Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Sage
Predictably, Nic doesn't take the news that Dad is still alive well. Though he does quieten down and stop trying to fight Angie.
The blindfolds aren't taken off until we're inside the building and Angie disappears, only leaving behind one guard. As usual, only one stays behind to see me home safe. Even I don't get the privilege of knowing the actual location of this building.
That's probably for the best. I'm breaking a hundred rules and even more promises just by being here. And a thousand more by bringing Nic.
"Come on," I say, gesturing to Nic to follow me down the familiar corridor.
The inside of this building looks like the set of a horror movie.
Whether that's to help Angie's cover or not, it's still creepy as hell.
The sound of a gun clicking echoes and I turn behind me to find Nic has drawn his weapon.
I suppose this does look like a place people come to get chased down by killer clowns.
We climb two flights of stairs until finally coming to our destination. I pause with my hand on the door, gathering my courage before I swing it open and we step inside.
Just like that, Nicholas knows my biggest secret.
"Oh." There's a nurse sitting next to a hospital bed, reading a magazine. She places it down when she finds us in her space, smiling gently at me. "Visitors. Sage, you brought a friend."
Nicholas's weapons clang to the floor. My eyes first go to where they've dropped and then up to him, as he looks at the hospital bed in horror.
"I didn't actually believe you."
Nic's eyes dart frantically over the room. I watch them as they land, taking in one unfathomable sight after the next. The nurse, the medical equipment, the heart rate monitor beeping steadily in the background.
The patient in the bed.
"Holy fuck," Nic says, doubling over. "Holy fuck, Sage!"
"Ssh, way too loud," the nurse scolds. She gives me a questioning look, her hand reaching for the panic button but I just shake my head. Her returning look is judgmental, but she lets it go.
"Dimitri," Nic says, dropping to the floor beside Dad's bed. "He's alive."
Confusion blooms across his face, before tears begin to form in his eyes. I don't think I've ever seen Nicholas cry.
"Yes," I nod. "My father is still alive. And if you want to keep it that way you will keep this to yourself."
"Well, he hasn't woken from his coma since the accident," the nurse chimes in, giving Nic a sympathetic smile. "There's no way to know if he ever will."
"I'm optimistic."
"Doesn't sound like you," she jokes and I smile.
"How? How have you kept this secret?" Nic asks, his jaw clenching. "Why would you keep this a secret? Your marriage to Victor is predicated on your father being dead. Which he is not!"
I shift nervously on my feet. This is an angle I hadn't considered. I'd anticipated Nic's anger about being kept in the dark. But not once did my thoughts stray to Victor and what Dad being alive means for us.
"Anton and I decided to keep him alive in secret so that whoever wanted him dead would leave him alone."
"Anton? Anton's in on this?" Nic says, giving an annoyed puff and shaking his head. "So Anton is well aware there's a trump card to your fucking wedding sitting in this hospital bed."
"Are you serious?" I say, remaining deadly calm. He must hear the warning in my tone. "Dad's life is not a fucking trump card. It's safer for him here. And it's safer that the least amount of people know."
"Fucking Angie," Nic seethes. "Of course, she'd be behind this."
"Hey," I snap, stepping towards him and pushing my finger into his chest. "The only people in the world who know about this are me, Anton, Angie and now... you. Don't waste the trust I'm placing in you, Nic."
Nic purses his lips as he looks between me and where my father lays. "I am undoubtedly grateful that Dimitri is alive," he says, jaw grating hard. "Don't get me wrong, I am. But why? Why would you keep this a secret? You'd never have to marry Victor if you hadn't."
I have nothing to say to that. These are all facts that I know. All facts that Uncle Anton knows as well. Yet we've still made these choices. Still set ourselves on this path.
He drops into a chair next to the bed, looking exasperated and unsure. A look I've never seen from him. "I can't believe you hid this from me."
I gulp, but find the answer forming in my throat to be raw, rude, and completely honest. "It had to be done."
By the time we sneak back into the mansion, the party is long over. If anyone noticed the guest of honor missing, the commotion must have long since drowned out.
Nic has not calmed down even slightly on the drive back home.
The one guard left to blindfold us and take us back ended up with one black eye.
I don't know what I expected from him finding out that Dad is still alive.
It wasn't this, though. It wasn't that he'd be so angry with me that he'd barely be able to look at me.
In my heart, trusting him feels like the right choice. I don't want to listen to the devil on my shoulder that is telling me to doubt his intentions.
