Chapter 19 Genevieve
Genevieve
I hear the car before I hear the knock.
Gravel crunching, an engine cutting, a door slamming.
My body is moving toward the window before my brain catches up, and I hate that.
I hate that I’ve been sitting here waiting, and my first thought is maybe Lance came back instead of something rational like it could be anyone, it could be the man from the woods, it could be nobody.
It could be Art.
But it is Lance. He takes the steps two at a time and knocks twice, and I stand in the center of my apartment with my arms wrapped around my stomach and my toothbrush still in my hand and try to figure out how to be a person who hasn’t spent the last two hours throwing up and crying on her bathroom floor.
I open the door.
“What are you doing answering the door without checking who it is first?” he snaps.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He studies my face and frowns. “Can I come in?”
“Depends. You going to call me a little girl and tell me I’m not built for this again?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
He moves into the apartment and stands in the middle of my living room, hands shoved in his pockets, and I close the door behind him and lean against it because I need something solid at my back.
“I called my dad,” I say. “After you left. I called him and told him I found an email in Art’s office about me being fired. About someone moving me here.”
“What did he say?”
“He cut me off. Wouldn’t let me read it, wouldn’t let me say names. He just—” My voice cracks, and I press my fingers against my eyes until the burning stops. “He told me he loved me to the moon.”
“Okay…”
I drop my hands, my palms slapping my thighs. “You don’t get it. He never says that. It’s always and in all ways. Never ‘to the moon.’ He was talking to me in code.”
“Like a spy?”
“No. Like a defense attorney who’s telling me he’s in danger without incriminating himself on a potentially tapped phone.”
Lance’s brows shoot up. “You got all that from the moon?”
“More or less.”
He moves to the couch and sits, elbows on his knees, scrubbing both hands over his face. When he drops them, he stares at the floor for a long time.
“He’s scared,” I whisper. “My dad is the most unshakable person I’ve ever known, and he’s scared. And I don’t know why. He was trying to tell me something without saying it. Like someone might be listening.”
“Your dad’s an attorney,” he says.
“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious. I literally just told you that.”
“No. He’s an attorney for Brutus Myrddin.”
The room goes sideways. “What?”
“The people who run the fights.” He looks up at me. “Your dad is their counsel.”
The denial rises automatically, but it crashes into everything I’ve just found out. “So you’re insinuating my father knew I’d be moving into a town with an underground fighting ring?”
“No, Genevieve. I’m saying if an email was written about blacklisting you in Boston and about getting you here, then maybe they’re using you as collateral in case he does something they don’t like.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “So, they blackball me in Boston, either convince Art to get me to move here, or just hope that’s what happens, and now I’m here…” I shake my head. “Why, though? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because you’re the person he loves. What better way to make sure he stays in line than holding you over his head?”
“Is that what they do to you?”
He tenses his jaw and looks away. “We’re not talking about me.”
“We could be.”
“Art knows you’re in trouble.”
My chest caves in. “What?”
“He knows your dad’s connected.” Lance rubs his chin. “That’s how I know. Whether he knows the full scope… I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d do that.”
“But you don’t know.”
His gaze meets mine. “But I don’t know.”
I slide down the counter until I’m sitting on the kitchen floor, my back against the cabinets. Just me and the peeling linoleum and the sensation that the ground is dissolving beneath me.
“So let me make sure I’m tracking.” I press my palm to my forehead. “My dad works for the same people who run the cage fights.”
“Badon Hill.”
“Whatever.” I throw my hands up. “There’s an email in Art’s desk from their boss talking about getting me fired and moved here.
Art knows my dad’s connected but maybe not how deep.
There’s a man following me through the woods.
And my dad just used our emergency code word to tell me he’s in danger and I shouldn’t move. ”
Lance is quiet.
“Does that track?”
“Seems like it.”
“So I’m leverage.” The word tastes like bile. “Against my own father. They put me here so they’d have something to hold over him.”
“Potentially.”
“And my dad didn’t know. Not until I called him and said Brutus’s name and he…” I press my knuckles against my mouth. “He didn’t know I was a piece on their board. He thought I was safe here.”
“Art should have told you this.”
“What about Art?” My voice drops. “Art knew all of this?”
He sighs, gripping the back of his neck. “Art was concerned that your dad was feeding information to the Feds about Badon Hill, and that they’d use you to send a message.”
“And yet here I am,” I say, the betrayal splintering my throat. “With you as my protector instead of him.”
