wrap it up, as well as an orange and then some more bread.
I fought not to smile, admiring how she deflected attention from the hand stealing food, to the hand reaching up to grab a plate or snatch a fork out of a drawer.
Aydin hadn’t noticed, because he had Taylor watching her and Taylor was an idiot. He stood in the corner, under the dead clock, peeling the label off his water bottle and only glancing up at her every now and then.
But the glances lingered, drifting down her body as she reached to grab some utensil or bent over to pull out a pan from the cupboard.
Aydin was the only thing keeping that one on a leash. If Aydin weren’t here, I knew exactly what Taylor would try to do with her.
“Have you ever requested anything other than liquor and cigarettes?” I asked quietly, taking another puff before sticking the cigarette back into his mouth.
He inhaled one last time and then dropped the butt into his cup of coffee. “Yes.”
“Like what?”
He didn’t answer, and I shot him a look, seeing a smile playing on his lips. Somehow, he got a connection—someone to bring him contraband every month, and while he was a brutal fighter who would go to any length, the alcohol and tobacco were the only other means he had to control us.
Or them, at least. Micah and Rory might be with me, but we wouldn’t get far if I didn’t have Taylor or Aydin. I still needed one of them with me before I could leave.
This shouldn’t have taken so long. I just didn’t expect him to be so tough to crack. I had no idea where he was hiding his contraband, and after over a year, I had yet to find it.
Taylor walked behind Emmy at the stove, picking up a lock of her hair and smelling it. I clenched my jaw, watching her jerk her head around and move away.
“So, did you get it?” I continued, prodding Aydin. “The other thing you asked for?”
He finished cutting the stitches and picked up the tweezers, pulling the thread out of my skin. “Yes.”
“Then you can get her out,” I stated. “I want her gone.”
“You want her safe. She is safe.”
I thinned my eyes on him. She wasn’t, and even if she were, she was messing up plans and accelerating my timeline. I didn’t need the distraction.
“She thinks I arranged to bring her here,” I told him.
“And your pride hurts.”
Yes. Right now, she thought I was still obsessed and small-minded, every moment we spent together vivid and tantalizing in my memory.
I didn’t want her to know that was true. Ever.
I was supposed to be somebody by now. I was supposed to make her regret not wanting me, and this was humiliating. She shouldn’t be here.
“I’ll arrange it,” he told me.
I looked at him.
“When we’re done with her,” he clarified.
Rain tapped against the kitchen window over the sink, the sun already set as Rory and Micah walked into the room, dressed in their best as Micah rushed over to her side and smelled the food.
She didn’t smile back at him, but she didn’t move away, either.
“Did she ever mention what kind of alcohol she likes?” Aydin asked. “Vodka, rum…? Might help her loosen up. I was thinking of sharing tonight.”
I turned my gaze on him, straightening my spine at the threat.
Get her drunk. Get everyone drunk.
No.
He yanked out the last stitch, and I hissed, drawing everyone’s attention as they looked over at us.
Aydin leaned into my ear, whispering, “You think I don’t know you’re planning something?”
His breath ran down my neck, and fear coursed through me. I hated having him so close.
“You’ve spent a year whispering in their ears, trying to turn them against me,” he gritted out, “but you’ll never be able to do what’s necessary to take power, here or anywhere in life, William Grayson.” He dropped his tool, meeting my eyes. “You have no idea what it takes to be me.”
He mov
ed away, and I held Emmy’s eyes as she watched us, paused in her stirring.
I remembered similar sentiments from her years ago, and a similar feeling around my friends even.
Nothing had changed for me here.
Not yet.
• • •
Thunder cracked outside, rain pummeling the windows, and I glared at Emmy as everyone sat at the dining room table and dug into their sandwiches. Her presence made everything harder.
I was going to kill Michael when I got home. I was going to drench his fancy, fucking suit in his own blood for sending her here.
“How did you know I was an architect?” Emmy suddenly asked.
I shot my eyes to Aydin.
He stared at her, looking confused.
“The gift,” she reminded him.
What gift?
“I…didn’t,” he answered. “There’s not much to do here. Figured you’d enjoy drawing.”
He gave her drawing pencils? Where did he get drawing pencils?
He sat there in his expensive black suit and black shirt, all of us dressed and shaved at Aydin’s insistence.
I had to admit, nice clothes made me feel human again, but I didn’t appreciate this prelude to whatever he was planning. Micah, Rory, and Taylor enjoyed the bourbon Aydin gifted to the table, chowing down on their sandwiches and sucking down shot after shot.
Emmy scooped up some soup she made with the entrée, sipping spoonfuls, while I tried to resist the sandwich as much as the alcohol.
I eyed the bottle of liquor, my tongue like sandpaper in my mouth. I wanted the burn of the drink in my throat. I’d been clean for almost two years, but only sober for one, and it was still hard.
I was sure Aydin knew that, and corrupting me was part of his plan.
I pushed the glass he’d offered away toward Micah.
“What kind of work do you specialize in?” Aydin asked her. “Homes? Skyscrapers?”
“Restoration,” she murmured. “Churches, hotels, city buildings…” And then she looked at me. “Gazebos.”
I forced a slight smirk, letting her know that I knew that she knew what I did to hers.
She may not have deserved it, but…
Okay, yeah, she kind of deserved it after she laid waste to my fucking heart. I wanted to break something of hers, too.
Fuck it. I was drunk and pissed that night.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Aydin told her.
She half-smiled, looking around the room. “Think they’d mind if I cleaned the place up a bit?”
“You already do.”
She laughed, and I swore I saw a blush cross her cheeks.
She continued drinking the broth, and I cocked my head, studying her.
She was flushed. Why?
“So did Will ever tell you about Devil’s Night?” she asked him. “We celebrate it in Thunder Bay. It’s coming up, actually.”