The whole way across the back lawns towards the house, Nic stomps ahead of me without even stopping to check that I'm following him.
"Well, well, well, look who has deigned to return," Freddie says, stepping out of the shadows on the back porch and scaring the shit out of me.
"Jesus!" I clutch my hand to my heart. "Don't do that."
Nic goes to open the back door to the house, giving Freddie a stern look. "Yes, we're back. And you're in big fucking trouble."
Freddie cringes. "Only took my eye off her for a second."
Nic raises his brow. "She only needs half a second."
Nic continues into the house and Freddie gives me a pleading look. The best I can give him is a bright, bratty smile. I follow Nic through the kitchens into the foyer, pressing my back up against the wall in an attempt to tiptoe upstairs without him seeing.
"Oh, no you don't." My wrist is grabbed and I'm tugged away from my escape route with a pout.
"Where are you taking me? You can't kill me! I'm important!" I feign, as I struggle against him.
Nic makes an amused sound. "Back to my room. You're with me tonight."
"Oh," I say, my voice taking on a flirty tone.
We stop in front of his room on the ground floor and he raises a brow at me as he opens the door, gesturing for me to step inside first.
Curious mind getting the best of me, I rush inside and look around.
His room is tucked on the first floor with a beautiful view over the back gardens. It's small with only a double bed pushed up against the wall, a desk and a door that I assume leads to a private bathroom.
My fingers are itching at my sides to touch everything that I know he owns and sniff his sheets. I might wait until he's asleep to do that last one.
"I know you're eager to snoop, but can it wait?" Nicholas says.
"Can we fuck first and fight later?" I grimace.
Nic runs a hand over his face, but he does smile at me from where he stands across the room. In a few steps, he's in front of me and holding both my hands in his.
"I'm sorry for what you've gone through," he says. "All of it. But it can all stop now. With your father. You need to use him."
I pull my hands away from his and step away. "How can you even ask that of me? I could never."
"He'd want you to," Nic says, eyes pleading. "If he were awake, he'd tell you to."
Tears build in my eyes, pouring out the overflow from my aching heart. "But he's not awake, is he? Sure, he's alive. But he can't tell them this isn't what he wanted."
"Risk it."
"No," I say, spinning on Nic. "Anton won't risk Dad and neither will I."
"But you'll risk you?" Nic shouts, giving me a wide-eyed stare. "Unbelievable," I hear him mutter under his breath.
I storm past him, but he catches me on the way, spinning me back to him. When I turn around, he's right in front of me and I gasp. Gone, though, is the hard angry glare. What I see in his eyes is someone who looks... scared.
He licks his lip. "I know you planted a cloning device on Victor's phone. Which I assume now that you got from fucking Angie, but-"
"Nic-"
"Ssh, it doesn't matter," he says, staring earnestly into my eyes. "I know you think it's the Rushkoffs behind this. I don't."
I frown. How could he possibly-
He runs a thumb over my cheek before his hands drift down my back, slipping to the place where the olive dress parts and running his palm over my scars.
"How'd you get the scars, Sage?"
My body chills.
It's incredibly strange. How I can go months, sometimes years, without thinking of the night when I got my scars. How I can feel nothing. And then, just like that, one reminder, and I'm back in that cellar with florescent lights flicking over my head. Losing all sense of time as I lose my mind.
Tears brim in my eyes.
"Someone has a vendetta to finish," Nic says.
Goosebumps take hold of my skin and I suddenly flush cold.
"You think he has come back to finish what he started?"
Nic nods solemnly.
"What?" I say. "How could you possibly know that?"
"Anton, Dimitri and I fended off multiple attacks before your father was hurt. Whatever this is, it didn't start with the marriage contract."
I already know that. But I don't say it.
"Dimitri had a death promise with him," Nic raises his brows meaningfully. "He had spent the last few years trying to find him to exact revenge for you. You know what a death promise is?"
I nod. "In our world it's like signaling war? Black roses are exchanged to signify the two people are going to fight to the death."
"Half right," Nic explains. "The exchange means a fight to the death with no interference. Neither party can use their army or any backup. It's barbaric," he shakes his head, "but it's a challenge of strength and honor."
"You think he was after me, because of this death promise? That makes no sense - then his vendetta would be with my father-" I clutch a hand to my chest, breaking the contact with Nic as my breaths start to come in harsh. I'm hyperventilating.