Elle
I couldn’t go back to the Parrish estate ever again to get answers from Delphine or Silas, but what about Jarett?
Was Mum right that he’d just been on a bad trip? Or was I right that something or rather someone had happened to him? I’d been so focused on Harod’s description of Jarrett’s companion that I’d let it blind me from the Auclairs. That and my own hatred. I hate Jarrett, and finding out that Bart Auclair was involved won’t change that.
I hop out of the rideshare into the chilly night air and pull Gant’s trench coat tighter as I slip up the stairs to house nine-hundred and twelve. I don’t knock. Instead, I use my key, take a breath and push myself back into my past one last time.
The house looks the same as always, a dreary cave of dark greens and browns. Through the breakfast nook, I spot Jarett like I’d hoped. Despite his new delicate condition, I suppose old habits, like being a drunken night owl, died hard because he’s snug in the recliner in front of the TV. There’s a beer in the cup holder, his tired feet from a long, hard day of doing fuck-all elevated.
Of course, he’s here. Of course, Jaime didn’t kick him out once he was sober. Why would she when she’d already gotten rid of her daughter, the only person who had a problem with Jarett, to begin with?
Dragging slippers across the linoleum alerts me to someone shuffling around in the kitchen. Someone who rushes out to the entryway to greet me, because who else besides me had a key?
“Ellie,” Mum smiles like always. Like nothing is amiss, and it isn’t nearly one a.m. as she scours around to make Jarett’s favourite chicken wings. “You came…you’re here.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m standing in your kitchen at one in the morning?” I ask, sticking my hands in my coat pockets and sliding past her outstretched arms.
“I want to, ” she says hastily, wiping her hands on her apron and leaving a smear of lemon pepper sauce and spices. “But I don’t think that’s important right now. What’s important is that you’re home. That you knew you could come home to your family no matter the circumstance.”
Hmm . I cock my head. “You know, I’ve been thinking about family a lot lately.”
Her face lights up. “Have you?”
I nod. “It’s been a running theme for the past few days. Family, blood, and belonging. And not belonging here, there or anywhere. It made me think of Jarett, who's suddenly found home again, and suddenly I needed to see him so badly that I couldn’t wait for the sunrise.”
More light blooms behind her green irises. More light than I’d ever seen her shine on me before.
“, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that. How happy we are to hear that, right Jay?”
We.
“Jarrett?” I ask quietly, following Jaime into the dark living room. All I want is to bombard him with questions, but his jump at my muted whisper pushes me into a gentler mood.
Patience. Be patient.
I eye Jarrett’s profile. So like Silas’, but something’s gone from his expression. Not just his cruelty, but his seeming awareness. It’s like the awakening of adulthood has left his eyes, and he’s regressed into a child with limited emotions because hormones haven’t flooded him yet.
“Jarett?” Jaime calls again. “Ellie’s here to see you. Can you believe it?”
Jarett just stares at the flashing images of the car program on the TV screen.
“Why don’t I let you two catch up?” she says, her expression falling so fast and hard it’s obvious she’s hiding it as she turns her back on us. “I have some chicken wings to season. Jarett asked, and I couldn’t say no since he’s finally talking a little more now.”
Of course, you couldn’t. But I perk at the update. If he talks a bit more, maybe he could answer me if I prompt him hard enough.
I watch her go, but Jarett doesn’t notice, too caught up in his trance.
“I thought you were on drugs at first,” I say, slipping onto a recliner beside him. “Then I thought the Parrishs had done something horrible to you. Like you always did to me. To us.” I nod to the kitchen, not that he notices. Not that a single word seems to register in his addled mind. “Do you know why I thought you were with your brother Silas? ”
Jarett’s eyes stop following the flickering images. He’s still looking at the TV, but he seems to be listening to me.
“I thought maybe Silas, your brother ,” I reiterate, stressing the last words, “was angry with you because you had an affair with his first love, Marisol. You know, Bart Auclair’s wife? My old ballet teacher?”
Nothing. Just blankness as he blinks.
“Because Harod from The Watering Hole told me that he saw you again with a boy. A tall, blonde boy. Silas has a son who looks like that. I thought maybe you were with him. But why would you be drinking with your nephew if his father abducted you because he was angry with you over a two-year-old affair?”
He blinks, first left, then right.
“And why would Silas keep you for two years? It didn’t make sense. So then I thought, no, maybe Silas was hiding you from Bart Auclair’s wrath because he’s your brother. Maybe, despite the estrangement, he still wanted to protect you. I mean, everyone in èze saw that sex video. It’s not hard to believe that he saw it, too, and he’s loaded. He has the resources to go up against Bart Auclair …” I turn to face her fully, my elbow digging into the armrest. “But if that were the case, why would you come back home recessed and not healthy? Then it finally clicked. You weren’t with your brother, and you weren’t high, laced with some mystery drug from Last Night’s concert at The Watering Hole . You were tortured, beaten for information Bart Auclair wanted, right?”
Nothing.
“That’s who you were with for the past two years, right? Bart Auclair?”
Silence stretches on for what seems like hours, but then Jarett’s lips move, and he babbles, “B-Bart?”
I slip in front of him, in front of the TV, so that he’s forced to look at me although his eyes are vacant.
So he does know Gant’s father, but what about Gant himself?
I remember the way Gant had looked at my childhood home when I wasn’t even in front of it. I’d thought maybe he knew my old address from stalking me, but no, he knew the house because he sent Jarett back to it with his father.
The revelation doesn’t move nor surprise me. He said he’d do anything, anything to drive me straight back into his arms.
“Maybe you were with Gant Auclair, too?” I ask my throat so damn dry.
Nothing.