Then she looked at me, leaned back against her chair, and pulled at the collar of her shirt like she was hot.
I tensed. Something was off about her right now.
“In fact, I hear one of his best friends is getting married that night,” she said to him, but really to me.
Michael and Rika? Didn’t know that, but she didn’t need to know that. I hid my surprise.
“He doesn’t talk about home much,” Aydin replied.
Because when people know what you love, they know your weakness, and I didn’t trust Aydin. I was here to gain strength. Not bring more enemies down on my family.
Emmy continued, “It’s an annual festival of sorts, but it basically boils down to local rich kids basking in the gloriousness of their privilege.”
He laughed. “Yes, I know the type. Too stupid to set the bar higher because they’ve never been challenged.”
Her eyes glowed bright, her skin glistening a little. What was going on?
“It happens the night before Halloween,” she said, explaining her vast knowledge of something she barely knew anything about, “and it’s common to pull a prank as part of the ritual.”
“Did you join in the festivities?” he asked.
“Once.” She met my eyes.
Once? When?
“Didn’t he ever tell you, Will?” she asked me.
I narrowed my eyes. Who? And tell me what? She had gone out on Devil’s Night? With who and when?
But I sat there, acting like I knew exactly what she meant because I wasn’t fucking asking.
She laid her forearms on the table, leaning in. “Did you ever find what I had buried under the gazebo when you burned it down?” she asked. “Or is it still there under the dirt?”
I balled my fists.
“All the shit you don’t know,” she said. “So clueless. It’s almost comforting how you don’t change.”
I shot out of my chair, my limit reached and my control gone. I swiped my arm across the table, shoving my plate and shit onto the floor.
“You don’t get to waltz around this house, shooting off your mouth as if you’ve been through even half of what I’ve been through!” I shouted.
She stared up at me, her eyes piercing. “This is your life, and it’s not my fault,” she said in a hard but low voice. “Drugs and alcohol and more drugs and alcohol, mixed with how many women over the years?” And then she looked around the table, stopping on Micah first. “I know your story.” Then she flicked her gaze to Taylor. “And I can only assume you’re plagued by every vice in the book, judging from the leering and creep factor. What happened? Accidentally almost kill a girl when you kept the plastic bag on her head too long during sex?” She shook her head and gazed around at all of us. “You’re not monsters. You’re jokes.”
No one moved, her words hanging in the air, because everyone was waiting to see what Aydin would do. No one talked to him like that.
But this was how Emory was. Quick to judge because it felt better to push everyone away. If she didn’t understand us, she didn’t have to surrender a single piece of herself.
Was she drunk right now?
And then it hit me. Flushed skin, sweat… I found her bowl of spilled soup on the table and picked it up, smelling it.
The bourbon was faint, but it was there. I darted my eyes to Aydin, and everything was written behind the mild amusement in his. He’d spiked her dinner.
Motherfucker.
But before I could do anything, Rory spoke up.
“I killed a girl,” he said.
We looked at him as he sat there, calm and relaxed.
“Three, actually.” He took a gulp of his bourbon and set the glass back down. “And four men, as well. I drugged them and took them to the lake.” He paused, his gaze falling. “In the dark. At night. Deserted. Alone.”
Em stared at him, unmoving as she listened.
“At first, I hurt them,” Rory went on, the memory playing in his head. “Burned them, waterboarded them, cut them…just to see if it would make me sympathetic enough to not kill them. To see if I could stop myself from crossing that line.”
Emmy’s brow knit, and her breathing turned shallow.
I’d heard bits and pieces of what he’d done here and there, but never from his lips. I’d kept my distance when I first arrived, feeling him out, but after a while I’d realized not everything was as it seemed.
“By the third one,” he continued, “I just started tying them up and throwing them off the boat.”
His voice was almost a whisper now.
“Someone saw me one night,” he told us. “Luckily, it was the hillbilly sheriff my parents owned.”
He took another drink, emptying the glass and rising from his chair.
Emmy tipped her head back, not taking her eyes off of him.
“And believe me, they deserved exactly what they got,” he said. “I’m just ecstatic no one caught me until I was done with all seven of them.”
He buttoned his suit jacket and drew in a long breath, exhaling it.
“Thank you for dinne
r,” he said, leaving the table.
He walked out of the room, and Micah sat there for less than a moment before he followed him. Em dropped her eyes, probably feeling like an ass.
Would she ever learn?
“I want her gone,” I told Aydin again.
He shot me a look. “I can’t help you.”
Turning to her, he continued, “You’re right. We’re not monsters.” He reached across the table, taking the bourbon and pouring more into his glass. “Evil doesn’t exist. That’s just an excuse for people who want quick answers for complicated questions that they’re too lazy to deal with. There’s always a reason things are as they are.”
“I want her gone!” I growled.
He ignored me, taking a drink and holding my eyes.
I shook my head, turning to Em. “You know why he likes it here? Because if not for this place, he’d be alone.”
Whatever this friendship was forming between them, it wasn’t genuine on his end. Aydin Khadir didn’t want to leave, and now that he had a woman in the house, there was no reason to. This was his dominion, and I could feel the shitstorm coming.
“You couldn’t take the shame, could you?” I said to him. “People finding out the things you liked. The kink and the various ways you like to fuck. Everything was a secret in your rigid family, and that was fine, until… until you were done hiding it.”
He said nothing, his expression unreadable.
“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”
Aydin’s gaze faltered, and I knew something was finally cracking in there. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to die here. Alone.
“Did you ever forgive him?” he asked, his tone gentle for once.
“Family does.”
He blinked, something churning in his head. “But he had to submit.”
The corner of my mouth quirked. “Family does.”
Damon learned. He’d fucked up, but he learned.
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