Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Faster
Carrson
The road to my house in Ashport twists and turns, a narrow ribbon cutting through trees that crowd too close on either side.
I gun the engine, tugging the wheel harder than I need to as I fly around the curve.
Becky throws her hands out, bracing against the seat so she doesn’t slide off, and laughs.
“You trying to impress me,” she says, gripping the edge harder as I take the turn, “or kill me?”
“Depends,” I answer.
“On what?”
“Whether it’s working.”
She grins at that. “Well, is it?”
“You’re smiling.”
“I find overconfidence entertaining.” She tilts her head, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “You think you’re in charge.”
It’s not what she says. It’s the way she says it, so easy, unbothered. No hesitation. No fear.
Most people have one or the other. Not her.
“I don’t think it,” I say. “I know it.”
The next turn comes up fast. Most people would tense, grip the dash, go quiet. Becky smiles wider, leaning into it instead of away.
I’ve been in a bad mood all morning, dark thoughts flooding in like a drowning tide, but her response, the buoyant way she grins, breaks through the noise and pulls me out of my head.
“Mmm.” She settles back in her seat as the road straightens. “Just so you know, if I die, I’m haunting you.”
“You’d have to catch me first.”
“Oh, I would.” She laughs again.
I like that sound. High and light.
She’s been doing it more recently, although I don’t think she realizes.
I glance over. Her hair falls in long waves over her shoulders, smoother now thanks to Louellen’s hairdresser. She wears slacks that fit cleanly, tailored to her body, and a green silk shirt with buttons down the front that dips into a V at her throat.
My gaze lingers there, at the line of her neck, the pale sweep of skin, before I drag it back to the road.
This entire drive I’ve second-guessed it, my decision to invite her home for spring break.
I hate coming back to this house. There’s nothing here I want to remember, but there’s business to handle, estate work with my father’s lawyers. It wasn’t optional.
Bringing her was.
Maybe it’s weakness. Or maybe I just didn’t want to walk back into that place alone.
I won’t be telling her that.
Better for her not to understand what this house is. What it does to people.
Becky turned twenty last week. Louellen and the sisters got her a cake with pink frosting. They sang at dinner, soft at first, then louder, voices building until the whole room joined in. Her face lit up, brighter than the candles.
I know because I saw it through the window.
It’s a bad habit I’ve picked up recently, spying on her. It started as curiosity but didn’t stay that way for long. Soon it was watching her in class. At the coffee shop with Louellen. Even her bedroom window at night. That’s how I know she doesn’t sleep much.
Instead, she paces.
On those nights, I stand outside in the dark and watch her cross the soft glow of her room, back and forth, slow and restless, like she’s trying to escape whatever follows her into the quiet.
I find myself wondering what keeps her awake.
Whether it looks anything like mine.
Add it to my list of sins. Ashford House enforcer, murderer, and now stalker.
Do I feel bad about it?
Fuck no. I always knew I wasn’t the good guy.
That part doesn’t bother me. What I don’t like is the unease that builds when I go too long without seeing her. It starts small, easy to ignore, then spreads, an itch under my skin until there’s only one way to get rid of it.
I need to know where she is. Who she’s with. To make sure she’s safe.
Because I’m not the only one paying attention.
I hear it some nights outside her room. A rustle in the bushes. The shift of a foot that’s not mine. When I go looking, there’s nothing there. But I can still guess who it is.
Jackson.
Watching her the same way I do. I bet he can’t look away either.
He was there the night of her birthday. Did he notice it too? How easily she fit in with the sisters. You wouldn’t know she hadn’t always belonged there. She blended in, like a chameleon.
“Carrson.”
“Yeah?” I rest my hand on the gear shifter, inches from her leg.
“Go faster,” she breathes, her cheeks pink.
My eyebrows draw up. “You serious?”
“What?” She shrugs. “You scared?”
Did she just…challenge me?
The next curve is right ahead. I speed into it. The tires bite, digging into the asphalt with a squeal. The car lunges forward. The steering wheel jerks under my hands, fighting me, but I don’t let it win. I keep it steady. Force it through.
“That all you’ve got?” she yells over the roar of the engine.
“Let’s see how you like this.” I push the gas pedal down so hard it hits the floorboard.
The car takes off like a shot, barreling down the narrow country road.
It’s a good thing my house is secluded and that there’s no real traffic besides us.
If I crash at this speed, there’s no way we’d walk away.
That’s what makes my heart beat faster, accelerating along with the car.
Next to me, Becky laughs, giddy and reckless.
I take the next turn way too fast, the back end sliding across the road and jolting over the tall weeds and wildflowers that grow in the ditch.
Like before, Becky leans with it, into it, her body following the turn instead of resisting. My gaze slides to her chest rising, thighs pressing together. A small, unconscious tell that lets me know she’s not reacting to the danger. She’s enjoying it.
She wants the edge, and even more disconcerting is the realization that I might want to take her there.
I don’t slow until we reach the outskirts of my property, where the trees thin without warning.
One moment it’s forest on either side of the road, dense, closing in, and the next it opens.
The house sits at the end of a long stretch of gravel, set back far enough that it feels separate from everything around it.
White.
Wide.
Too big to be called anything but a mansion.
Columns rise along the front, tall and symmetrical, holding up a wraparound porch that runs the length of the house. The windows are dark, reflecting the sky instead of letting anything inside show through.
Beyond it, the land stretches out in every direction, rolling grass trimmed perfectly, sloping down toward a lake that reflects the late afternoon light. The water is calm, flat in a way that seems engineered. Trees line the far edge, thick and shadowed, the forest closing in.
I slow the car as the tires crunch over gravel.
Becky leans forward, her eyes wide. “Wow.”
I stay quiet as I pull up to the front steps, the house rising higher the closer we get.
I cut the engine and the silence sets in immediately. Suffocating.
Becky exhales beside me. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I can’t believe you were raised here.” She cranes her neck to take in all three stories through the windshield.
“Something like that.”
My hand stays on the wheel as my stomach churns.
I don’t get out.
Not yet.
Because once I step out of this car, I’m back inside it.
At least this time, I didn’t come alone.