by Callie Hart
“I tried to give you money,” he says softly. “I encouraged you to leave Raphael alone, but you refused. You caused a stir in the media. You made him start to think he could have a normal life again. You planted this…nasty little seed of hope inside him. And then you showed up at my office today and stole something from me that didn’t belong to you. You have no idea the damage you’ve managed to cause in such a short time. No idea at all. We’ve all been coping with the events of the accident in our own ways for the past five years, and you’ve torn everything down in the blink of an eye.”
The words he parts with are spat out like poison. There is so much hatred in his eyes. He despises me, that much is clear. He has no right to feel that way, though. Who the hell does he think he is, blaming me for upsetting their dishonest little equilibrium? If I weren’t quite so afraid of him right now, I’d probably slap him for being such a prick.
“That file wasn’t yours to keep,” I say quietly. “And I didn’t bully my way into Raphael’s life. Thalia persuaded me to see him first. She encouraged me, did everything she could to make me spend time with him, and he’s an amazing person. Of course I was going to fall in love with him. Thalia, please…” I sidestep around Paxton, reaching out to my friend. She won’t raise her head, though. Won’t look at me.
“Thalia, did you know the crash wasn’t an accident?” I want to say more. I want to ask her if she knows Paxton might have had something to do with it. I can’t voice my suspicions, though. Not with him standing at my back, his eyes flashing murder. If he did damage Raph’s Maserati on purpose, who knows what else he’s capable of? Wrapping his hands around my throat? Forcing a knife into my back? Gagging me and shoving me in the trunk of his car, driving me out into the boonies and disposing of my body?
Rationally I don’t believe he’d do anything like that. Cutting the brakes on a car is a cowardly way of trying to kill someone at the end of the day. Besides some brake fluid and some oil, he didn’t have to get his hands dirty. He didn’t have to look Raph in the eye as his life force flowed and ebbed from his body. He didn’t have to struggle with him. He sat in the backseat of the Maserati and he braced himself for the impact. He rolled the dice and hoped for the best, perhaps. That he wasn’t going to end up seriously hurt or dead himself. It was the perfect decoy. It was the best way to convince the police and accident investigators of his innocence. It was the perfect—
Suddenly, a buzzing sound fills my ears. My brain…my brain stops functioning altogether. Wait…
In the medical report, Paxton had cuts and scrapes all over his body. He had a few broken ribs, probably from where the seatbelt prevented him from flying forward when the car impacted with the wall. They were almost identical injuries to those Raphael suffered. My brain kicks back into gear, suddenly working over time now. How could that be? Surely Raphael’s injuries should have been so much worse if he was sitting in the front seat? He would have faced the full force of the impact; the force of the flying glass would have been so much more violent in the front of the car. Raphael had no head injury. Raph didn’t suffer anything even remotely similar to those injuries. Neither did Paxton.
But Thalia did.
I look to my friend, my mouth hanging open. “Oh my god. Thalia …”
Paxton’s hand closes around the top of my arm. “I didn’t want to have to do this. I didn’t want it to come to this. You’ve really left us no choice, though.” His fingers dig painfully into my skin. He begins reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. Thalia finally looks up at me, and her eyes are filled with tears. I freeze, overwhelmed, disbelieving, and terrified. I can see the truth on Thalia’s face. It’s all there, plain as day now. Raph wasn’t even driving the car when it crashed into the hotel. And now Paxton is reaching for a weapon—a gun, a knife, a length of cord. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to silence me, prevent me from further disrupting their lie or speaking of it to anyone. I’ll never be able to exonerate Raph and have a life with him. I’ll never be able to have a family with him. I’ll never be able to lie in his arms and lose myself again, and the thought fills me with immeasurable sorrow. It guts me, turning me inside out. I brace for what comes next, but when Paxton’s hand slides out of his jacket, he’s not holding onto a weapon. There’s no shiny metal gripped in his hand. Instead, he’s holding a piece of paper.
