Chapter 13
The apartment smelled heavenly. Steam rose from the takeout boxes Claudia had spread across the dining table, filling the air with savory scents.
Marigold sat between Gavin and Claudia, chopsticks clumsy in her hands at first, but the laughter that followed her failed attempts to use them was warm, not cruel.
Gavin wordlessly swapped her for a fork, and Claudia pretended not to notice.
For a while, they just ate. Gavin demolished half the fried rice before Marigold had managed three bites of lo mein.
Claudia, for all her sharp edges, was easy to share a meal with.
She stuck to simple conversation, asking if Marigold preferred chicken or beef, or what dessert she liked best. Harmless questions.
Yet each one made Marigold feel seen, as though her preferences mattered.
By the time the cartons were mostly empty and Gavin had leaned back with a satisfied groan, Marigold felt more settled than she’d thought possible. It almost felt normal, but she knew it wouldn’t last.
“Shall we?” Claudia asked softly, wiping her hands and rising. Her eyes flicked toward the office. “Better to work while the food’s still settling.”
Marigold’s stomach knotted instantly, nerves chasing away her brief moments of ease. She looked toward Gavin, but he only reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He pulled her close to his side for a quick moment and rubbed his lips against her temple in a move that stole her breath.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered for her ears alone.
She let him guide her into the office, where files were already stacked in neat piles across the desk. Maps and photos lay pinned to a board on the wall. Faces she knew all too well were staring back at her from what looked like a cop show murder board.
Claudia sat in one of the guest chairs with her hands neatly folded, waiting for them to take their places. She met Marigold’s gaze steadily.
“If you’re willing, we could really use your insight, Marigold. You know things about the Rollins dynasty that can’t be found through regular research channels. No one else knows them like you do. Are you willing to tell us a little more about them?”
Marigold’s throat went dry. She forced herself to look at the photo of her uncle, his cold eyes staring back even from glossy print.
“You mean Uncle Ash?” Marigold asked, swallowing hard.
Claudia inclined her head. “He’s taken over as Patriarch, as you thought. We know he’s trying to gather power, but can you tell me anything personal about him? Maybe how he likes to work?”
Marigold’s hands trembled, but she set them flat on her knees to steady them. She made the conscious decision to speak against her blood.
“Ash doesn’t work alone. He never has. Aunt Narcissus has always been his shadow.
She’s always whispering in his ear. And Fern—” Marigold swallowed hard.
“Fern is the cruelest of the three. Ash makes decisions, Narcissus whispers poison, but Fern carries out his orders without hesitation. They balance each other. Strength, cunning, and brutality.”
Gavin’s pen scratched steadily over the notepad, capturing every word, while Claudia leaned forward slightly, her tone still quiet but her eyes sharp.
“Ash is the figurehead, but the other two are just as important to his running of the dynasty,” Claudia summed up.
“Yes.” The word came out in almost a whisper from Marigold. “When he rose to Patriarch, the other two will have risen with him. He’ll wear the title, but the dynasty will really belong to all three.”
Saying it aloud left Marigold shaking, but also strangely lighter.
As if by explaining their twisted relationship to outsiders, she’d broken another link in the chain still tying her to the family.
Gavin seemed to notice her trembling and reached across the desk to brush his knuckles against her hand. Just that small contact steadied her.
“All right,” Claudia said resolutely. “Then we know where to focus our attention.”
Marigold drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “It won’t be easy. Jeremiah was just one man wielding enormous personal power. Those three are a unit, and all three of them together are a force to be reckoned with.”
They spent several hours going through each member of the family with Marigold providing additional information.
Personal stuff that was only known within the family.
She wasn’t sure of how much use her knowledge could be, but both Claudia and Gavin were encouraging.
So, she told them everything she knew about every member of her family.
“Willow is the youngest of all. She’s Bill and Daisy’s only child.
They’ve never been overtly mean to me, and she’s actually a pretty good kid, from what I’ve seen of her.
She doesn’t like to practice the spells her father sets for her, and I think it’s because she knows they’re just this side of bad, and not because she’s a child and most kids don’t like sitting for hours doing homework, even magical homework.
” Marigold said of one of her youngest cousins.
“She’s only six years old,” Claudia observed.
“You can’t tell me any child that young could have turned fully to the dark side,” Gavin stated, disgust in his tone.
“But if they’re teaching her to do bad things and accept them as normal, then she’ll have little choice when she’s older but to go down the road they’ve paved for her,” Claudia said with a shake of her head.
“Maybe we can save her before that,” Gavin said quietly. “You said her mother was dead, and she was being raised by her father, Robert, with the help of his sister, Rowan.”
“That’s right. Robert and Rowan have never hurt me.
Even when Jeremiah lent me to them to complete some work he wanted them to do for him, they used their own power and treated me as a guest, even if they did lock and ward the door to my room in their house so I couldn’t escape,” Marigold mused.
“They were wrecked by the power drain from whatever Jerimiah had ordered them to accomplish, but they didn’t force my power from me, and nothing was ever said about it after the fact.
They thanked Jerimiah for loaning me to them, and I got the impression he thought they’d used me like all the others, but they hadn’t.
Come to think of it, Robert winked at me before I left with Jeremiah, and I got the impression he wanted me to act the part and not give them away.
I pretended to be weak whenever Jeremiah spoke to me after that for about a week, and I don’t think he was ever the wiser. ”
“So, while Robert and Rowan are Rollins family members, they may not fully align with the cruelty of the rest of the family,” Claudia summed up.
