Chapter Forty-One
FORTY-ONE
Rocky
Phoebe twirls as we enter Stonehaven’s stainless-steel kitchen, one that’d be the envy of any chef. It’s wiped clean this late at night. I flip on the lights as Phoebe takes a dramatic curtsy, a crystal tiara nestled in her blue hair and Miss Victoria’s Sweetheart sash draped across her body.
She’s genuinely happy, and amid all the unknown about this high-risk job, it’s hard not to be with Phoebe. We’ve never been more on the same page in the same book. I know whatever happens, I will have her and she’ll have me.
I bring my hands together. Clapping. “Way to milk the victory lap.”
She flips me off with two fingers. “Not everyone is as humble as Jake.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she snipes back, and I smile right as the thirdborn Koning walks into the kitchen wearing a sash and crown. Hailey, Oliver, and Trevor in tow.
Oliver applauds less mockingly. “Mr. Victoria’s Sweetheart. Long may he reign.”
“Six years in a row,” Hailey says while Phoebe takes off her tiara and places it on her best friend’s head. Cute. Hailey grins.
Jake tugs open the fridge. “I voted for you, you know,” he tells me.
“Thanks, Jake,” I say dryly, resting my elbows on the island, keeping an eye on my brother as he screws off the cap to a beer. “Like I was attempting to win a dinky little trophy.”
“A beautiful, elegant crown,” Phoebe rephrases.
“A cheap piece of plastic.”
“Crystal,” Hailey corrects, reaching up and touching the tiara.
Phoebe crosses her arms haughtily. Her smug smile on me. “Sounds like a sore loser.”
“I’m chronically annoyed at everything and everyone,” I remind her. “Losing the title of Victoria’s Sweetheart isn’t changing that.” I force a smile.
She’s about to respond when we hear a loud thump and shattering. I’m a bullet. Sprinting, racing toward the noise.
Fuck, fuck. At the bottom of the wooden staircase, Varrick has thrusted Nova up against the green wallpaper, pinning the side of his face to what remains of a broken mirror. Pieces of glass and gold frame are broken at their feet.
“HEY!” I yell, tearing Varrick off Phoebe’s brother. I wedge myself between them. Neither one moves a muscle. Their eyes are screaming at each other.
“Nov?” Oliver asks in the background, a soft Are you okay?
Nova isn’t tearing his glower off Varrick. He isn’t touching his face, not even as blood trickles down his cheek from a massive cut.
I push Varrick in the chest, backing him up even more. “What the fuck was that?” Did he finally break?
He exhales through his nose. “This isn’t how you establish trust.” The Bennet brothers are thankfully not here tonight. They’ve been staying less and less at Stonehaven due to the rumors of Varrick narrowing down his choice to a Thornhall, and Trent likes to creep in past three a.m. to avoid me.
“Nova?” I ask him.
“He caught me,” Nova says, which tenses the entire room. “He found out I bribed the clerk at the bookstore to hand over security footage of the past year. He knows I’ve been combing through videos. To see if he ever broke into Phoebe’s loft.”
What we all asked Nova to do.
I cock my head at Varrick. He’s viscerally angry. “Are you upset because you were caught?”
“Ask me, Brayden,” Varrick retorts, his glower veering to me. “All you have to do is ask. I told you I’d be honest.”
“Great.” I drop my hand off his chest. “Did you break into the loft above Baubles & Bookends?”
“Yes. I was profiling you. Of course I did.”
Is that all you were doing? I want to ask. Were you not rifling through boxes of condoms? I know not to lead him there. And the others know not to open their mouths and question him. That is my role. What I am trained to handle.
“You would do the same,” Varrick says as if it’s just smart business. “You’re doing the same right now.” He stares around at everyone. “You’re here to be closer to me, to learn more about me.”
No. It’s not why we’re here.
It’s not why we accepted the invite to summer at Stonehaven on day one.
But I nod a few times, letting him believe what he wants to believe. He watches Phoebe put the inside of her elbow to her mouth. She’s sheet white, and she bolts for the nearest bathroom. Hailey runs after her.
I’m actually concerned, only because she just made herself sick on purpose.
Varrick thinks she’s pregnant. We’ve kept Hailey’s prenatal vitamins in Phoebe’s bedroom for him to find if he ever decides to snoop again. It’s safer if we direct his attention off the real baby.
The twisted things we do to keep one another safe.
As our eyes meet, I tell him, “We’ve just recently been betrayed by our parents. We’re shaken. Give us some leeway here.”
Varrick eases, his warm hand on my shoulder. “Just remember, I’m not them.”
“I know.” You’re worse.
Nova storms away, and quickly, I assure Varrick, “I’ll talk to him,” and I chase after Nova as he barrels out the heavy front doors.
“Nova!” I yell, the wolf knockers clattering behind me as the doors bang shut. He’s skipping steps as he heads down the winding staircase cut into the rock. The stone is wet, but solar lights illuminate the pathway in the dark. “Nova! Winchester!! Slow down, man!”
Nova lands on the wooden dock. I’m hot on his heels as he walks around to where Oliver’s speedboat is tied off. The Salty Miss sways against rough waves.
“You really want to sleep on that tonight?” I question. “You’re going to hurl, and your face—”
He just now touches his cheek. Just registering he’s been cut. His face broke the mirror. He sees the blood on his fingertips.
“It looks deep,” I tell him, hovering while he reaches for the rope tied around a metal cleat. “Nova.”
“What?!” He straightens up, his pain so forceful, I feel asphyxiated the second he looks at me. Like he’s shoving all the torture down my throat. “Better me than my brother.”
Meaning Oliver’s cut from his shaving mishap did not scar. The one on Nova’s face—yeah, that is going to leave a lasting mark.
This isn’t a typical bad night from a shitty job, the way he’s making it out to seem.
We’re both breathing hard, and Nova points back up at the mansion. “He’s not the first father figure who’s hit me.”
“But he’s the first one who’s actually your father.”
He shifts, turning his back to me, crouching to unspool the rope.
“It’s almost over. Just come back inside, man. You’re going to worry your sister and your fucking brother.” He ignores me. “You’re worrying me.” Not that he cares.
“I can’t stay there right now, Rock. I’m getting a room at the Harbor Hotel.” His voice is final, resolute. There is no swaying Nova Graves tonight.
Understood.
I tell him I’ll untie the last cleat. He reaches out for the Salty Miss, about to climb on board. Then he twists back to me. “Do me a favor. When all this is over, the next time you see that motherfucker”—he takes a hot breath—“give him a fuck you from the last Wolfe.”
It barrels into me.
Who I am.
The real last Wolfe alive.