“This restraining order is air tight, Ms. Dreymon. If you go within five hundred feet of the Osiris Building, you will be arrested. If you call, text, or email Raphael, you will be arrested. If you so much as think his goddamn name, the police will be hammering down the door to your shitty, rat-infested apartment, and you will go to jail for a very long time. Do you understand me?” He slaps the folded sheet of paper against my chest. I take it without thinking, blindly staring down at it sitting there in my hand.
“A restraining order ?”
“Yes, Ms. Dreymon. That delinquent brother of yours has been served one, too. If either of you speaks to the media again, you’ll be arrested and I will personally haul you across the coals for defamation and slander. I hope the consequences of your actions are very clear here, Elizabeth. I will bury you if you fuck with Raphael. You’re going to disappear from his life. You’re going to be a ghost. In a week, he won’t even remember you existed.”
I gape up at him. I can’t even comprehend what’s going on right now. Two seconds ago, I thought he was going to murder me, and now…he’s threatening me with…with legal action ? “Ha!” The bark of laughter bursts out of me before I can rein it in. It bubbles out of me, overflowing and escaping me. “Only Raphael can serve me with a restraining order,” I say. “You can’t just serve me on his behalf.”
“I can actually,” Paxton says dryly. “When his parents died, Raph named me his power of attorney should he be injured, fall sick, or deemed incompetent for any reason. This afternoon, after you broke into my office, I had his doctor officially sign off on some paperwork. I had him deemed mentally compromised for his own safety. I’m now in charge of his affairs until further notice.”
“What? You can’t do that! No one’s going to believe he’s mentally compromised.”
“They will ,” he counters. “He’s a recluse, Elizabeth. He has a severe anxiety disorder. He hasn’t stepped foot out of his own home in years. He’s emotionally distraught, and you’ve shown up and recognized an opportunity. You want to use him, to manipulate him and steal from him, and we won’t allow that to happen. Right, Thalia?” He spins to look at the woman on the couch, but she doesn’t return his gaze. She’s still staring numbly straight ahead, her eyes glazed over, a million miles away.
“Thalia,” I whisper. “You can’t let him do that to Raph. You know it’s not true.”
She swallows heavily, her throat muscles working. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she whispers. “I keep…I keep making the wrong call.”
“We talked about this,” Paxton hisses angrily. “You know it’s the best thing for him. And for us , too!”
This seems to grab Thalia’s attention. She winces, her head whipping around. Slowly, she gets up from the couch. “When will it be enough?” she asks. “When will all this end? I can’t bear it any more, Paxton. I can’t fucking do this anymore.”
“Shut your mouth,” he snaps, his voice filled with fury. “Stay the course. Don’t interfere. I have everything under control. No one’s ever going to know—” He stops short, his sentence coming to a screeching halt. I already know what he was going to say, though. It’s all so obvious now.
“No one’s ever going to know Thalia was the one behind the wheel that night and not Raphael,” I finish for him.
Both Paxton and Thalia look at me, their expressions stony, as if I’ve just spoken a secret combination of words that spell inevitable disaster for them both.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Paxton says, scoffing. “I don’t know how the hell you’ve come to that conclusion, but no one’s ever going to believe you. Rap
hael—”
I narrow my eyes at Thalia. “Raphael took the blame for you. He switched out places with you before the police or any one on the street could see anything. Didn’t he?” It all makes so much sense now. This is why he didn’t want to fight a conviction. This is why he allowed the court and police officials to be bribed on his behalf. This is why he told Nate not to look into the cut brake lines. Because if they had investigated the accident any further, it would all have come to light. They would have figured out that Thalia was the one driving, and she would have gone to prison.
