Chapter 49
Violet
Seven months later
“I can't believe you'll be married in under twenty-four hours,” Ginny said, shaking her head as she raised her glass of wine. “Like, actually married. At twenty-one.”
I smiled. “Tell me about it,” I said, lifting my own glass. “Sometimes I can barely believe it myself.”
We were at The Cove, the same bar we'd come to almost a year ago when I first transferred to BHU.
Back then, Cherry had been here too, laughing and drinking and pretending to be my friend while hiding the fact that she'd murdered my sister. Now it was just the four of us. Jeremiah, Dylan, Ginny, and me. The way it should’ve been from the start.
“I just can’t believe you’re marrying Julian Valcourt. The guy I once described as a straight-up psychopath,” Jeremiah said, arching a brow. “Although… I have to admit, I was pretty wrong about him. We all were.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Cherry was constantly lying and manipulating everyone into thinking Roman was a born and bred psychopath. Part of that involved throwing the entire Valcourt family under the bus and making it seem like they’re all psychopathic assholes. Julian included.”
Dylan stiffened slightly at the mention of Cherry. “Have you heard from her at all?” he asked quietly, leaning closer. “Since she was sentenced?”
“Nope. Have you?”
He shook his head, and so did the other two. “Not a peep.”
“I guess she’s actually doing what we told her, then,” I said, arching a brow. “Staying silent.”
Jeremiah’s lips pressed into a thin, grim line. “Good,” he muttered under his breath.
“Sorry to bring this up on a happy night like this, but seeing as we’re already on the subject…” Ginny hesitated and leaned closer to me, eyes filled with sympathy. “How are you doing with the anniversary coming up soon?”
She didn’t have to specify which anniversary she was referring to. I already knew. In just five weeks, it would be exactly two years since my sister’s death.
I swallowed hard and folded my hands on my lap beneath the table. “I’m okay,” I said softly. “It’s not something I’ll ever really get over. But it gets easier, day by day. Especially because I have you guys and Julian around. That really helps.”
“How about Roman?” Dylan asked, brows knitting. “How’s he been dealing with it?”
“He’s still grieving, but he’s getting better,” I replied. “He’s been spending a lot of time in California with my mom, and that’s really helping him.”
“Hold up.” Jeremiah lifted a palm. “Your mom?”
I waved a hand. “It’s nothing weird. They’re actually really helping each other,” I said.
“They hang out together and talk about Cal. Share memories and so on. It helps them with their grief. And it’s also good because I’m still so busy with school, so I can’t get back home to visit Mom all that much.
So I’m glad she’s got Roman there so often, because I think it’s really good for her to have the company right now.
And at this point, Roman’s practically part of the family anyway, since I’m about to marry his brother. ”
“That’s actually really sweet,” Ginny said, smiling faintly. She cocked her head. “Do you think he’ll ever fall in love again?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “If he does, it won’t be anytime soon. But I do hope it happens for him one day. He deserves to be happy, and I know it’s what Cal would want for him.”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. Then he lifted his glass. “To Cal,” he said, voice slightly husky.
The rest of us raised our drinks too. “To Cal,” we echoed, clinking our glasses together.
After we’d all taken a sip, Ginny lifted her glass again. “And now, on a much lighter note… to Violet!” she said, eyes glimmering as she smiled at me. “Who somehow survived being kidnapped by a secret society and came out the other side engaged to a billionaire.”
“I wasn't kidnapped,” I protested, laughing. “More like... aggressively recruited.”
“Tomato, to-mah-to,” Dylan said, grinning. He clinked his glass against mine. “Either way, you're getting married tomorrow, and we're all here to celebrate with you tonight.”
I smiled, warmth spreading through my chest. I was so glad and grateful that these three were still at BHU. They were all doing postgrad work now—Jeremiah in computer science, Dylan in film production, Ginny in theater tech—which meant they'd be staying for at least another year or two.
If they'd left after graduation like most seniors did, I'd have started my senior year alone, seeing as I hadn’t made any other friends on campus last year. Only casual acquaintances in classes.
I was still friends with some of the girls from my Selection cohort, but none of them had chosen to return to campus for in-person classes. They'd all stuck with distance learning, finding it easier to disappear into their new lives with their Reapers.
I understood why. Coming back to BHU had been weird at first. Random people frequently came up to me and asked questions about the Selection that I couldn't answer, and acquaintances I'd made earlier in the semester repeatedly asked where I'd been for those three months after the hunt.
