Chapter 52
One Month Later…
I used to think grief was loud.
Explosive.
The kind of thing that shattered glass with the noise and made grown men collapse onto cold floors.
But I was wrong…
Grief was quiet.
It was the slow-festering mold under the floorboards before you fell in without noticing. The smell you didn’t recognize until it was too late.
It was Carrington’s duffel bag still stuffed in my closet because I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.
It was the desperation of running in the woods, hoping that the earthy pine scent of him would linger even a second longer.
It was the ache in my body every night where his warmth should’ve been, but Xanthy’s replaced it.
It had been a month since he died.
One fucking month of hearing the echo of his cruel laugh in the back of my skull, mocking me, taunting me, and begging me to see the truth.
I couldn’t.
Because every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was the moment he hit the ground with his shirt soaking into that awful red.
I still couldn’t see past the way his mouth parted like he had one last smartass remark for me, yet never got to say it.
I couldn’t feel anything but the taste of blood on his lips, the last time he had kissed me.
I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I was numb.
Death may as well have taken me, too.
People checked on me after I melted away into my sorrows the moment Carrington was officially declared ‘missing.’ My friends from college and the orphanage reached out, hell, even my shit hole father tried to call me just to gloat.
I ignored them all. I didn’t have words for the lost prince of Normal. I didn’t have the complacency they needed to feel better about themselves for ‘caring’ about me at all.
Xanthy busied herself, content with pretending the world was still spinning, and the crack everyone else saw in us was nothing more than a blemish to smear makeup on.
She had hope.
And all I had was this fucking tux, worn by a man staring at me in the mirror I couldn’t recognize anymore.
Carrington would laugh at how ridiculous it looked on me.
I could feel his ghost even now, smirking in the corner while shaking his beautiful black hair.
No one saw me break but him. Xanthy had smiled when she saw the cracks, choosing to pretend I wasn’t bleeding, and enough kisses and praise would make it all go away.
I told them all I was fine. I even made myself believe it for a few seconds at a time.
Then I’d walk back into this room and see that damn duffel bag in my closet.
What’s inside, Carrington? Jackets? Gym clothes? A dead animal or person you left for me?
I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
The night Carrington died, I took his body to his sanctuary, the lake house he only whispered about. I held him to my chest, kissing his dead lips with my final goodbye as I carried him like a bride to the lake.
He never wanted to be a spectacle for any news reporters and didn’t want anyone to know he was gone.
He just wanted peace in death.
I remembered the lake house was his own graveyard, how fitting for me to gather him up in my arms, leaving Xanthy passed out on the ground. I didn’t know how I found myself taking him back to his safe place one last time.
The ground felt like it was tilting with each step, just a little.
Yet not enough to fall.
Just enough to remind me, it should be me.
I was the one who killed him.
The rain poured harder than any other damn night with us, soaking me from head to toe.
I didn’t know how to say goodbye. I didn’t know how to let him go.
But I did.
I wrapped his body, weighing the tarp down, and watched him sink that night.
He was gone, by my own hands.
My knife.
I couldn’t let go of the stupid duffel bag.
I shouldn’t have gone back to his apartment before the cops got there.
I shouldn’t have opened the door he left half cracked, like he knew I’d find my way eventually.
I shouldn’t have gone through his stuff and kept that damn bag.
But I did.
I always fucking did the wrong thing when it came to Carrington Harding.
“Shiloh? Are you almost ready? The reception is starting! Don’t make Xanthy wait too long.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and sighed. “Yeah. Just a second.”
That damn bag haunted me. I could feel the pull to it like strings, guiding my feet across the floor.
I needed to know. What did Care Bear bring that night? What was left behind?
Taking a deep breath, I left the mirror and entered the closet, kneeling down and unzipping the bag I’d stared at every night.
A letter poked out of the zipper, and I lost my breath.
Dear Sunshine.
The nickname ruined me.
He knew. Somehow, he always fucking knew the exact way to break me with a single sentence. I couldn’t breathe as I opened the paper and read his beautiful words to myself.
