Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
LEO
M y phone rang, and as I pulled it from my pocket, a message came through from Roman, flashing across the screen as I answered Gray's call.
"Someone sent her the photos, Leo. And she's remembered everything, Sofia called me. Roman is following her, but she's upset and reeling," Gray's voice was tight with worry. "She won't answer calls or my texts, what if this causes her to have a severe panic attack?"
"What?" My stomach dropped, and I clenched my jaw at this news. I pulled the phone back for a second to check Roman's text. He was following her as instructed. Good.
"She remembers everything, everything that happened that night!" Gray snapped into the phone, and I closed my eyes as the situation sunk in.
All our careful protection, the years of keeping her safe from those memories, undone by a few text messages.
"Roman's following her," I assured him, though my own chest felt tight. "He knows the signs."
As if on cue, Roman's update came through, and I put my phone on speaker to check it.
She's in a rideshare. Keeping my distance but maintaining visual.
"Let me add Roman to the call," I said, and Gray let out an exasperated sigh on the other end. I connected Roman into our call, and he was straight to the point.
"She's upset. I'm following her, making sure she's safe," Roman relayed.
"She found out the truth, someone sent her the photos as well," Gray muttered.
"Not good. Sofia tried to call her back to the house, but she wouldn't listen. I tried to stop her as well, but as she put it, I'd need to use physical force if I wanted to stop her."
"Of course she said that," Gray groaned.
"Did she say anything else?" I asked as I headed to the elevator, already determined to go to her myself.
"Yes, but…" Roman hesitated.
"Say it, Roman, now," I commanded.
"She said to tell you and Mr. Cassaro to, ah, go fuck yourselves."
The words shouldn't have hurt. I'd heard worse threats, dealt with more dangerous situations. But the thought of Meredith looking at me with that same fear from years ago, seeing me as the monster I truly was – it gutted me.
"Wonderful, just fucking delightful. Have we got any more progress on the blackmailer? Are you sure she's okay, Roman?" Gray fired off the questions.
"She's okay so far," Roman assured.
"Nothing. No progress." The elevator dinged and I stepped in, punching in the main floor before balling my free hand. I dug my nails into my palm, welcoming the pain, needing it to rein in the way I wanted to break something or drop a body right now. "Whoever it is knows how to hide themselves, and knows our families. They're playing us, and I can't fucking find them." I drew in a sharp breath, vowing to drop the bastard doing this into fresh concrete. Alive. I'd watch them drown happily in their goddamn tomb. "I'll kill them when I find them. Slowly."
"That's not the issue right now. Meredith is freaking out, we need to talk to her," Gray said sharply.
He wasn't wrong.
Meredith was out there, alone with her recovered memories, probably seeing me as the killer I'd become.
"Where's she heading, Roman?" I reached the main floor and stormed out to my waiting stand-in bodyguard and driver, needing to move, to act. To fix this somehow.
"Downtown, past the old industrial district," Roman reported. "Just turned onto Maple?—"
"The theater." The realization hit immediately. "I know where she's going. I'll meet you there, Gray."
"I'm on the other side of the city, and traffic is a bitch here." Gray cursed softly. "I'm heading there right now though. I'll be there as fast as I can. Keep me updated, I'll keep trying to call her."
"Will do."
I ended the call, already slipping into the backseat of my ride and instructing Jackson where to go. It wasn't that far from me right now. The old Victorian-style theater had been Meredith's sanctuary when she first moved to the city. She'd disappear there for hours, losing herself in plays and musicals until the newer, community-funded theater downtown had stolen all their business.
Even a year after its closure, at one of our get-togethers, she'd still talked about the productions she'd seen there. How the acoustics made every note feel like magic. How safe she'd felt in those plush velvet seats, watching stories unfold on stage.
Now she was there again, probably hiding in the darkness with her newly recovered memories, seeing me for what I really was – a monster who'd touched her with blood-stained hands.
We pulled up to the old Victorian theater, its weathered facade a shadow of its former glory. I sat for a moment, taking in the ornate stonework now streaked with age, the elaborate marquee that hadn't lit up in over two years. Meredith used to light up talking about this place, about the productions she'd seen here. She'd drag Gray to every show she could, and sometimes even convinced me to join them.
Now the building stood dark and abandoned, like so many of the lies we'd told her over the years. The afternoon sun did little to brighten the depressing building.
I could picture her inside, probably curled up in one of those familiar velvet seats where she'd once felt so safe. Where she'd escaped to whenever life became too much, when Logan and she had had a fight. The irony wasn't lost on me – she was here now, escaping from the very people who'd claimed to protect her.
Roman's car was parked discreetly across the street. I instructed Jackson to wait, then made my way to where Roman stood by the entrance.
"She went in a few minutes ago," he reported quietly. "Chain's loose enough to slip through."
"Update Gray," I instructed, already moving toward the gap in the chains. "I'll handle this."
The theater's interior was dark, musty with disuse, but I could make out Meredith's silhouette in one of the front rows. Sunlight filtered through the high windows, catching on the dust motes swirling around her.
"You shouldn't be alone," I said softly, my voice carrying in the empty space. "Not with everything that's happening."
"I remember it all." Her voice was so soft and fragile in the empty theater, and my heart ached. "What he did. What you did."