“He’s my tormentor, too.” Just like you were. The person meant to keep me safe. “Every time I think I’ve escaped him, he’s captured me in a cage again.”
“Cage?”
My eyes snap to his. I hadn’t seen a cage, but I’d seen a big empty tank…
“In his penthouse?” I ask. “He put you in a cage?” That would explain his canine behaviour.
“High.”
“High up. The penthouse is high up.” I nod, my heart racing in my ears as I sit up on my knees.
“Dove,” he whispers, and then his eyes bore into me. “Little Dove.”
I swallow, hard, trying to keep my emotions at bay. “They wanted to get information out of you. Information about Marisol Pelletier , my former dance instructor, but they couldn’t, right?”
“Marisol.”
“Marisol, right. She was Bart’s wife. The woman you had an affair with — ”
“I don’t know,” he interrupts me, but suddenly his voice sounds robotic as if on autoplay.
“I think you do… Think, Jarett — ”
“ I don’t know, ” he repeats, and then his face contorts with the frenzy of his spewing words. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know — ”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, gazing over his shoulder and into the kitchen to see if his guardian angel is flapping over to protect him.
“I don’t know,” he says again, slower this time. “One time. Just one time.”
My mind races because suddenly, I realise he’s been answering me all along. “One time with Madame Marisol?”
“One time. One. Just one,” he says again.
“In the shower?”
“Shower. Just one.”
“Did you meet Marisol because of my dance classes? Or did you know her through your brother?”
Before I can say his name, Jarett blurts, “Silas.”
“Yes, Silas!” I say, before lowering my voice and trying to contain my excitement at finally getting somewhere. “Did you know Madame through Silas? Did you know she was trying to get revenge on Silas? Did you know she had a baby with him?”
No response. I’m asking too many questions at once, and I can tell he’s starting to shut down.
“Madame Marisol,” I try again. “You didn’t know her before the shower?”
“One time,” he babbles. “Called me. won.”
“Won,” I mutter. “Madame called you because I won?”
Won…won what?
“ won,” he repeats.
My brows knit. The only thing I’d won in my entire life was —
Soft footsteps on the shag carpet pull me out of my trance. Jaime’s carrying a tray of crispy, steaming wings.
“,” she says, oblivious to Jarett slipping out of his psychosis a fraction. “I see that Beaulieu is reopening in a few days. Don’t tell me you’re going back to that school with that boy?”
“School,” Jarett says as she settles the tray onto his lap, and he grabs a wing without so much as a thanks. “Won.”
“But I won Beaulieu’s scholarship through Gant years later. After — ” My blood runs cold. School. Dance school. My scholarship. I won two scholarships. The fake one was at Beaulieu, and the other was at Marisol's dance studio over the summer. “Madame Marisol called to tell you that I’d won the dance scholarship? Is that how you met?”
But had I won it, or was it a happy coincidence, or had Marisol planned it all out?
“She rigged it… Just like her fucking son,” I say rising from my knees with a crack before crawling back into the recliner because suddenly I can’t support my body weight. “She called you, Jarett? Neither your name nor number was on the application. We don’t even share the same surname.”
Jarett refused to sign my birth certificate, and although my parents were married, Jaime never pushed the matter because she wanted to keep him happy.
“But despite all of that, she called you , not Jaime?”
Jaime flinches at the use of her first name.
“When I won the dance scholarship, you told me I’d won,” I say, looking at her. “But the studio didn’t call you?”
She shakes her head. “Jarett told me the good news. Or what I thought was good news at the time. ! That bloody family has been roping you into their shenanigans from the start.”
From the start.
She knew. Madame knew who I was all along. She knew Jarett was my father all along. I feel sick as I sway against the cushions.
“Do you know Silas’s son, Sylo?” I ask. Of course, he doesn’t, but it’s worth a shot.
“Silas,” Jarett mutters. “Brother.”
“Yes, he has a son, Sylo . Did Sylo take you to The Watering Hole?”
“,” Jaime says, tugging on my arm. “What the hell is going on? Who is Silas?”
“You saw him the night of the play. You mistook him for Jarett because they’re brothers.”
Her eyes widen before she crumbles onto the coffee table, which squeaks in protest. “That’s his brother? And somehow, Silas knows your old dance teacher? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have time to explain it,” I say, getting to my feet.
“Where are you going? Not back to that retched boy, I hope?”
“It’s better to lie with the enemy.” I nod to Jarett. “You know that. You’ve done it for decades.”
“ — ”
“Jarett being damn near comatose doesn’t change anything.” I lean away from him as I pass his recliner and wrinkle my nose. “ He stinks .”
“He won’t go in the tub. He keeps calling it a — ”
“Tank,” he whispers, and I freeze.
“He’s been through a lot, . I know you’re still angry that he’s here, but look at him. Have a heart.”
“Where was your heart for me when I was a child? Just like he is now? He’s always been your baby, now he’s your literal baby.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nothing ever is.”
The door bangs shut behind me as I step onto the pavement and into the freezing night. Alone. Again. Except this time, Gant isn’t speeding around the corner to find me because he thinks I’m right where he’s left me. In our bed. But I’m not heading back to our bed yet.
Suddenly, I need a drink because my boyfriend’s been torturing my father for years, and the only reason he’s released him is so he could lure me away from Jaime. He knew Jaime would take the Jarett bait, and he knew I’d fly away, straight back into his manipulative arms.
And I did.
The problem is, it feels good to be caught. Because being hunted, captured, means that someone wants you desperately, and Gant’s not just someone to me any more. He’s consuming me, and I… I want to be consumed by him. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t have him and that I shouldn’t want him. What I should want is money and revenge.
Will that make me happy?
It’ll make me the winner, and since I’m forced to play, I’m forced to win.