Bex’s brows pulled together. “Remember when I told you about Nina’s father, Jack, and Jared’s father, Gabriel, dying? That’s what started all of this.”
“Can you tell me now?” Allison asked.
“A demon named Shax had Nina’s father killed. He was our father’s Taleh. Our father weakened and died soon after. It disturbed The Balance.”
Nina smiled, leaning her head against the door frame of Eden’s bathroom where’d she’d just been to get more tissue. “And so did Jared revealing himself to me. On a bench, in the snow.”
Jared stared at Nina with the deepest love in his eyes. “And I’d do it again.”
Nina’s bottom lip trembled. “Would you?”
He nodded, fighting tears. “A million times over … until we got it right.”
“Until I got it right,” Eden said, her expression crumbling. “I was given all these powers. I was sent to save our family and the world, and for what? Did I really just ruin our lives? Ramiel,” she sniffed, “Ramiel said it would be fine. Abel… I really thought we could trust him. I thought…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought now. Morgan, Levi, Petra, and now our entire family. I’ve ruined everything.”
“You’ll come for us soon,” Bex said, struggling to smile. “I believe it. I believe in you.”
“Why?” Eden said, sobbing. “Why would you believe in me? I failed. I’ve failed all of you. I never did what I was born to do, and then I messed up so badly two of the men I love more than my own life are sentenced to Hell.” She took a faltering breath, staring at the floor. “I’d do anything to take it all back.”
“Isn’t that what Eli said?” Allison said, leaving Bex’s side to stand in the center of the room. She looked to Eden. “Bex said your powers are so strong no one understands it. You can do things not even immortals can do. You are an immortal, aren’t you?”
Eden shrugged one shoulder.
“Eli said to take it all back,” Allison said. Her chest caved, and tears instantly filled her eyes. “So take it all back.”
“What do you mean?” Bex asked.
She didn’t take her eyes off Eden. “It was Shax who disturbed The Balance, right?”
Jared stood upright. “Oh my God.” He looked to me, then to his wife, who’s mouth was hanging open.
Bex stood next to Allison. “You think Eli meant she could go back?”
“Maybe that’s been her purpose all along?” Ryan asked. “She goes back, saves Jack, and reverses Bex and Levi’s sentence.”
“Wait,” Jared said. “We need to think about this and what it could mean.”
“Like what?” Claire asked. “Having Dad back? Jared…”
The oldest Ryel shook his head. “His death is what pushed me to talk to Nina for the first time. What if I stay away from Nina? What if it changes everything?”
“What if Eden is never born?” I asked, frowning. “This is insane. No. Even if it were possible, there are too many risks. Bex and I will go, and you can all think of another way.”
“Jared, do you trust Eli?” Claire asked. Her eyes were bright again, excited about a solution.
“I don’t even know if I can do it,” Eden said, standing.
“Claire, what if we…” Ryan said, clearly concerned. “If Jared and Nina don’t end up together, you and I don’t end up together.”
Claire blinked, thought for half a second, and then dismissed it. “No. You’re my Taleh. Nothing will keep Jared and Nina apart, and nothing will keep us apart.”
“How can you be sure?” Ryan asked. He was breathing hard, panic behind his eyes.
“What if something changes, and I don’t cross paths with you?” Bex asked Allison.
She pressed her lips together, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Anything is better than you spending eternity in Hell. If I have to be without you, I’d rather it be this way.”
Bex shook his head. “No.”
“I trust Eli,” Nina said, her gaze locking with her husband’s. “And I trust your love for me. I vote yes.”
Jared wiped a tear from her cheek.
“We started this,” Nina said.
“I did,” Jared answered, his brows pulling in.
“Shax did,” Allison said. “It’s possible we could all still be together.”
“It’s possible we won’t,” Bex said. “I vote no.”
“I vote no,” I said immediately.
“I vote yes,” Allison said. “If I … if I can vote.”
Claire looked to Ryan. “I’m sorry, baby. I vote yes.”
“I vote no,” he said, hurt.
She hugged him. “I’ll fall in love with you again, I promise.”
He pressed his wet cheek against hers. “No, Claire. It’s still no. You’re pregnant. I won’t risk losing you and our baby.”
Everyone gasped.
“You’re pregnant?” Lillian blurted out with a half-cry, half-laugh. She stood to hug her daughter and son-in-law.
“That changes things,” Eden said.
“It changes nothing,” Cynthia said. “I vote yes. Eli, Ramiel, Abel, they know what they’re doing.”
“How?” I asked. “They’ll reverse, too. Then how will they get what they want? It will reset everything for my mother, too.”
Cynthia shook her head. “A sacrifice is a sacrifice. There are no loopholes for that. They’re absolved. Eve and Cain are gone forever.”
“With all due respect, that makes no sense,” I said.
“It doesn’t have to. Some rules can’t be broken.”
“But some can?” Eden asked.
“I vote yes,” Lillian said quickly. “I’m sorry, Ryan, and I’m sorry, my son, but I can’t let you go to that place. I won’t watch you go to Hell. I just can’t.”
“Daddy?” Eden said.
