Chapter 48
Damian
My muscles stiffen, tighter than the brakes that just brought the car to a screeching halt. “ Are you sure we shouldn ’ t have Dash here as backup?” I ask Titan. My nerves are heightened, taller than the building shadows now blanketing us.
Despite countless missions, a strange unease sits in my stomach today. Titan ’ s icy gaze and unyielding silence suggest he shares the same sentiment.
I did as Titan asked. I stalked Nova in the shadows, following her every move.
I discovered Nova was a liar.
She wasn ’ t Nova Baladan; she was Elsa Stepanov, the girl Titan thought he killed so many years ago.
Titan and I knew she wanted revenge, but Titan had other plans that would uncoil today. Plans we kept from Dash.
I should tell Titan that I called the rest of the guys to warn them about what would unfold. Cillian flew here as backup after Dante suggested it. He ’ s waiting back at the house, watching over Dash and Mila just in case things backfire here.
Nova thought she escaped from the campus house a few hours ago, but we let it happen, sat back, and watched her make moves like she was a movie we knew the ending to already. It was time to call out a liar. Drag a ghost from the past into the spotlight.
“ Dash would sooner shoot Nova.” Titan lowers his head, looking down at his shaking hands.
It feels wrong without Dash here, but I understand. “ Mila is going to be crushed,” I add. Another person close to her was a liar.
“ Mila forgives too easily.”
My mouth goes dry. “ I think that ’ s changing. She ’ s angry.”
“ She ’ s been angry before.”
“ This feels different.” I lick my lips.
Titan ’ s nod looks more like a stone that was forced to skip along the waterline before it sank. “ Mila will forgive Nova because Nova hasn ’ t burned her before. For some, trust is like a block of granite; each betrayal is a chisel hitting against it. It takes time to fall apart. That ’ s how Mila ’ s trust is. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt; everyone is a slab of stone that is either broken down or remains whole. This won ’ t ruin her and Nova ’ s friendship, Damian. Future betrayals will. She’ll forgive Nova for now.”
Why do my hands feel like a hammer and chisel are resting within them? Each time I protect Mila, it aids Dash, but whittles down my friendship with her.
“ True.” As for Dash, I think Mila might finally be pissed enough to want to hurt him back. That ’ s what keeps me up at night. I want my family whole. “ I don ’ t know how to fix Dash and Mila.”
“ Sometimes you have to let a mess sort itself out, Damian.”
“ It ’ s hard to look at a mess for a long period.”
“ I know, but at least we get to look and have them in our lives.”
“ Dash is going to be pissed when he finds out we kept this from him,” I mutter, clicking off my seatbelt and letting it snap back into place. It seems like everything else is jerking away and resettling where it always belonged.
If only removing Isabella from my chest was as easy as the damn seatbelt.
“ Do you think your father will keep his word?” I ask Titan. After Titan and I started investigating Nova, Titan ’ s dad confessed to him that he knew who Nova was all along. The bigger bomb shell was that his father made a deal with Nova's uncle to have Titan and her marry.
Backhanded moves were a trait the King men dominated in, but our dads didn ’ t make alliances for our benefit.
There had to be something else Titan ’ s dad wasn ’ t telling him.
A sickening feeling churns in my gut, one that points to the people controlling our fathers. That last conversation with Uncle Marcus plagues my mind. Why couldn ’ t he just tell me who they were? He looked so scared and exhausted.
I never want Titan or Dash to resemble that.
Titan runs his tongue over his teeth. “ I don ’ t care if he does or doesn ’ t; I will walk out of that office today as a married man. Nova wanted to play, so this is the game board.” Stern eyes pivot towards me. “ Checkmate. She ’ s mine.”
My lips part, wanting to tell Titan about that odd conversation I had with Marcus. I watch as Titan turns and opens the door. My lips snap shut. It ’ s not the right time. He ’ s focused on Nova today.
I ’ ll find the right time to tell him. Eventually.
◆◆◆
We did it.