“But they did do whatever it was Jeremiah ordered, so they’re probably not completely innocent,” Gavin reminded her.
“The words innocent and Rollins don’t really go together,” Marigold said softly, feeling the bleak reality of her cursed family once more. Her words still hung in the air long after Claudia leaned back in her chair, and Gavin turned his attention to his notes.
Robert, Rowan, and the quiet ones like little Willow and her parents, were one side of the family coin. They were the more stable, somewhat respectable facade put forward by the real power. It used to be Jeremiah. Now it was Ash, Narcissus, and Fern. Marigold shuddered at the thought.
Speaking their names and exposing them as villains, even in private, felt like hammering nails into her own coffin. They were her kin. Her blood. The people who should have been kind to her, shielded her, and loved her. Instead, she’d unmasked them, stripped them bare before outsiders.
Her stomach twisted, guilt and grief warring with the fragile sense of relief that whispered she’d finally done the right thing.
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the room.
They’ll hate her for this. Of course, the way they’ve treated her all these years, it was clear they didn’t see her as a person.
Just a commodity to be used. Let them hate her. That was better than indifference.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the hot sting of tears.
A small voice inside whispered that she should be stronger than this, that she should rejoice in naming her abusers for what they were.
But the child who’d grown up in locked rooms and under cruel hands still lived inside her, trembling.
That child still flinched at the thought of Ash’s voice, Narcissus’s cutting smile, Fern’s unyielding hand.
“Marigold.”
Her head snapped up, startled. Gavin’s gaze was steady on her, sharp and concerned. She hadn’t realized she’d let her emotions show on her face.
“You don’t have to carry the weight alone anymore,” he said, his voice gentler than she expected. “What you’ve given us here, it’s not betrayal. It’s truth. And it’s survival. Your survival. You know they need to be stopped, or they’ll never stop coming for you.”
He was right. She knew that, but the ache in her chest wouldn’t loosen.
Claudia rose, gathering the last of the files into neat stacks. She didn’t touch Marigold, didn’t offer platitudes, but her eyes held a quiet kind of respect.
“I know it costs something to speak against your own,” she said softly.
“Don’t for a minute think any of us think otherwise.
But you’re doing something that needs to be done.
And because of it, yourself and others might be a little safer.
You’re doing something good out of the evil that was done to you.
You’re choosing the Light. It’s not always an easy path, but it’s always, and I mean always, the right one. ”
Marigold’s throat tightened painfully. She nodded, but her hands shook in her lap. She did her best to get a grip on her emotions as Claudia said her goodbyes.
When she left a short while later, Gavin didn’t immediately return to his desk. Instead, he crossed the room, crouched in front of Marigold, and simply took her hands in his. His warmth seeped into her chilled skin.
“You’re not alone anymore, Goldie,” he murmured. “Not in this. Not in anything.”
The tears came freely, sliding hot down her cheeks as she leaned into him.
They came hard and fast, spilling down her cheeks as Gavin held her hands.
She hadn’t wanted to break down and cry, but she couldn’t help herself.
The grief, the guilt, and the relief were all crashing through her until she could hardly breathe.
Gavin didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away or let go. He held her, steady as stone, his warmth seeping into her trembling hands, his golden eyes fierce and unyielding.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said again, and the words struck something deep inside her. His words touched on something so raw she almost couldn’t bear it.
She reached for him before she even knew she was moving.
One moment, she was crying, the next, her arms were winding around his neck, her face pressed against the solid heat of his chest. He gathered her close without hesitation, his hand stroking her back as if he knew exactly how badly she needed to feel anchored.
The sobs eased, but the ache didn’t vanish. It shifted and morphed into something else. It began as warmth, then blazed quickly into heat between them, the desire they felt for each other never far below the surface.
When she tipped her head back to look at him, she realized what her heart craved wasn’t just comfort. It was closeness. Proof that she was alive. That she had made the right choice. That Gavin wanted her, despite everything that should stand between them.
“Gavin…” Her voice was husky, breaking on his name. “I need you.”
His eyes searched hers. “Marigold—”
“Please,” she whispered, clutching at his shirt. “I just need to feel something good. Something real.”
His growl rumbled low, vibrating through his chest against her body, but his hands framed her face, thumbs brushing away the last of her tears.
“Please, Gavin. Don’t make me wait.”
Spurred into action by her words, he didn’t hold back.
Their mouths met, and it wasn’t gentle this time.
No, it was fire and desperation, her tears mingling with his kiss as she poured the mess of emotions inside her into it.
He groaned against her lips, gathering her into his lap, holding her as if she might vanish if he let go.
The office fell away. The maps, the files, the grim faces of her family pinned to the wall.
All of it blurred into nothing as his hands skimmed her back, her sides, and her arms, leaving warmth in their wake.
Her breath shuddered as she pressed closer, needing the heat of him to drive away the shadows.
His mouth traced her jaw, her throat, each touch branding her as his, each caress telling her she was wanted, cherished, safe.
By the time he rose, lifting her easily into his arms, her body trembled with more than nerves.
Desire coiled tight inside her, sharp and undeniable.
She clung to him, burying her face against his neck as he carried her the short distance down the hall.
When he laid her gently on the bed, leaning over her with that mix of hunger and reverence in his eyes, Marigold knew she wasn’t just taking comfort. She was choosing him. Choosing them.