“Art’s in over his head. He inherited this from Freddy, and Freddy was in deep with Brutus before Art ever touched it. I don’t think he’s pulling strings. I think he’s trying to keep the whole thing from falling apart…and I think he’s trying to keep you.”
I scoff. “Why?”
“Because he loves you.”
My chest twists.
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
The heavy truth settles between us.
“My dad said something else… He told me to stay with Art. To keep living my life and not show the cracks. But I think he was talking in code there, too.”
“You think he was telling you to pretend like everything’s normal?”
The weight of what’s happening drops on my shoulders and I slump. “Yeah. That’s what it felt like.”
The room goes quiet again, the refrigerator buzzing and the kitchen faucet dripping, and every second I sit here, the panic creeps up my back and notches into my lungs and kicks against my heart.
“I can’t stay here,” I say. “I have to go, I have to help him, I can’t pretend. How am I supposed to do this? I can’t—”
I can’t breathe.
My vision blurs, and I palm my face, rocking back and forth, and then a heavy hand lands on my back and centers me.
“Breathe, Half-Pint. Put your head between your legs.”
I listen, and I let him coach me. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for three, breathe out for six. He has me name things I can see, taste, hear. And slowly, I come back to myself.
And when I do, he’s sitting next to me on the linoleum floor, his strong hand rubbing circles on my back.
“I have a cabin,” he says. “It’s off-grid, in the woods outside town. Nobody comes there unless I want them to.” He meets my eyes. “You’d be safe.”
“With you.”
“With me.”
I stare at him. The man who tucked a blanket around me last night. Who sent Percy to guard my door. Who told me he doesn’t give a shit and then drove back here anyway.
“I sleep with a box fan on,” I say finally. “It’s loud.”
He blinks. “What?”
“If we’re going to be roommates or whatever, you should know. I have to sleep with a fan. And with the windows open. Bugs come in. It’s actually a hazard.”
His mouth curves. Not quite a smile, but close.
“I love fans,” he says. “And I have pest control.”
“And sometimes I have weird nightmares that make me grab random things like kitchen utensils. I might stab you accidentally in my sleep.”
“Good to know.” He nods. “I keep a knife under my pillow and wake up before dawn.”
“Your breathing annoys me.”
“Your voice annoys me.”
“Great.”
“Super.”
We stare at each other, and that familiar irritation brews in my chest and flushes up my neck.
“I’ll go with you.”
He stands before holding his hand to pull me up. I slip my fingers into his, and let his warmth ground me.
“But you don’t get to shut me out. And I won’t stop digging, so don’t waste your breath trying to get me to.”
His jaw tenses. “Deal.”
I nod once and move toward my closet, pulling out my suitcase. “What will we tell Art?”
He leans against the archway into the kitchen. “He wants me to watch you anyway. If I tell him someone was following you and I scared him off, he’ll agree that with me is the safest place.”
“What if he wants me to stay with him instead?”
Lance gives me a knowing look.
“Right.” My heart thumps. “God forbid his dad know I’m sleeping under the same roof.”
I pack in silence, hyperaware of him standing by the window, watching the street below like he’s expecting someone.
Maybe he is.
The drive to his cabin takes thirty minutes.
The roads narrow and the town lights thin until they disappear entirely, replaced by trees and the crunch of gravel under tires.
Neither of us speaks.
I stare out the window, trying to process everything.
My father. Brutus Myrddin. Art either complicit or in over his head.
The man following me. Lance sitting inches away, driving with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh, and I’m not sure when I started noticing things like that, but I need to stop.
The cabin comes into view, a dark shape against darker trees, with warm light spilling from the windows.
“This is where you live?” I crane my neck as I step out of the car.
He slams his door. “Surprised?”
“That you brought me to a murder cabin in the middle of the woods? A little.”
He smirks, already moving toward the door. “If I wanted to murder you, I wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble.”
“Comforting.”
A shadow moves on the porch and I freeze, my nerves still raw.
Then the shadow barks.
“Relax,” Lance murmurs, coming up behind me. “He’s friendly.”
The shadow bounds down the porch steps and materializes into a German shepherd with black fur, sharp ears, and a tail wagging so hard his whole body moves with it.
“Oh my goodness,” I coo, dropping to my knees. “Who are you?”
“This is Cavall,” Lance says, crouching beside me.
The dog shoves his nose into my hand, sniffing like I’m the most interesting thing he’s encountered in years. His tail thumps the ground, and I think I’m in love.