He looked to Bex.
“Jared,” Bex warned. He shook his head. “It’s too risky, and you know it. Eden might never be born. If it even works, she won’t exist. She won’t be needed. Claire is pregnant. You have to know it’s not the right thing to do.”
“You don’t know that,” Nina said. “Eden may just not have the same powers, or any powers, but we’d have children. This all hinges on Jared speaking to me, and he will. I know he will.”
“What if it’s not Eden?” I asked. “What if Ryan and Nina end up together? Bex is right. There are too many risks involved. If even one thing changes, it all changes. We all lose far more.”
“I vote no,” Jared said. He tried to smile at Bex, but his grief took over. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Bex.” A grunt came from his throat before he took a breath. “I’m so sorry.”
Bex hugged his big brother, whispering words of comfort.
I looked to Eden, and then everyone else did, too.
“You’re The Keeper of the Balance,” Nina said. “It’s your decision.”
“If I vote no, we’re tied,” Eden said.
“But if you decide it’s right, then the yeses have it,” Nina said.
“Please don’t,” Ryan whispered. “Please.”
Eden’s breath picked up as she met eyes with everyone in the room.
“This was your purpose all along,” Nina said. She hugged her husband tight. “I trust you.”
Claire grabbed her mother and husband and held them tight.
Bex hugged Allison tight, closing his eyes.
“No!” I said, grabbing Eden’s arms. I touched her cheek. My throat felt like it was closing in. “You can’t leave me again. I won’t let you.”
She cupped my cheeks with her soft palms. “We always find our way to each other. I’ll find you, or you’ll find me. But eons later, and look at us. This time will be no different.”
“You don’t know that!” I said, panicking. “What if I’m not sent to Earth because you’re not needed for The Balance?”
She grinned, tears in her eyes. “Then I’ll find you, any
way.”
She pushed up on the balls of her feet and pressed her lips to mine, letting them linger. When we parted, our gazes met for just a few seconds before she closed her eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
Nina
The average daughter respects her father. She might regard him as her hero, or she may place him so high on a pedestal that no object of her affection could ever compare. To me, my father deserved more than respect, loyalty, or even love. I had a reverence for him. He was more than Superman; he was God.
One of my earliest memories of him was watching two men cower before him in his office. I didn’t understand the purpose of their castigation, but I knew Jack Grey’s verdict was always final and never argued with. Not even death could touch him.
I knew the gentle side of him: the man who left important meetings to take my trivial phone calls, kissed my scrapes, and rewrote fairy tales so that the princess always saved the prince. Just a few months before, my father had watched with pride as I’d graduated from Providence High School and then begun my freshman year at Brown University. Now, I wondered if I knew him at all.
I shivered against the cold, turning the ring my father had gifted me for my sixteenth birthday on my finger while I waited for the bus. The gold caught for just a moment, and then I took it off for the first time in almost three years, putting it inside the pocket of my jacket. I’d already given back my car. It didn’t make sense to keep the ring.
The bench beneath me was painfully cold, but after what I’d seen and heard, it was a welcome distraction. My father wasn’t the successful businessman who ruled Titan Shipping with an iron fist. I’d learned in the last two hours that he was a criminal, a thief, a liar, and—if he was behind the deaths of the small group of police officers who’d been found near the Narraganset—a murderer.
My throat tightened, and my chest heaved. I’d hoped to get home before breaking down, but Jack’s pleas for forgiveness kept ringing in my ears.
The families in the area had little need for public transportation, specifically so late in the evening, and those who used it at all were the hired service employees who worked in the colossal residences nearby. No one was working this late at night, except for Alec, of course. I wasn’t sure what 160-pound lawyer in his five thousand-dollar suit and loafers would do to protect me, but in my father’s eyes, at least I wasn’t alone.
Alec touched my shoulder. “You’re sure I can’t drive you home, Nina? It’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s snowing.” He looked around with his dark, beady eyes, disgusted at the weather.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I … need some time.”
He sat next to me. “It’s natural, you know, to feel pressure. And this … this is a lot for anyone. You’re a brand-new college freshman. To have this dropped on you today of all days… Well … it has to be incredibly overwhelming.”
“I can do it.”
“Of course you can. You have always loved being at the office with your father, and you’re respected.”
“Taking over for him was always the plan.”
“Nina—”
“Will he go to prison?”
“I’m very good at my job, Nina. We’ll be working around the clock to make sure he doesn’t.”
“Maybe he should,” I said. The betrayal tasted like poison on my tongue. My father had always had enemies, but I never thought I’d be one of them.
“I know,” Alec began, “I know you’re hurting, but you have to know he loves you, and everything your father does is to keep his family safe.”
I craned my neck to look at the lanky, balding man next to me. He was shivering harder than I was. “Alec? Please stop.”
“It will all make sense someday. The shareholders need a new face for Titan, and you make sense.”
“I’m eighteen, Alec. None of this makes sense.”
“You’re not a child, anymore, Nina. And you’re the only person your father trusts to run the business he built. Everyone is safer this way.”
“What about Grant? What about my mother?”
Alec shook his head. “It has to be you.”
