Chapter 39 #2
“The workers wanted to negotiate, to take over the mining operation so it would be owned by the Arkalans. Then, when you showed up, it seemed like everything was going to be fixed.” He paused, and I remembered that time.
I'd just been named interim CEO, and this was my first time managing a major problem. I’d flown out, making sure to give all the workers increased wages, replace management, and implement new safety rules.
The media was there, and from what I could tell, everything had been fixed.
“And after I left?” I asked, afraid to hear Dante’s words, though I already knew what happened.
He looked at me, then swallowed again. “I got a call from my cousin. I remember hearing gunshots in the background. He told me, ‘they’re killing everyone.’” His words felt like a knife in my heart.
“It was a punishment, a warning from Harringday to never revolt, never ask for more. I heard him trying to escape. The Harringday staff, they were on a rampage, killing the people who’d participated in the revolt.
I heard my cousin pleading for his life, then someone saying that this was courtesy of Celeste Harringday. Then a gunshot.”
His hand tightened into a fist on his knee. “I heard him scream. Then nothing.”
I swallowed hard, my own eyes stinging.
“When the dust settled, there was nothing left of those miners in Arkala but bodies. And the only thing I knew, that everyone working in the mines knew, was that Harringday sanctioned it. That you ordered it.” His gaze lifted to mine, dark, searching, but without the same ice I’d seen before.
“I believed them. For years, I believed them.”
I shook my head, my throat tight. “Dante, I never knew. I thought I’d made progress there, I never would have-”
“I know.” He cut me off gently, almost weary.
“I know now. I know you were set up. That someone wanted everyone looking at you instead of the people actually pulling the strings. But I’m sorry, Celeste.
For not seeing it sooner. For every time I treated you like you were my enemy.
” His chest moved, and I gently lay a hand on his arm.
“It doesn’t excuse it, Dante.” I said quietly.
“I should have looked closer. The moment that I knew someone had forged my name at Tedena, I should have turned Harringday upside down and found out what was happening behind my back. I was a pawn, a stupid, useful idiot. And I don’t blame you for thinking what you did.
How would you have known?” I asked, tears forming in my eyes. I was a fool.
“We were all fools.” He said, his hand on mine as he looked at me.
“We were set up. And even with the evidence right in front of me, I still didn’t trust you.
And it almost cost me everything.” He sat up, pushing himself up as he looked at me.
“I can’t forgive myself for that. If I hadn’t realized in time, if I hadn’t warned the pack-” He said, his voice still laced with that angry worry from earlier.
“But we’re okay now.” I said, wanting to curl up with him. “We survived.”
I looked at his chest, muscled and taut, but rising with each ragged breath like he was fighting off the near-death that tried to take him.
“Dante, I did some research after I found those documents.” I said, picking at my thumb.
“I know Harringday is my family’s legacy.
And of course, I love my family, and cherish their memory.
” I didn’t even want to bring up the painful truth I’d learned from my nanny about what happened to them.
“But, Harringday was never innocent. I think there were many things I conveniently ignored because they happened so long ago.”
I thought of my father. And of the things I’d overlooked because it was easier not to look too closely, to preserve the memory of my family how I knew them.
But now, I can't unsee it. He wasn’t the same man I’d clung to in my memories.
He was a Harringday. The men in my family would let others burn to lift the company higher.
The Harringday company didn’t get to be the biggest in the province from hard work alone.
“I think there were things I’ve been blind to, and now, I want to see.
” I admitted. Dante’s eyebrows raised at my admission.
“I want to know more, even the ugly parts. I want to be different. I want my family legacy to be different.” Dante looked at me in a way he never had before.
His hands reached for me, and despite the pain I knew he was probably in, he pulled me in for an embrace that made me feel like we broke an invisible barrier that had always been between us.
“Celeste, stay here with me. Please.” He whispered, and I breathed in his smoked oud and pepper scent, savoring in the secure feeling I had now that my scent match was holding me. I’d missed this so much.
“I’ll stay as long as you'll have me.” And it was true. My scent match was here, having taken a bullet to save me. I couldn’t ever see myself leaving him, not now, not ever. Somehow, through all this pain, we found our way back.