King's Horses

by Lana Sky

  “I have to say that I’ve been trying to meet with you for… Well, it doesn’t matter now. Can I have just a few minutes of your time?”

  Minutes. I cast a wary glance down the hall, but I don’t hear the stampede of armed forces on my trail just yet, and it seems Riley Haverty doesn’t take no for an answer. Before I can respond, she steers me into the lecture hall, where a petite blonde is speaking to the crowd.

  “They told me to just get over it,” she says, her voice breaking, “but you can’t just ‘get over’ something that affects you so deeply.”

  When she finishes, Riley claps the loudest. “I run Haven,” she explains to me as the applause dies off. “We focus our outreach on assault victims, male and female, and I have to admit that I have been dying to meet you, Ms. Hollings.”

  A frown tugs at my mouth. “Why me?”

  Riley shoots me a curious glance. “Well, to be frank, you were a witness in one of the most high-profile sexual assault cases in the entire country, accusing not only your longtime friend but the son of your father’s business partner. In the years since, you’ve become a societal icon in your own right. If anyone could serve as a powerful voice to bring attention to Haven and our outreach, it’s you.”

  My stomach sinks and I’m driven a step back. “I don’t… I didn’t—”

  “I’m sorry,” Riley says smoothly, her voice soft. “I didn’t mean to intrude or bring up uncomfortable emotions. I tend to have what they call ‘a blunt approach’ in some circles.” She laughs. “My only point is that you could be a powerful voice. I’d love for you to lend it to our cause, even for one event. We have a fundraiser at the convention center later this week, and it would be more than beneficial if you came to—”

  “Snowy! Thank God.”

  Oh no. I turn as Ronan appears in the doorway, his hair wild, his eyes glazed with worry.

  Heedless of the attention he’s drawing, he races toward me and grabs my arm the moment he’s close enough. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say over him, forcing a fake smile for Riley’s benefit. “I wish I could but…I just… I’m not much of a speaker.”

  With a polite nod, Riley sidesteps Ronan and starts toward the front of the lecture hall. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says over her shoulder. “But if you change your mind, come to the convention center on Wednesday. I’d love to see you there.”

  “I—”

  “Snowy, let’s go.” With the efficiency of a correctional officer, Ronan manually steers me to the doorway.

  Before crossing the threshold, I wrench my arm from his grasp. People are staring—how shameless. Papa would roll over in his grave. I hope he is.

  “I’m not a child,” I snap before heading into the hallway alone.

  Contrite, Ronan trails behind me, but his concern taints the air. I think I’m more startled by his behavior than angry. I’ve never seen him like this—not even when my weight reached its most dangerous lows. An irrational sense of dread warns me that something else must be feeding his guilt.

  If so, an answer doesn’t make itself known during the ride back to the hotel. Once we reach our suite, however, Ronan grabs my shoulder, rooting me to the floor.

  “Please, Snowy.” His voice rasps, breaking openly. “Please. I know you’re angry, and I know you have every right to be,” he adds when I try to break away. “You’re pissed. Okay. Maybe the treatment center idea was too much. So punish me. Go on a wild tour of the strip clubs, or find a cabana boy to scandalize, if you must. Anything but hurt yourself. I can’t…I can’t take it.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I admit. “I just…”

  “It’s okay.”

  I’m in his arms before I know it, squeezed to the point of pain—not that he seems liable to let me go, even if I break. For a split second, I’m his sister again and not a fragile piece of porcelain. I’d suffer any bruise to make this moment last.

  “We fucked up. I know we did. We should have done more, but it’s like you won’t even tell us what happened—”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” I admit, hating myself for ever taking my anger out on him in the first place. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been the easiest to be around lately.”

  “It’s okay.” He grips me tighter. “Just give me something to do—anything at all. Please.”

  Anything? “I want information on the Haven campaign,” I blurt out. “And I want to make a sizeable donation in our name. And…I want to go to her event this week.”

  I’m not sure where the sudden change of heart comes from. Guilt? Or newfound shame? Showing my face for a cause bigger than myself is better than skulking around the suite, tormenting my brothers.