I'd stuck to the cover story—internship at the Valcourt Institute, very exclusive, no outside communication allowed—but I could tell most people didn't quite believe it. Eventually, though, the questions died down. People moved on, and I settled back into campus life.
Dylan gave me a sideways glance, one eyebrow arched. “I have a question for you, Vee,” he said. “About your future in-laws.”
Jeremiah playfully elbowed him. “You know she can’t talk about the—”
Dylan cut him off. “I wasn’t asking about that,” he said hurriedly. He looked at me again. “Don’t worry, Vee, I know we’re not supposed to ask about the Club. I just wanted to know what Julian’s parents are like.”
I leaned back and blew out a long breath. “Well, to put it delicately, Julian’s dad isn’t always the easiest person to deal with.”
“Hey, none of this ‘putting things delicately’, please,” Ginny said, waggling a finger. “Give us the juicy deets.”
I laughed. “Okay, to be frank, I think he’s a hardnosed prick with deep-seated anger issues who pretty much hates everyone and everything,” I said. “But he respects me now. I know that much. And with him, I’d say that’s a huge win.”
“What about his mom?”
“Honestly, at first, I thought Carolina was basically the female version of August. Cold, bristly, and detached,” I said.
“But she warmed to me a lot once Julian and I told her that we’d settled on Valcourt Manor for the wedding venue,” I said.
“She was over the moon that we chose their home over all the other options, and she also loves event planning, so she’s been really helpful.
Handled practically everything, except the stuff Julian and I really wanted to have input on. ”
“So not a total monster-in-law, then,” Ginny said.
I laughed and shook my head. “No. Although she’s definitely a spam monster right now.
She’s sent me around a thousand texts about the wedding planning over the last few weeks, and she’s even had notes hand-delivered to me in the middle of classes when she knew I wouldn’t be looking at my phone,” I said.
“It’s fine, though. I know it’s just because she cares, and she wants everything to go off without a hitch tomorrow. ”
“Well, on that note…” Jeremiah glanced at his watch. “We should probably wrap things up here. You don’t want to drink too much and oversleep tomorrow.”
I grinned. “It’s okay. Evening ceremony, remember? So we can sleep until lunchtime if we really want to,” I said. “So if everyone wants another round, it’s cool with me.”
Ginny let out a dreamy sigh. “Evening weddings are so impossibly chic,” she said. “I have no idea why. But they totally are, right?”
I nodded. “I think so too.”
“Plus, like you said, it means we can get more drinks now and sleep in tomorrow,” she went on. “Although… I guess you don’t want to be hungover on your wedding day, do you?”
“Good point,” I said, nodding slowly. “Maybe we should wrap things up now, just in case.”
Dylan nodded and leaned back in his seat, raising a hand to summon the nearest waiter. “I’ll grab the check.”
When it arrived, it was accompanied by a letter in a cream envelope. “I was asked to deliver this to you, Ms. Calloway,” the waiter said, handing it directly to me.
Jeremiah leaned forward, brows furrowing. “What is that?”
I shrugged and stuffed it in my purse before I rummaged through it for cash. “Not sure, but I’m willing to bet it’s yet another note from Carolina with some last-minute questions about the wedding,” I said. “I’ll look at it soon. Right now, I need the bathroom.”
“Me too,” Ginny added, throwing some cash down on the table.
Once we were done, we met Jeremiah and Dylan by the door, and the four of us hugged goodbye.
None of the others lived on campus now that they were post-grad, so Jeremiah and Dylan had caught an Uber here from their house on the other side of Blackthorne Harbor, and Ginny had taken the nearby shuttle bus that stopped directly in front of her apartment on Main Street.
They were all returning home the same way.
As for me, I still had my dorm on the east side of campus, which was only a fifteen-minute walk from The Cove.
I set off, hands in my jacket pockets, breath misting in the cool night air. September had arrived with a bite, the warmth of summer finally giving way to an autumn chill.
A year ago, I would've been too nervous to walk alone across campus at night, given everything that'd been going on in my life back then. Now, I felt totally safe. No one was after me, and on top of that, I knew Julian would never let anything happen to me.
The path wound past darkened academic buildings and through the western quad, where the St. Dionysius statue stood watch like it had for over two hundred years.
I paused for a moment, looking up at it.
The bronze was dark against the night sky, but the campus lights caught the weathered features of the saint's face.