Chapter 44
Clara
The list stares at me, my guilt heavy like the gray sky outside. But there’s nothing I can do. It’s sent. It’s probably already being reviewed. The guys knew that. And even if they haven’t gotten my note yet, they wouldn’t send the list without my input.
So, what the hell happened that led them to include Bryce on what amounts to a hit list?
I’m pulled into the old man’s study before I can figure out how to word my text asking that exact question.
Trips’ dad takes the phone back after congratulating me on the list, letting me know that Trips and I both get someone to stand with us at the wedding, so long as those someones aren’t Emma or Jansen.
I pass on Summer’s contact information, a little disappointed that I can’t get Emma through the door. The guys will have to reach out to Trips before he chooses his guest. Too much has probably changed for him to pick blindly.
Our invite list amounts to two, plus my parents. Everybody else at my wedding will be there at the behest of the man pulling all our strings.
Late that night, in careful words, I explain to Trips what’s going on, our win coupled with my accidental guilt. But, like me, he has no choice but to trust that Bryce is on that list for a reason. He’s not as bothered by it as I am.
On Sunday, Summer gets ushered onto the estate, her dress fitting happening as soon as possible, the wedding date sneaking up on us.
The hug she gives me is strong, genuine, and I almost cry.
I stop myself, but her slightly pained grin says it all—she knows how fucked up this whole situation is, and she can see the toll it’s taking on me.
The dress fitting is the most fun I’ve had in months, though. Chatting, teasing, sipping on mocktails and eating expensive cheese with our fingers. It’s almost like I’m hanging out with an actual friend, not just someone I’ve worked with a handful of times.
If we get through this charade, we might get a chance at this friendship thing. And despite our rocky start, I think we could end up really good friends.
As much fun as Summer and I are having, however, Mattie only stops in for the bare minimum ten minutes it takes for her to pull on the dark gray gown I talked the wedding planner into (because honestly, this thing is closer to a funeral than a wedding), get poked with a few pins, and leave.
“Wow. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree around here, does it?” Summer asks after Mattie slips away.
“That’s actually not like her at all.” The woman pinning my blousy sleeves to the exact right spot on my arms slides her eyes at me, like I’m secretly a Bridezilla for not making the girl feel welcome.
Summer only raises a brow, as I warned her about the recording devices when I told her she might be invited to my wedding, all those months ago. She’s been careful with her words, and I’m glad my warning stuck.
Blinking up at the ceiling, not wanting her to read how freaked out I am, I simply say, “We had a bad night. Really bad. And Mattie walked in on it. I think I scared her.”
“You?” Summer laughs, something hearty and real.
“I can be scary,” I say, knowing I sound like a whiny toddler telling the sitter that I don’t need a nap anymore.
“Right.”
The thing is, I can be. I’ve killed someone. I’ve beaten someone unconscious. Hell, I’ve sliced up a man simply for doing his job. But I can’t tell Summer any of that. Not here. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Who wants to be friends with a killer? With the girl who forced her best friend to do illegal surgery on her boyfriend, risking both her future and his life?
Why would anyone ever want to be in the same room as the person I’m turning into?
I must have been quiet for too long, staring at the door Mattie slipped from and not blaming her an ounce, because Summer clears her throat.
“Listen. You know a bit about my past, right?”
I blink back to the moment, glancing over at the woman I thought was made of ice when I met her, now lounging with one leg over the arm of a chair, pulling a scrunchy off her wrist and wrapping her blonde hair into a messy pile on top of her head. “Jansen told me a few things,” I say.
Her mouth turns down into a pretty pout. “Yeah. Let’s just say it got worse after that. Then it got better. And now, here I am, the woman before you. We all do what we’ve got to do to survive, you know?”
The woman pinning my dress finally lets me off the block, and I duck behind a screen to strip off the heavy lace. “But is that all there is? Just survival?” The question is one I’m not sure I want an honest answer to.
“For people like us, I’d say survival is plenty better than the alternative.”
A hint of tears flickers in the corner of my eyes, like that one panic attack unlocked the door on the vault where I keep all my messy emotions, and now they’re bleeding out right when I need to get my head in the game. “True. But is it foolish to want more?”
Summer’s quiet for a while as I pull on the soft sweater and jeans I picked out this morning. When I come around the screen, she’s staring out at the snow, looking once again like she should be made of ice, despite being as casual as I’ve ever seen her.
“Summer?”
She swallows. “It’s not foolish to hope. But it’s heartrending when that hope shatters.” She turns, her eyes serious. “You only get the one heart. And only you can keep it in one piece.”
I mull over her words for the next few weeks.
I don’t know if they’re right.
But if they are?
I’m totally fucked.
Because my heart is already in four pieces, bleeding from the edges of my gilded cage.