“You were drunk, weren’t you? You’d all been drinking at that award ceremony. Everyone except Raph. He was tired, so he didn’t drive. You told him you were fine to drive, but you weren’t. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Guilt flashes across Thalia’s face. The emotion is as damning as any confession she could ever make. “You have no idea what would have happened to me if they’d arrested me,” Thalia whispers. “I was already on probation. I had three convictions for possession of an illegal substance. If I were charged with a DUI, they would have slapped all three commuted sentences from those charges onto my DUI sentence, too. I would have gone to jail for over twenty years. Raphael—”
“I said shut up, Thalia!” Paxton slams his fist down onto the kitchen counter, sending a coffee cup crashing into the sink. A lake of black liquid spreads across the counter, slowly dripping onto the floor. “She’s grasping at straws. If you keep talking, you’re damning yourself and the rest of us right along with you!”
Thalia bites down on her bottom lip, considering Paxton’s furious face for a moment. When she looks back at me, I think all hope of her ever telling the truth has vanished in a puff of smoke. Then she begins to sob.
“Raphael told me he could take a couple of years,” she says. “He said…he said it wouldn’t matter. It would go quickly…and…and he would be able to go back to running North Industries as soon as he was free. When they only gave him two years under house arrest, I thought…God,” she says, choking. “I was relieved . The time went by so fast. But then…when it was over, he wouldn’t come out again. He refused to leave the penthouse, and…it was my fault, Beth. I killed Chloe. Raphael’s whole life just stopped , and it was all my fault.”
I flounder, opening my mouth and then closing it again. Paxton covers his face with one hand, sighing heavily. Thalia scrubs away her tears with the back of her hands, but fresh drops immediately fall, wetting her face. “I thought you’d be good for him,” she says. “I managed to convince him to talk to you. Play chess. Nothing more. But I hoped … I wanted him to be happy again.”
“You wanted to replace Chloe ,” Paxton spits. “You thought you could bring in any old gold digger, and she’d be able to take the place of our friend. Let’s not sugarcoat this. You’re a fucking idiot, Thalia.” The venom in his voice is breathtaking. So much anger and fury. So much…pain .
“You were jealous,” I whisper.
Paxton’s face drains of all color. The bright red flush that was burning in his cheeks a moment ago rushes away, leaving behind a sickly ashen hue. “Don’t try and sleuth this out, Elizabeth. The situation is far beyond your understanding. It’s complicated. It’s all far more complicated than you could ever imagine.”
Thalia turns away from us and walks slowly, wearily toward the French doors that lead to the balcony. She picks up a pack of cigarettes and places one in her mouth, lighting it, then stepping out onto the balcony to smoke it. “He was,” she says over her shoulder. “We never talked about it or acknowledged it, but we all knew, Pax.”
Silence reigns over the apartment. The sound of sirens wailing off in the distance floats up, barely audible on the seventeenth floor of Thalia’s building. She draws on her cigarette and exhales, thick plumes of smoke billowing from her mouth. Paxton doesn’t do or say anything. He just stands there, fiddling with his right cufflink, not breathing, not blinking.
“You cut the brake lines, didn’t you?” I say. “You did do it, because you were jealous.”
His nostrils flare. “I’m not going to engage in this madness anymore. I didn’t love Chloe. I didn’t tamper with the car. I had no reason to—”
“I don’t think you loved Chloe,” I say. “I think…I think you were in love with Raph . I think you’re still in love with him now.” It hit me like a bowling ball to the gut a minute ago. It made so much more sense. It seemed like the only explanation to what happened all those years ago. Raph had slept with plenty of women, sure. Chloe was a threat, though. She was something real and tangible that Raphael had valued for a long time. He’d never introduced anyone as his girlfriend before getting back together with Chloe. He’d never confessed that he might be able to fall in love with someone. That he might be able to build a life with someone and have a lasting, special relationship with them. The moment Raphael stopped sleeping around with inconsequential women and dove into something serious, I’m betting it felt like the world was crashing down around Paxton’s ears.
“I’m not fucking gay ,” he sneers, his lip curling up, exposing his teeth. “I’m not into men. Thalia, tell her. We used to have a perfectly healthy sex life. For years. We fucked all over New York City.”
Thalia hasn’t taken another drag from her cigarette. She’s holding it loosely in her fingers, her gaze locked onto the end of the burning cherry. She looks like she’s in shock. I start to walk toward her but Paxton grabs hold of me again, yanking me backward. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he snaps.