It was a shit show; Nova pulled a gun out and aimed it at every single one of us. I had no idea who she would shoot. Instead of Titan walking away with his new wife and answers, Titan left with more questions.
Nova ’ s mentor, a guy named Anton, showed up and dropped bomb after bomb of information. The facts so far are that my family is being controlled by someone else, a group that makes my uncle Lucas scared. Lucas and my dad are ruthless, heartless monsters; knowing that someone has control and power over them scares me.
I keep looking at my cousins, praying that I don ’ t have to watch one of them die. How do I save them and Isabella?
My heart feels like it ’ s pumping double time, but there ’ s still not enough oxygen for my brain to think clearly.
“ You ’ re telling me Nova is Elsa! Elsa, the girl Titan has whined and pined over, is alive.” Dash drops his chin, eyes narrowed like a hawk swooping down against the winds as it dives for its prey.
“ Dash.” I stand and square my shoulders to him, aware of Cillian sitting silently in the corner. If Dash fights me, I ’ ll let him land a few punches before Cillian steps in to pull us apart.
“ Don ’ t.” My voice is firm, but the plea beneath it is clear. Please stop pestering Titan. Hate me if you need to—I can handle it.
Titan is already too consumed with Nova's shattered state; he doesn't need Dash's anger on top of it. Nova thought she was free for years, but it turns out others have orchestrated her entire life. Every move she thought was hers had been a reaction to the decisions made by the men in her life.
Nova’s never been free. Her cage was so vast that she mistook it for freedom. She ran within the walls until she finally reached the edge. When she did, the cold bars pressed against her body, halting her and reminding her that she ’ d never had control of her life.
“ Titan has been through enough,” Cillian adds, crossing his arms and widening his legs.
“ Don ’ t?” The vein in Dash ’ s neck pulses. “ Don ’ t question why my brothers, my fucking flesh and blood cousins, lied to me!”
Yeah, we fucked up.
I let my next breath hurt my lungs. How the fuck will I tell him about that last meeting I had with his dad? He ’ s never going to trust me again. I don ’ t like keeping secrets from my brothers, but…I think I have to.
“ You let some psycho who was plotting revenge against us share the dorm with Mila!”
“ Mila was never Nova’s target. Nova used Mila to get closer to Titan.”
“ You didn ’ t know that!” Dash is in my face, eyes narrowing into fissures that want to grab me by the ankles and force me over the abyss.
“ I know you ’ re pissed.”
“ Pissed off doesn ’ t begin to describe what I feel. You played with Mila ’ s life!”
“ And you haven ’ t!” I shove him back into the wall of computers. “ I know what you did, and it was low even for you.” I look up, knowing that two floors above us, Mila is locked away in his room, and Nova is down the hall with Titan. He ’ s isolating Mila more and more. Day by day, I watch the light in her hazel eyes dim. I won ’ t watch it be snuffed out.
Dash ’ s eye twitches.
“ Blaze was her friend.” He took that away from Mila when he ordered Blaze to make a move to ruin their friendship.
“ I was teaching her a lesson.”
“ What was that?” I grab him by the collar of his shirt, dragging him so we ’ re chin to chin. Cillian shifts in his chair.
“ Did you regret the pictures? Let me guess, you want to fuck Mila again, she ’ s your drug, and it ’ s been a few weeks since the wedding now, and you ’ re trying to decide how to weasel your way into her bed again even when new pictures are planned to hit the press again next week.”
He grabs me, fisting my shirt in his rattling fists, but he doesn ’ t hit me. No, he wants me to hurt him.
“ You want to make love to her, to ease your pain only to shove her back in a cage after. Or were you hoping she would kiss Blaze and move on?”
His face becomes the shade of a red velvet cake, lacking sweetness.
Cillian ’ s shadow falls over us, and his massive hands land on each of our chests as he shoves us apart. “ Let ’ s calm down and rethink everything. Plans change. Dash, maybe you need to change your plans.”
He ’ s too stubborn to do that.
“ You can ’ t be Mila’s shield from a distance,” I growl.
“ Watch me.” Dash sneers.