“Cavall.” I scratch behind his ears. “Hey buddy, you’re a good boy, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Much better than your grumpy owner.”
“If I’m grumpy, it’s because he’s supposed to be guarding the house, not sniffing a stranger half to death.”
“Maybe he’s tired of only having you for company.” Cavall licks my chin and I grin. “Poor thing’s probably starved for affection and good conversation.”
Lance scoffs. “He’s a dog. He doesn’t have conversations.”
“Not with you, maybe.” I ruffle Cavall’s fur and he barks. “See? He agrees.”
I stand and Cavall presses his warm body against my legs.
“It’s okay, boy. I’m here now. The darkness is over.”
Lance stares at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You done?”
“With you? Always.” I bend down and scratch his ears one more time. “With this angel? Never.”
Lance turns toward the cabin and whistles once, and Cavall trots after him.
Inside, the cabin is warm and understated.
Nothing like the Calloway mansion excess I expected.
Just wood floors and a faint scent of soap and pine.
Cavall moves to a giant dog bed situated next to a stone fireplace and curls up with a raggedy stuffed pink duck that’s missing one eye.
He tucks it under his chin like a security blanket, and my chest squeezes.
Lance Calloway lets his dog have a pink stuffy.
I file that away and pretend it doesn’t make me hate him a little less.
He leads me down a short hallway, up a flight of stairs, and opens a door on the right. The room is simple. Beige walls. A queen-size bed. A window overlooking the hills.
“Bathroom’s across the hall,” he says, dropping my bag by the door. “Kitchen’s downstairs and to the left if you’re hungry. I’m a shit cook, but there’s food.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He pauses in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame.
“Genevieve.”
I look up.
“I’m sorry about this morning.” His voice is rough. “What I said. It was shitty.”
“Yeah. It was.”
“I won’t do it again.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in a room in a cabin in the middle of the woods with my whole life packed into a single bag and the terrifying knowledge that everything I thought I knew was a lie.
I’m about to sink onto the bed when I hear his voice in the hallway, low and soft.
“Cavall. Komm.”
The click of nails on hardwood follows.
“Bleib. Pass auf.”
There’s a soft thud, like Cavall’s tail hitting the floor.
“Yeah, I know, buddy. It’s been a day. You’re a good boy. You watch her for me, okay? Guter Junge.”
My stomach flips.
I wait a few minutes, then crack the door open.
Cavall is lying in the hallway directly in front of my room, his head on his paws, the pink duck tucked under one leg. His ears perk when he sees me, tail thumping once, but he doesn’t move from his post.
Lance is already gone.
I close the door and press my back against it, replaying everything—the woods, the overnight, Percy, the fight, my father’s voice cracking through the phone. At some point, I move to the bed, and lie in a catatonic state.
Move, Ginny. This isn’t healthy. I can’t be hopeless like this, I need to do something. Anything. I slip out of the room, lean down to give Cavall a scratch, and turn the corner.
Smack.
My shoulder collides with a wall of warm and solid muscle.
“Ouch.” I rub my arm. “Do you lurk in hallways for fun, or is this just where you wait to insult people?”
Lance raises an eyebrow, his shoulder pressed against the wall and a towel slung low on his hips. Only a towel.
My eyes skim over his broad shoulders, black tattoos curling down his upper arms, and lower, over abs that are frankly offensive to possess, the carved lines of his hips disappearing beneath terry cloth that’s hanging on by—
No. This is Art’s best friend. And potentially the enemy. Do not ogle the enemy, Ginny.
“You know what?” I snap my gaze to his face, cheeks burning. “I don’t have to talk to you. I’m just trying to find the bathroom.”
“Next time watch where you’re going.”
“Maybe if someone gave me a tour instead of traipsing around half naked in the dark, I wouldn’t be having issues. Aren’t you supposed to be rich? Don’t you have an en suite? Why are you even out here like this?”
He opens his mouth, but I hold up a hand. “Actually? Never mind. I don’t care.”
I step past him, but he doesn’t move, so our arms brush, and a sharp spark shoots across my skin. I jolt back, rubbing the spot and glaring. “Space. Ever heard of it?”
“I own this space, Half-Pint. Not my fault you decided to stand in it.”
“Ugh, I could kill you.”
“You could try.”
His eyes move over my face in a quick motion, and then he looks away like he doesn’t like what he found. He bends until his voice ghosts across my ear.
“Bathroom’s behind you. Try not to get lost again.”