  “The Haven campaign? Riley Haverty’s Haven campaign?” Ronan draws back and eyes me, his mouth wrinkled. Rather than give him an answer, I wait until he nods. “Okay. Fine. Whatever you want. But—”

  I stiffen in advance of his condition. “What?”

  “You meet with your therapist as agreed. Once per week. Deal?”

  I nod, my sigh resigned. “Deal.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  Just how would he find the money to make such a donation? I try not to care. For the first time in days, I feel some semblance of clarity. Normalcy? Hope?

  Maybe Blake Lorenz didn’t destroy all of me. Maybe there’s some small piece of good left in Snowy Hollings. The least I can do is auction it off for a cause that deserves it.

  Chapter 4

  Blake

  Nearly a week later and it’s still all over the papers. Every tabloid, even the odd mainstream imprint, runs the same grainy photo. Her running, her head downcast, eyes so fucking wide.

  Poor, pathetic Hollings girl. That moniker is her identity now, immortalized by the paparazzi in one brutal snapshot—but none of those casual spectators know the real truth behind her tormented expression.

  Little Snow was fleeing from me.

  She was terrified of me.

  “Mr. Lorenz?” The intercom on the end of my desk buzzes, distorting the feminine voice coming through it. “You have a call on line one.”

  I reach out and strike a button on the console so hard the damn thing issues an alarming snap. “Thank you, Emily.”

  It’s about fucking time.

  The phone is in my hand before I even register grabbing it, cradling the receiver against my jaw. “Tell me you’ve done it.”

  “Damn,” a woman replies, her tone crisp. A delicate laugh inserts a false sense of charm that only reinforces the warning I can sense from here. Watch yourself, Lorenz. “Perhaps next time answer with a greeting. Something to make me feel less like an awful, preying vulture than I already do—”

  “I apologize,” I reply smoothly. “Feel free to double my last donation. Satisfied?”

  I wait.

  She’s silent.

  “Now…” My fingers curl against the polished wood of the desk as I fish for the right phrasing. There’s so many fucking things I need to say. Ask. Demand. In the end, I can only spit out, “is it done?”

  “Well, I’ve met her if that’s what you mean,” she replies. I hear her inhale dejectedly. She must be alone, wallowing in her guilt.

  “I’ll triple my donation if you stop beating around the fucking bush.” I yank the phone toward me and stand, turning to the view below. The city sleeps, a maze of gray concrete and twisted metal. Somewhere amongst it all, Snow is hiding away. I’ll let her—for now, but every mouse has to scurry out into the open sometime. “Did you get her to agree or not?”

  “I got her to come if that’s what you mean,” she finally admits. “And trust that I feel disgusting enough to doubt that even your very generous bribe is worth this. Why her? I think the poor girl has been through enough—”

  “You don’t need to concern yourself with her,” I say, forcing more suave politeness into my tone. These days I feel more like Harrison than ever. Always lying, always balanced a
t the edge of a precipice.

  All over a Hollings. The man would have gladly given his soul for Elizabeth, his partner’s wife.

  But I’ve already died for Snowy once.

  “Just tell me again that spiel you spun before,” the woman demands. “I know it’s a lie but I’d like to hear it anyway: you won’t hurt her.”

  “I won’t,” I reply. “Add another zero to my donation if it helps you sleep at night. Just remember our agreement.”

  I hang up, slamming the receiver against the base. Energy surges through my blood, demanding I pace. Crack my knuckles. Anything but sit and fucking wait.

  I’ve gone from clawing my way to the top, to sitting at the top of the fucking pile, always waiting.

  “Mr. Lorenz?” Emily announces through the intercom.

  “What?” I snap without thinking, still stuck on Snowy. She doesn’t understand now, but I’ll make her see. No. More than that… I’ll make her come running to me.

  “You told me to tell you when yesterday’s reports came in,” Emily says, unperturbed by my tone.

  “Right.” I boot up the computer on my desk and open the latest email in my inbox. A smug grin is already forming, tugging at the corner of my mouth. Four businesses in two months, not including Holling’s INC.