Dear Sunshine,
If you are reading this, you probably threw my ass in jail, but I’m hopeful you still give me conjugals.
I deserve this, Baby Boy. Don’t feel sorry for me.
My sister is dead, and I should feel sorry about that, but I don’t.
Because you matter more, and opening your eyes was too important.
I love you so fucking much. You’ve always been my light, Baby, and I know that you aren’t hiding anymore and can see you have always been both.
Darkness needs light to survive. I never knew how much I needed you until you came into my life.
I guess I lived my entire existence in darkness that I didn’t realize how much I needed your light, until it wasn’t there anymore.
Xanthy’s dying wasn’t a bad thing to me.
She wouldn’t have made you happy. Hell, she never made herself happy.
You may be mad at me, but if you ever deserved anything, Shiloh, it’s freedom.
You had to stop using her as an illusion of humanity.
You were never bad to begin with. I love you.
There’s one thing left in this fucked up fairy tale of ours.
My final apology to you. The last step to you getting back your true light… ”
He left me a detailed list of victims—his victims.
There were stories with receipts, video footage, and painful precision of each kill.
His father’s sins were carried out with his hands, which included my mother’s name.
I couldn’t look away from the screen.
He saw me that night.
The CCTV footage showed me as a kid, sitting in a damn car while my mother was killed, and Carrington saw me, too.
He told me he wouldn’t hurt me.
All the videos showed Carrington and his victims, but what I never dreamed of…was that he was just as much a victim, too. Those people used him, raped him, and their deaths were deserved.
“Oh, Care Bear, I am so sorry.”
Every name and video was a story written to me with love hidden in the cracks of guilt.
He…saved me all those years ago. He was the beginning of our story…
And the end.
Two Weeks Later...
The victory tasted like ash.
Because Carrington wasn’t here to see it.
He wasn’t here to smirk at his father being dragged away in chains.
He wasn’t here to taunt the man who broke him so many times.
He wasn’t fucking here at all.
The prison smelled like bleach and old sweat, nothing surprising there with the rot inside its walls.
What surprised me was how calm I felt walking through the metal detectors by myself.
It wasn’t peace.
Not acceptance either.
Just… stillness.
Like the eye of a storm, it finally reached a certain point, and everything else held its breath.
The familiar guard led me down the same corridor, and then we went left at the security booth. Finally, we walked right past a row of steel doors…those steel doors.
I shook my head, trying to push past the memories and onto the long hallway buzzing under fluorescent lights flickering like they were scared to stay on.
I wasn’t scared like the last time.
I was furious, a cold, precise fury honed to a razor’s edge as I kept walking.
Reginald Harding sat waiting at a bolted-down table on the other side of bulletproof glass. He wore handcuffs, shackles, and a pretty orange jumpsuit.
Even caged, he looked like a man convinced he was untouchable, no different than my father in the same walls.
He didn’t flinch when I walked in.
He just tilted his head, studying me like I was some puzzle he’d already solved and had a ready solution for.
“Who are you?” he said. “Your visit wasn’t on my schedule.”
“Yeah,” I told him, dropping into the metal chair across from him. “That’s because I didn’t ask permission.”
The guard shut the door behind me, leaving us alone.
Reginold leaned forward and smiled. He looked so much like Carrington it fucking hurt. “You look like shit, boy. What is your business with me?”
I didn’t rise to it, hearing Carrington’s words wrap around me.
Don’t bite, Baby Boy.
He wanted a reaction.
He wanted me to crack.
He wanted proof he still had power.
I wasn’t giving him a fucking chance.
He was done for, and I was here to ensure he fucking knew it was his son who did it.
“Let’s talk about Carrington.”
His jaw tightened while my heart squeezed at the name.
“What of my son?” he spat, a small flinch barely noticed.
But I caught it.
Good.
Tiny tells were all I needed to make him hurt.
“Is he still missing? Or did you come here to tell me he’s dead?” he said flatly.
“The cycle you put him in has ended. You killed him before he was ever truly living.”
A faint smile tugged at his lips. “He was weak.”