I stared down at my hands. The peach hue had long left my fingers. I pulled my coat tighter around me. The frigid air was beginning to seep through the wool and into my bones. “You can go. I’m fine here. I’m sure you have more to discuss with Jack.”
Alec shot me a side-eye. “You know he’d rather die than to see you so disappointed in him.”
“He doesn’t get to be disappointed. He made his choices. Good night,” I said. “Thank you for walking me here.”
I stared forward, hearing Alec’s expensive loafers squashing against the wet sidewalk.
Moments later, the sloshing of bus tires approached, slowing to a stop in front of me. The sounds of commuters exiting the bus never came.
The bus driver cleared his throat to get my attention.
I heard him. I heard the door sweep open, but the numbness beneath me kept me where I sat.
“Miss?”
As the seconds passed, a sinking feeling came over me. I couldn’t move. Soon, the news of my father’s crimes would be all over the news. All of my new friends would know. In that moment, freezing on that bench felt safer than returning to campus.
“Miss?”
After I’d ignored him for the third time, the door shut, the air brakes released, and the bus slowly pulled away from the curb. I was alone again.
The snowflakes began to fall harder, filling up the triangle of light cast by the streetlamp. Snow made the world seem quiet, and I looked up, grateful for the silence. Some would touch my face or pants and vanish; some tumbled to the ground.
Watching the snow and my breath crystalize and float around me was a strange respite for what I’d just endured. The documents, the papers, the legal jargon I’d had to listen to for the past two hours was at least subdued while my skin screamed from the cold.
Jack was only questioned today, but at any moment, he could be arrested. In preparation, I was appointed the executer of his estate and briefed on my new role at Titan Shipping. I wasn’t sure how I would juggle the hours at Brown and learn the accounts, policy, and procedure at Titan. The sick feeling in my gut hadn’t left since I got the original call from my mother. I was only nineteen, and completely unprepared and incapable of the responsibility I was faced with, but I would do it for my father. For all of us.
I’d pushed down the anxiety and nausea for hours, but the stress and uncertainty finally released in the form of uncontrollable tears. Just as I did in childhood, I rocked back and forth to comfort myself. A frigid breath of air flooded my lungs to prepare for what felt like would be full-blown sobbing, but at the top of my breath a man sat next to me. I released the air in the form of an awkward cough, covering my mouth with my hand.
I’d only planned to glance, but then I couldn’t seem to look away. He was beautiful—more than beautiful. He looked at his watch, tactical but expensive. “Damn it. I think we missed the last bus.” He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his black motorcycle jacket and dialed. His voice was deep and confident as he greeted the person on the other end of the line, but he was polite when requesting a taxi.
When he ended the call and replaced his phone, he turned to me, hesitating only for a moment before asking, “Want to share a cab?”
I folded my arms as the wind blew through, reminding me of the discomfort of winter as it broke through my coat and seeped into my skin. Despite my current situation and impending emotional breakdown, I had to get back to Brown. I still had a paper to write.
“Yes. Thank you.”
After an awkward moment of silence, the man spoke again. “Do you live around here?”
“My parents do. You?”
“My parents recently moved into the neighborhood. I own a loft closer to downtown.”
“I live in the dorms at Brown.”
“How do you like it?” he asked w
ith a small smile. His eyes were lit with what look like subdued excitement, as if he were surprised to even be speaking to me.
“I like it.” I nodded, wiping one eye. I sniffed and looked down. “Brown has a great campus.”
He stared at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher and then looked forward again. He was older than me, though not by more than five or six years. I wondered if he knew who I was. There was a glimmer of familiarity in his expression, but I couldn’t quite place him.
“I’m Nina,” I said, reaching out my hand.
“Jared,” he said, taking it.
“Wow, you’re hand is really warm!” I said, letting my skin thaw against his.
“Yours is cold. Do you have gloves? If not, you can borrow mine.”
“I’m okay. The cold is … a nice distraction.”
“A distraction?” he asked.
Before I could answer, his cell phone vibrated, and he checked it again, seeming frustrated before he put it away without responding. He didn’t ask any more questions, and we sat in silence until the cab arrived.
Once the cab pulled to the curb and stopped, Jared hopped up quickly to open the door. I stood and nodded to him before sliding in. The door ajar bell dinged, and the wipers dragged across the windshield, the background music to Jared’s stunning smile as he closed the door. He jogged around the back, closing his door and settling into his seat behind the driver.
My God, he’s beautiful, I thought. It took longer than I’d wanted to stop staring, and he caught me. But he didn’t seem to mind.
“Brown University, please,” Jared said in his deep, smooth voice. “Two stops.”
“You got it,” the driver squawked.
The wind whipped outside, blowing the collecting flakes across the road like white snakes slithering ahead. I shivered at the image and pulled my coat tighter around me.
Jared turned in his seat to look behind us as if he’d heard something, but all I could hear was the engine, the heater blowing through the vents, and the tires buzzing against the road.
“Did you forget something?” I asked.
“No,” he said with a chuckle, facing forward. “Are you, uh … are you alright? I noticed back there you were upset?”
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