Epilogue
Rafe
I’m awake, which feels important, though I’m not sure why.
Dominic: Need amended report. Discrepancies.
I read it twice.
The apartment I keep across town, the one Dominic pays for and I pretend isn’t his, is dark except for my phone and the streetlight cutting through the blinds. Lorelei isn’t here. I know that, but I checked twice anyway, which is a bad habit.
I sit against the headboard and type back.
Me: what discrepancies
The typing bubble appears, stops, then appears again.
Dominic: Villa. Subsequent activity. Drug use.
My stomach drops slowly, not because they know but because I don’t know how they know.
I left out the cocaine, Kiwi’s call, the name Lark, the hallway we disappeared down together, and most importantly, myself. The report said she attended a private gathering, there were no security concerns, and she returned safely.
I made the night clean enough to disappear.
Apparently somebody put the dirt back.
Me: source?
Dominic ignores the question.
Dominic: Cassian reviewing. Submit correction by morning.
Cassian.
There it is, the first real consequence.
I get out of bed and pull on the jeans I left over the chair without turning on a light. The apartment is cold enough that the tile bites at my feet on the way to the kitchen. My laptop sits on the counter, and when I open the reporting portal, it remembers my login.
Of course it does.
The villa report appears exactly as I submitted it: four lines, none obviously false and none obviously incomplete unless the person reading already knows what I removed.
That’s the problem with omissions. Once somebody recognizes the shape of the missing thing, the space around it gets louder than whatever you wrote instead.
I click AMEND.
A blank field opens beneath the original submission.
Subject consumed cocaine at private gathering.
I delete it.
Subject appeared altered.
Delete.
University associate expressed concern.
Delete.
I flatten my hands against the counter.
I could tell part of the truth, enough to make the report agree with whatever they already know. Lorelei used cocaine. Kiwi called me. I went to the villa and found her high. I took her somewhere quieter.
Anything after that becomes mine to keep.
Except that is exactly the logic that got me here.
Mine to keep. Mine to decide. Mine to redact.
I look toward the living room. The sweater Lorelei stole from me is draped over the back of the couch, apparently visiting its former residence under whatever custody arrangement she invented.
A laugh escapes me.
It sounds terrible.
My phone buzzes, and for one stupid second I think it’s her.
Cassian: Call me.
No.
Absolutely not.
I turn the phone facedown.
It buzzes again.
Cassian: Rafe.
Somehow I can hear his tone through text, controlled enough to mean the control is costing him.
I leave it unanswered.
There was a time when I thought keeping information out of the reports meant keeping it away from the house.
That was stupid.
The house has never depended on one pair of eyes. It has Ash, Helena, Alistair, Dominic, cameras, drivers, staff, and people I don’t know are reporting because apparently nobody in this family believes surveillance counts unless everyone gets a turn.
Maybe somebody at the villa recognized Lorelei. Maybe Talia told Ash. Maybe Ash went to Alistair because trying to fix things without asking is practically his love language.
I don’t know.
That’s the problem.
None of us tells the truth to the right people anymore. We hand pieces to whoever we think will do the least damage, then the pieces meet somewhere without us and we act surprised by the shape they make.
My phone buzzes again.
This time it is Lorelei.
Lo: awake?
I stare at her name, then at the time.
2:19.
Me: yeah
Three dots appear.
Lo: i left
My whole body goes alert.
Me: left where
Lo: the house
I’m already reaching for my keys when another message comes through.
Lo: do not come get me
My hand stops.
Fuck.
Every part of me wants to ask where she is, who she’s with, whether she has money, whether she’s safe, whether she’s alone, whether she’s high.
I type the first question.
Me: where are you
Delete.
Me: are you alone
Delete.
Then I type the one answer she actually asked for.
Me: okay
I stare at it before sending.
The word feels impossible.
I send it anyway.
Her response takes longer.
Lo: that was weirdly easy
I sit back down.
Me: trying something new
Lo: hate it
Me: same
Another message appears.
Lo: i found something
Of course.
Me: what
She doesn’t answer.
Thirty seconds pass, then a minute. By the time two have gone by, I’m holding the keys again without remembering when I picked them up.
Finally, a picture arrives.
A sheet of paper lies beneath a streetlight, her name running across the top, followed by branch locations, arrows, and dates.
Marazul. Liore. Ravello.
Transfer.
I zoom in, and my chest goes cold.
I know the names from Dominic’s calls and enough half-finished conversations to understand they are not travel suggestions. Nico coming home. The father Dominic spoke to. The son Lorelei was apparently expected to choose. The Offering and the signatures that followed it.
For years, I treated the wider structure like one of my father’s obsessions made respectable by money.
The page on my screen proves Marazul is only one stop inside it.
It is bigger.
Lorelei knows now.
Not all of it.
Enough.
Me: where did you get this
I regret the question as soon as I send it.
Wrong question.
Lorelei answers anyway.
Lo: the folder everybody thought i was too stupid to open
I close my eyes.
Me: i never thought that
Her answer comes fast.
Lo: no. you just thought there were things i was better off not knowing
I stop breathing.
Some sentences hurt because they are cruel.
That one hurts because it is accurate.
The amended report waits on my laptop, and Lorelei’s message sits beneath a photograph of the system that has already decided where she goes next.
I’ve spent months convincing myself that withholding information from her was protection.
The house has spent months withholding information from her for the same stated reason.
I don’t like how much alike those sentences look from here.
My phone rings.
Cassian.
I decline the call.
Dominic calls immediately afterward.
I decline that one too.
The reporting portal asks whether I want to save the amendment.
I close the browser.
Changes will be lost.
I click YES.
For tonight, the gap stays.
Not because I know what Lorelei can survive, and not because the house deserves another lie. The report can wait until I speak to the person whose life it keeps turning into fields and summaries.
I pick up my phone.
Me: can i ask where you are
The typing bubble appears, stops, and disappears.
Then:
Lo: you can ask
I wait.
Nothing else follows.
I laugh despite myself.
Fair.
Me: where are you
This time, I let the question sit without filling in the answer for her.
Outside, somewhere beyond the blinds, an engine redlines hard enough to carry across three blocks.
Then it shifts and keeps going.