  It’s a fucking impressive feat.

  But not impressive enough. Within seconds of scanning the latest corporate holdings, my smile becomes a frown. “Son of a bitch!”

  Where I’ve taken over four of Mayfield’s minor corporations, a foreign investor somehow managed to snag six.

  My eyes narrow over the name and I form a fist, slamming it against my knee.

  Hanz Zipler.

  “Mr. Lorenz?” Emily calls tentatively. “Sorry to intrude, but you have another call. Line 2.”

  My eyes narrow further as I snatch up the receiver, tearing myself from the reports. “This is Blake,” I say gruffly.

  “You were supposed to leave her alone.” This speaker is a man, his words slurring together. He’s drunk, I suspect. Were I in his place, I would be as well. “All of this… You said you’d leave her alone—”

  “And you said you’d stay in fucking Tahiti, or Bali, or wherever the fuck you’ve run off to,” I remind him. “You worry about keeping your head down and scraping together what little pride you have left and leave Snowy Hollings to me.”

  I hang up and grit my teeth, biting down the rage that feels so fucking constant these days. It sustains me more than blood, it feels like. Hate and anger and everything I’ve held onto for so damn long.

  I could swallow up the entire damn city and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  I could amass more money than God.

  Rule the entire goddamn world.

  But claim Snow again? Make her see reason…

  Maybe only that would ever be enough.

  Or fuck, it could just be the beginning of another twisted power play, well beyond my games with Zipler.

  We used to play chess, her and I. She relished the complexities of kings and queens, while I enjoyed the classic appeal of it: power and war. Her tactic was to always go after my most powerful pieces, leaving me with only pawns.

  And, still, I always won.

  Not because I was a better player, she just couldn’t stand to ever deliver the finishing blow.

  “You show your hand too soon,” I used to scold her. “You play softer when you think I’ll lose it all. You let your guard down, Snow. When you think I’m on the brink of destruction, you always back down. That only makes it easier to trap you in the end.”

  If only the world were still as simple as those childish games. The donation to Antonio Sebastián would have made the impact it should have. Snowy would have willingly attended the gala and meeting her there would have resulted in a miraculous reunion. Happy fucking ending.

  Not this. The look on her face made it clear—I’m still the monster of her story. Now more than ever, I’m determined to do whatever it takes to twist that perception. Turn the tide of the game. Then win.

  There is no option other than checkmate.

  Snowy

  The convention center is a sprawling complex in the heart of downtown Mayfield, and I spend almost as much time admiring the building as I do trying to talk myself out of entering it. Not because I’m afraid of being seen. I’m not. It’s just that the Haven campaign is much more well-known than I would have believed.

  Every news organization in the city must be here to cover this event. Cameramen and reporters scour the property, interviewing guests at random.

  Damn. I let loose a resigned sigh as I haul myself from a cab. It will be nearly impossible to sneak in unnoticed. Poor Riley. The last thing she needs is a tabloid headline courtesy of Snowy Hollings, the unstable train wreck who made a spectacle of herself at the Sebastiáns’ gala.

  My brothers couldn’t shield me from the rumors for very long. Sloane herself ensured I caught wind of them by forwarding me a text linking an article sensationalizing my sudden departure. My father threatened to sue, she’d prefaced the message with. One look at the headline and I sensed the narrative being spun.

  DISGRACED HOLLINGS HEIRESS STORMS FROM GALA

  God, I barely recognized myself in the grainy photo attached to the headline.

  No wonder Hunter looked seconds from tethering me to a leash before I left today. How I’d convinced him to let me go to this event alone, I have no idea. Perhaps the promise of this exact kind of publicity is enough to soothe his nerves—after all, anything to redeem the Hollings name.

  Regardless, I soldier onward while clutching my purse to my chest. I’ll make this quick—no hysterics, no scandal. Ronan’s earned that much of a compromise.

