Chapter 41
Clara
The last thing I want to do when I’m already questioning my humanity is deal with Trevor again. Luckily, I’ve managed to avoid being alone with him since the pool incident, but his bandaged hand is a constant reminder of our fight. It’s all I can do to keep an indifferent mask glued to my face.
It was a close call. Too close of one.
When we came back, I knew this plan would be all but impossible, that whatever glimmer of innocence I still had would be forever tainted, but still.
This is so much worse than I’d imagined.
The risks that seemed like puzzles to solve while sitting around a fire with the men of my heart are horrifically real now that I’m living through them.
I tortured someone. Then Trips killed him. And later that night, his mouth nestled beside my ear, he kept telling me—telling himself—that at least we knew this guy deserved it.
That doesn’t make us the good guys, though.
I scratched out a coded response to Walker’s question on Thursday, passing it off to Jonah without comment. He’s one piece of the puzzle that I didn’t know we’d need, but he’s ended up invaluable.
The answer isn’t what Trips would want from me.
It turns out that even after beating a man near to death, after shooting another, after staining my soul with blood and death and curated indifference, even after all that, I can’t put Bryce on that list. I hate him; he’s dangerous, but he’s mostly a broken man at this point.
I can’t sentence him to death, not now. For all I’m pretending to be a psycho bitch, I’m not.
And his name on that list would make me one.
A thought has spiraled in my head since that night, something Walker said to me more than a year ago—that the black sticks to you, settles into the creases of your skin, and you’ll never be clean again.
I get it now.
I wish I didn’t.
Trips’ blank, rage-filled mask might be on display, but I can tell he’s not okay, either. Whenever we’re close enough, he pulls me to him, interlocking our fingers, or running a knuckle across my skin. I’m his security blanket.
I’m okay with that. He needs comfort, and so do I. But we’re still in this gilded cage, still watched all the time, even if we’re allowed to walk the halls with minimal security now.
A death for a longer leash.
We’ve gotten where we wanted to be—distracting enough to cover for the guys, trustworthy enough not to be under constant surveillance.
I didn’t understand what it would cost all those months ago.
Trips is off sparring with Falk, so I wander the estate alone. There are so many nooks and crannies, spaces I might need to know for our plan to go well. But instead of focusing on what-ifs, I take a winding path to the gallery.
RJ and Jansen taught me what to look for, and I can tell that the security is the same as when Trips lived here as a kid.
The same safeguards and lockdown protocols are probably unchanged as well.
I pretend to be unbothered, simply taking in the art, but as I approach the small sketch of lions and tigers in the corner, a shiver runs down my spine.
How is what I’m doing in this house any different from when I ran into that dark alley with nothing but a half-assed idea and a winded Trips as backup?
I want this to work. I need it to. But that doesn’t mean it will.
Nothing in my life has panned out the way I thought it would, and I can’t see a lifetime of disappointment changing just because I took my time with this plan, took more advice and recommendations from my team.
I still put myself on the line, with a damaged Trips as my sidekick.
I miss my guys so much it’s a steady ache in my chest. I miss Emma, and coffee, and the warm rumbles of Fluffington’s purrs around my neck.
The urge to touch the drawing, just to feel closer to Walker, to a time when, while everything was still shit, at least we were all together, calls. I step close enough that I imagine I can smell the chalk dust from the drawing and wood glue on the frame.
“You know you won’t be able to steal it back, right? That if you so much as brush the frame, the room locks down?”
The humor in Trips’ father’s voice grates. There’s nothing funny about the way he caught us all.
“Is your security really that tight? Aren’t people always the weak points, anyway?” I reply.
“That’s why I keep my people in an even tighter lockdown, Ms. McElroy. Certainly you know that.”
Turning, I find the man in baggy weekend clothes, the jeans and sweater different from his typical vibe of malice and superiority. He’s smaller than last week, whatever treatment he’s getting either not working, or taking more from him than he’d planned for.