I stayed silent, watching her rise and turn to face me. In the dimming afternoon light, she looked impossibly young, impossibly lost. But it was the way she was looking at me, so broken and like she didn't know who I was, that hurt the most.
"Was he your first? Was he Gray's first kill?" she asked, jutting out her chin as she steeled herself. "My father – was he the first person you both killed?"
I sighed, knowing I owed her the truth. We'd all lied to her for years – her brother, Sofia, me. The people she'd trusted most had constructed a careful web of deception around her.
And I hated lying to her. Keeping her in the dark. It was time to let everything come to light, no matter how much it hurt. Some secrets didn't stay hidden, and some lies needed to be tarnished with the truth. We lived in a cruel world, and as much as I'd wanted to keep her safe and away from this life, it had caught up to her. I couldn't keep her from it any longer. She was right at the heart of it, especially since I wanted her, since I'd decided I was going to make her mine.
"No," I admitted. "He wasn't. Not for me, anyway."
She nodded slowly, a touch of relief, likely at my honesty, crossing her face. "Has Gray killed since then?"
"No, he's not that kind of person, you know him that well," I said, and her face softened even more. She'd needed to know her brother wasn't a killer. "Was he your last kill?"
"No."
Her expression was obvious. She'd assumed as much, but she'd had to ask.
"That rival company," she continued, her voice cracking, and she cleared her throat. "Did you handle it with violence? With blood?"
"Yes."
She nodded slowly, and I knew what this was. She wasn't asking because she didn't know – she was asking because she needed to hear it from me. Needed me to destroy any last hope she might have had that we weren't the monsters she now remembered us to be. She wanted to hear the truth from my lips, to know I wasn't going to keep her in the shadows.
If only I could keep her from the shadows of this world. But this woman, looking so strong and broken all at once, she deserved to be treated like an equal, allowed a chance to handle what we'd hidden from her for so long.
"Will you ever lie to me again?" Her question echoed in the empty theater.
"I never wanted to lie to you," I said truthfully. "You forgot what happened, repressed it all. Gray begged me to keep you in the dark, to protect you." I'd not agreed at first, worried on what it could do to her in the long run, but Gray was worried what remembering it all would do. It was a hard call, and I'd accepted his request in the end, keeping everything hidden from her.
"I'm my own woman." Her voice grew stronger. "I can decide what I can and can't handle."
"You're right." I moved closer, drawn to her like always. The waning sunlight caught the tears on her cheeks, making them look like glistening trails. How I wanted to wrap her in my arms and shield her from all of this, to protect her. But right now, it was me she was afraid of, me she saw as a monster. "I won't ever lie to you again, Meredith. You're an adult, and a strong one at that. You deserve the chance to handle this all, to bear the weight of the truth, and decide how you wish to deal with it."
She nodded slowly, watching me with such pained eyes. She lifted one arm in front of her, playing with a strand of her hair, the other crossing across her chest, like she was shielding herself from me. It crushed me, realizing she wasn't sure if she could trust me, of how she felt about me. Not that I blamed her, not after everything. I knew how I felt, how I wanted her, and I'd thought she'd felt the same. But that connection we'd shared, it was based off deceit and lies, and half-truths.
I steeled myself, holding her teary gaze steady. "Do you think I'm a monster?"
"Yes." The word was soft, uncertain, her expression conflicted as she looked at me. But it was like a knife to the gut, plunging in deep and slicing through me with ice.
"Are you afraid of me?" The question hurt to ask, but I needed to know. Needed her to tell me if she was afraid of me. I never wanted her to be afraid of me, to fear me. But right now, she looked like she might, and it was destroying me inside. I only wanted to protect her, keep her safe, and keep her light burning bright.
"I'm afraid of what you can do." She wrapped her arms around herself, looking small in the vast space.
"You never have to be afraid of me, Meredith. Never."
"I know." Fresh tears fell. "But I'm afraid of what you'd do for me. Because of what you've already done."
The words cut deep, deeper than any wound I'd had before. "Do you want me to let you go?" Saying it pained me more than anything else, and she blinked, staring at me with uncertainty.
I didn't want to walk away, to give up on having her. I'd decided so long ago that she was everything I wanted, even though it was unlikely I could have her. But it was never certain, and as much as I shouldn't have, I'd clung to the hope that maybe, one day, she could be mine. "Do you want me to not pursue this thing between us?" Emotional pain was something I'd locked away for so long, but with Meredith, it was crashing through, washing over me in waves as I awaited her response.
Her nod was almost imperceptible, but the tears streaming down her face spoke volumes. She didn't need to say the words – her silence was answer enough.
"Roman will keep watch," I said quietly, already turning away despite the way my heart felt torn apart. "I'll respect your decision."
Each step toward the exit felt like walking through concrete. At the door, I couldn't help looking back one last time. She stood there in a shaft of sunlight, looking like something from one of her beloved plays – the tragic heroine, forced to choose between love and morality.
But this wasn't a play. This was real life, and I couldn't change who I was. The violence, the darkness – it ran in my blood, as much a part of me as my heart.
I could protect her from afar, and I could set her free from the monster she saw in me.
Even if it shattered something inside me that I'd never get back.