  Within minutes, I find Riley Haverty in the largest auditorium, charming a sea of supporters. At a glance, it’s apparent that I missed the memo: Everyone seems to be wearing some shade of crimson, and I assume it must be the campaign’s signature hue. Suddenly self-conscious, I tug at my sleeves. I dressed conservatively today, wearing just a blouse and a demure skirt.

  In contrast, Riley’s confidence permeates every minor detail of the décor. Banners promoting sexual-assault awareness hang from the walls, and sneaking insecurity festers the more I inspect my surroundings. Nearly everyone conveys striking confidence.

  “Snowy?”

  I jump as a warm hand settles over my forearm.

  “You made it!”

  Dazed, I find myself drawn into a hug by Riley Haverty.

  Wearing a blazing shade of crimson, she cuts a commanding figure. “I had a feeling you would. Tada!” She reaches into a leather handbag and withdraws a small square of plastic: a name tag.

  I gape, stunned. “I…I can’t—”

  “And you don’t have to,” she insists, dragging me forward, deeper into the auditorium.

  We draw notice with every step, and I recognize the flash of cameras in our wake. Whether I want it to or not, word of my arrival will spread, and I cringe at how my family’s taint might soil such an event.

  “I just wanted to present this to you in person. Here—” I reach into my bag for an envelope and press it into her hand. The crumpled thing is damp with my sweat. Ronan came through with his magic donation, though I’m not brave enough to see the amount for myself. “It’s nowhere near what you deserve, but—”

  “It’s more than enough,” Riley says warmly. “And you being here is even more appreciated than money.”

  “Really?”

  She winks. “Immensely.”

  The way she speaks weaves a spell that instantly relieves some of my nerves. Her poise is infectious.

  “Stay for a bit,” she implores. “Here—” As we approach a table sporting brochures containing information about the Haven campaign, she lifts a stack and hands them to me. “Pass these out. Smile. Trust me—your presence alone goes a million miles.”

  It’s only now that I read the tagline accompanying the branding for this event. Featuring speaker
s: Riley Haverty, Chloe Pracile, Amy Harville, and Snowy Hollings.

  I wince. Suddenly, my fingers are shaking too badly to hold anything, and the brochures fall to the floor. “I didn’t… I can’t speak,” I say, stumbling over the words. “I’m sorry if you thought—”

  “Oh, damn.” Sighing, Riley sinks to her knees and gathers the pamphlets. Then she looks up, biting her lower lip. “I jumped the gun again, didn’t I?”

  Am I angry? I don’t know. My emotions feel too sluggish to reach my brain, as though they’re trapped behind something solid. Eventually, I settle on a name for the feeling tearing through my veins. Guilt. Out of all of those women, I don’t belong here.

  “I should go—”

  “Please don’t.” Riley imploringly clasps a hand over her chest. “Please. I… It’s just, if you don’t mind my pointing it out, you were assaulted by someone close to you,” she says, her tone soft. “That’s the open secret: Most assaults come from the people we trust the most. Friends. Neighbors. Parents—”

  I wince, though Riley doesn’t seem to notice.

  She clasps one of my hands in both of her own. “I’m sorry if I overstepped. At least listen to a few of our keynotes. I’ll apologize for the confusion myself, and I won’t drag you on stage without your permission. I promise.”

  Before I can reply, the lights dim and another woman takes the stage, announcing the start of the event.

  “Please,” Riley mouths before taking off to the front. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  I waver on the tips of my toes, eyeing the doorway to the auditorium. A part of me wants to leave, remembering Sloane’s warning. Or maybe it’s just cowardice; here, I’m forced to stand without my mask. I’m just Snowy, a spectator like so many others. Alone, I settle against the back wall and just watch.

  The speakers range in ages from barely eighteen to twice as old. Their stories are harrowing, detailing horrific abuse that puts anything I’ve experienced to shame. As Riley mentioned, there is a disturbing theme: friends, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers. The worst abuse seems to come from within, and I can’t help but picture Papa. I think it’s the first time I ever let myself put him in that dangerous context I’ve avoided for so long: abuser. Denial is a Hollings defining trait, and I’ve admittedly painted his memory in so many bright shades to make it easier to look back and not…