I stroll along the edge of the room, running my finger under the frames in the safe zone, 10 inches down, feeling the weight of his eyes on me.
“Why art?” I ask.
“Why not?”
I shake my head, both as a role and a response. “You could have any rich man’s collection. But you chose art. Classical mostly, but with a side interest in Baroque and the Impressionists. There must be a reason.”
He settles onto one of the padded benches across from a painting of a ship at sea, a storm threatening to devour it. “Because my second wife loved art.”
It’s not what I expected. Trips never mentioned it, so I wonder if he even knows. “Was this room set up before or after she died?”
“I’d started it before, but she passed before she could enjoy it.”
“What about the rose garden?”
He crosses his ankle over his knee, his gaze heavy on me, but I can’t help but notice that he’s sitting, resting.
Weak. “You might see me as a monster, but I care for my family. Everything I’ve ever done has been for their benefit.
I have a feeling you’d go to similar lengths to keep those you care about safe. In fact, you already have.”
I stay silent, unwilling to admit a modicum of similarity to the man across from me. Instead, I lean against the wall, kicking my foot up against it, going for insubordinate street thug even though that’s never been me.
“I’ve been waiting on my list, Ms. McElroy. I want to give you and my son the wedding you deserve, to have people you care about standing beside you. But first, I must have what I’ve asked for.”
I glance across the room, my eyes drawn once again to the Rubens. “I have a feeling it will come through this weekend.”
“Funny. There hasn’t been much communication worth tracking on that phone I gave you.”
I shrug, sticking to my role. “They know what I’m looking for. There’s just a few final details to iron out.”
The echo of his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth startles me enough that I jump, my heart rate skyrocketing.
I keep a calm facade, but I’m in danger of losing consciousness, my pulse whooshing in my ears.
My damn panic triggers only make sense half the time.
But I can’t pass out. Not right now. Not in front of this man.
His words float to me like I’m underwater as I force my breath to come in even waves instead of panicked pants. “Then I guess I’ll wait with bated breath. If I don’t have a list by the end of the weekend, though, our deal is void.”
“Understood,” I croak before I spin on my heel, forcing myself to walk calmly out even as my vision turns dark at the edges.
I make it to the powder room across the hall only a moment before my vision narrows, forcing me to slide down the wall and sprawl on the floor. Reality expands and contracts around me, my heart and lungs and tingling fingers and toes all sending conflicting messages to my stupid, damaged brain.
But I breathe, tears blurring my vision, and wait as I flash from hot to cold, sweat and shivers mixing like a panic-fueled spa treatment.
I don’t know how long I lay there, my hands trembling and the gaudy chandelier mocking me with its undimmable lights, but eventually, my fight-or-flight fades to anxious exhaustion.
I’m not broken, I chant to myself, Maria’s voice reminding me again that this is normal. That when a body has too many shocks, it assumes the worst, even if nothing bad has happened right then. That I’m sane, I’m capable, and most of all, I’m surviving.
I probably never had a chance at a non-responsive body—my struggle predestined by some combination of genetics and my mother’s abuse. But I’m still here. I’m still fighting for what I want, even if my adrenal system overreacts.
Once I’m mostly in control of myself, I push to my feet, splash cold water on my face, and grip the icy porcelain like an anchor. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “I’m fine.”
And I’m not lying to myself. If after all this shit, this is the worst panic attack I’ve had here, then I’m doing better than I imagined I would. Better than we’d planned for.
I’m fine enough. And we’re only a few weeks from the wedding.
I’ll make it. I won’t crumble, and crying isn’t weak—getting back up makes me strong.
So I do exactly that. I visit the absurd library I found on my way to the gallery, then settle onto one of the cushy chairs in the blue room across from the unlit fireplace and read until it’s dark enough that I can’t see my charcoal scratches on the walls.
A buzz from my Westerhouse-approved cellphone breaks my recovery, the quiet hum of Trips in the shower encouraging the electricity under my skin as I open the message we all knew was coming.
And there, at the top of the list of organ donors, is Bryce Mason.