“Don’t console my friend? Don’t blame you for what happened? Don’t speak the truth? What shouldn’t I dare do, Paxton?”
“Just leave. Take your fucking restraining order and get the hell out of our lives.”
“I can’t do that. Raphael needs to know—”
“OF COURSE RAPHAEL FUCKING KNOWS!” The veins in Paxton’s neck bulge as he screams. I stagger back, reaching for something to defend myself with, but there’s nothing. “Raphael knew what he was getting into when he sat in the front seat of that car. He knew exactly what he was doing when he paid off the judge to convict him without trial. And he fucking knew how I felt about him. We were in college when I told him how I felt about him. He laughed it off, told me to stop fucking kidding around, but he knew I wasn’t joking. And he knew how I was going to feel when he started dating Chloe. They were so fucking happy. So disgustingly cute with each other, just like they were back in high school. Couldn’t keep their hands off one another, always laughing and teasing. They came over to my place for dinner and they had sex in my goddamn bathroom. They were in there for an hour, and when they came out they were giggling and flushed like teenagers. He knew how something like that would make me feel. He had to. So yeah. I lost my mind a little. I knew we were going out to the award ceremony the next night, so I cut the damn lines.”
“I was driving, Paxton. I was the one who got behind the wheel. How could…you do that?” Thalia is as white a sheet now, just like Paxton.
“I didn’t care who was driving,” Paxton says tiredly. “I didn’t care that I was in the car. What the fuck did it matter? I wanted to die. I wanted Raphael to die for being so fucking heartless. I wanted Chloe to die for taking something that belonged to me. And I wanted you to die for being so…so fucking blind for so many years, Thalia. It was fucking pathetic. You were pathetic, just like you’re being pathetic now.”
So that’s it, then. He wasn’t simply willing to risk being hurt by being in the car. He wanted to be hurt. More than that: he wanted to die, and he wanted to take his friends with him.
“I realized how crazy I’d been afterwards, when Chloe was gone and Raph was locked up, but in a weird way it seemed like justice. She didn’t deserve to have him, Thalia. She wasn’t one of us. Not really. She wasn’t from the same stock. Her family was broke . And two years trapped inside his apartment, to think about what he’d done? Raphael earned that penance. When I visited him, it made me feel better. I saw him change. I though
t eventually he’d realize we were meant to be together in the end. He shut you out. He wouldn’t even let you come to the penthouse. He never believed you were responsible for Chloe’s death, he always said it was an accident, but looking at you reminded him every day of what happened. I became the one he leaned on. I became the one he turned to when he was upset or hurting. I knew if only he stayed inside his penthouse and didn’t fucking come out, one day he would open his eyes and see what was right there in front of him. And then you showed up and ruined everything,” he says, stabbing a finger into my chest. “I thought you’d take the money. You didn’t. I filmed you and released the footage to the press. I thought you’d run for the hills. You didn’t. You’re a bad penny, Elizabeth Dreymon. You just keep showing up. I won’t have it anymore. I won’t—”
A scream, then.
A scream that cuts him off, high pitched and blood curdling. It renders Paxton instantly speechless.
On the balcony, outside, a discarded cigarette burns down to the filter on the ledge.
Sixteen
Raph
I ’m covered in a cold sweat. My skin is cloying against my clothes, a river of perspiration running down between my shoulder blades. My heart is slamming in my chest. I feel like my lungs are filling up with liquid and I’m drowning in the bone-dry anteroom outside the door to the penthouse. Over head, the glowing yellow light above the elevator doors is shifting through numbers, rising up to meet me one floor at a time. I feel like I’m about to pass out by the time the light hits the floors around the fifties.
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Sixty…
I need to go back. I need to get back inside. I need to be on the other side of that motherfucking glass door. I’m going to have a heart attack. I’m going to drop down fucking dead and no one will find my body for days. My vision is blurry as fuck as I bounce on the balls of my feet, waiting for the elevator doors to roll back. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can do this.