“Bullshit.” My voice cracked like a bitch. “He was drowning in your orders, your punishments. Every ‘contract’ you nailed into his coffin. You kept him in your damn chains because you needed a monster, and you knew he only wanted to be loved by you.”
“He was a monster the minute he was born. I can’t be judged for honing that darkness.”
“He was a kid,” I snapped. “A kid trying to survive you.”
Reginold’s eyes sharpened. “And you? What were you to him?”
I leaned forward, letting my fury bleed into every word.
“I was the only goddamn person in his life who didn’t use him.”
Silence.
Reginold finally spoke. “Ah, I see. You lost your precious lover. Well, if you’re here to punish me—”
“Punish you?” I chuckled, but not with humor. “No. Punishment implies regret. Pain, hell, something human. You’re not human, and you haven’t been for a long time.”
His smile returned, small and reptilian. “And what do you want, boy?”
“Closure.”
He snorted. “You won’t find it here.”
“Interesting. I thought you’d say that, but actually your son already did.”
I reached into my jacket, pulling out the copy of Carrington’s note and the list of victims, sliding it through the slot in the glass at the bottom.
Reginold hesitated before picking it up. His eyes scanned the handwriting, noting it was his son’s, and something flickered across his face.
Not guilt, but fear.
“Hmmm…” he muttered, trying to clear his throat. “Soft to the very end, I see.”
I slammed my palm against the glass hard enough to rattle the bolts.
“He loved you,” I growled. “Despite everything you did. Despite the blood you forced onto his hands all those years, despite the torture, the orders, the threats, the assholes you had raping him—he still hoped you’d see him one day.”
Reginold looked up, unimpressed. “And what did he see in you, lover boy? Prince Charming?”
“No,” I said. “He saw someone who actually gave a damn about him. Someone that fucking saw him for him, not the tasks he could complete. You don’t even know him, do you?”
His silence was the answer.
I leaned in, lowering my voice to a lethal whisper.
“You lost the chance to know him. Not because he’s gone—but because in the end, he chose to bring you to the grave with him. When he wrote that letter, he gave peace to all your victims. He knew how to destroy you.”
Reginold clenched his jaw.
Ah.
There it fucking is.
The crack I’d been waiting for.
“You didn’t come here for closure,” he spat. “You came to gloat. These names are already in the hands of the law, aren’t they?”
“No,” I said calmly. “I came so you could hear the truth from the man who loved your son.”
I paused, letting each word land with finite absolution.
“He may be gone, but you’ll fucking rot, and now he can have peace.”
Reginold flinched.
I’d never seen him flinch before, but I saw Carrington flinch that night.
I couldn’t wait to see this bastard burn.
You got him, Care Bear.
“Your legacy ends with you,” I said. “No heirs. No empire. No son to carry your name after you destroyed him. You cease to exist here alone.”
Reingold’s voice dipped into something venomous. “And you think that comforts you? Why?”
“No,” I admitted. “Nothing comforts me anymore. Not after losing him. But you know what it does do?”
“What?” he snarled.
“It keeps me breathing.” I stood, pushing the chair back with a scrape of the concrete below. “And before you think your daughter will save you, I’d think again.”
“Why? What have you done to my daughter?”
I smiled then, showing him my wedding ring.
“I’ll take great care of her, Dad.” I started toward the door, then paused as his screaming reached me.
“By the way,” I added without looking back. “He wasn’t weak. He was stronger than you ever deserved, and that’s why you lost in the end.”
I didn’t need to see Reingold’s face to know I’d hit the target dead-on. His scream was louder than my father’s on the other side of the bars.
The guard opened the door.
And as I stepped out without a backward glance, I sighed, feeling the rain fall into my face.
Justice wasn’t clean.
It wasn’t satisfying either. It didn’t make grief easier, but watching Carrington’s father falter and know he’d lost, watching the man who tormented him lose the last shred of control he had…
Yeah.
That was something, not peace exactly, but enough to take another step forward.
Enough to keep breathing…
Even if I didn’t know how much longer I could.