23. Kiera
KIERA
She wasn’t kidding about those dead ends.
After our conversation in the garden, I’d tried quietly digging into Leo’s parents’ history on my own.
Over the course of several days, I’d learned the form numbers for all sorts of financial disclosures, a brief history of government contracting, and even which military class General Callahan graduated in.
Yet no matter how hard I dug, there was nothing incriminating online aside from that stupid picture. Maybe it would be easier to find records once we were back in New York— some paper trail of old government contracts at the town hall, or a newspaper clipping at the library.
But given how fruitless my attempts to dig through Valemont’s housing records had been, I doubted anything good would come of it.
There had to be something else we could do. But whatever that solution was, I wasn’t going to find it tonight.
Somehow, after several false flags from the bird-brains, it was officially our final night in Washington. I could hardly believe it. A part of me thought we might be here forever. And on some level, I might not have minded that.
But as idyllic as this place was, I knew I wouldn’t truly be able to rest until Isaac was taken care of, and Gabe with him. For years, they had been hunting me quietly, scheming to take away my power. And now, we would turn their game on them completely.
The weight of that rested heavily on all of us. Spencer nervously took inventory of the bags while Leo followed Viv around, desperate for some last way to be useful to our host. Dom, on the other hand, kept quiet and still until night fell and she had me alone in our bedroom.
She climbed into my bed like always, feverish and hasty in her movements.
But tonight was different. She held me a little closer, a little tighter, biting into my shoulder as I rode closer to my climax.
She knotted her hand into my hair, pulling me back slightly, looking deep into my eyes while she finished inside of me.
Once my body stopped quaking, I knew what to expect; Dom pulled out of me, took her strap to get washed, and turned off the lights on her way out the door. I knew what I was supposed to do too: close my eyes, pretend to fall asleep, and wait for her almost-caress over the topsheet.
And I tried. I closed my eyes and faced the wall, taking in deep, calming breaths. I waited for the usual sense of relief to flood my system, hoped the high of the endorphins would be enough to draw the tension from my muscles.
But no matter how long I waited, calm never came. Even as Dom lumbered into the bed, nestled in behind me, and let her breath wash over my neck, I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding.
Why am I even trying? What’s the point in this stupid charade?
Fed up with my own pathetic compliance, I flipped toward Dom, ready to end this stupid game. But to my surprise, her back was already facing me, the marred expanse of her skin on full display.
Her tattoo ink was dark, heavy lines shading over her pain. The wings spread protectively over her back, but beneath that, I could see the hurt that she’d endured.
Her scars glistened under the moon; the skin had woven into taut, scattered ropes. In some areas, they rose into high peaks that caught the light, casting shadows over the valleys where she’d been cut deepest.
Beneath the ink, the color of her skin shifted from pinks and browns to pale white, and though nothing beautiful could have caused these scars, I couldn’t help my mind from drifting to cherry blossoms.
It was the closest look I’d gotten at the marks. She was usually so careful about keeping her shirt on, waking up before I even got a chance to glimpse them.
Now, I could see why. They weren’t mountains or valleys or trees — they were a topographical map of her deepest trauma. Even in the dim light, I could tell that they didn’t have just one source — slices, tears, and burns all wove together into an expansive tapestry of pain.
What happened to her?
I couldn’t be sure, but that didn’t stop the tears from welling in my eyes. Before I could think better of it, my hand drifted forward, closing the gap between us as my fingers traced the tall edge of the scar closest to her left shoulder.
No sooner did I make contact than her body tensed under my touch.
“I’m so sorry!” I pulled back, face flushing red. I don’t know what I’d expected. That she was asleep? Or that she would lay still, just like I had as she traced her hands over me?
But before I could turn to the safety of the wall, her hand shot back and closed around my wrist. “Don’t… don’t go.”
The blood drained from my face as I tried to figure out what she meant, but it was hard to think with her thumb caressing the inside of my wrist. One squeeze is all it would take to break me, and yet…
Maybe the pressure is getting to her too.
Pressing my palm back to her skin, I took a deep breath. With every shift of her muscle under my hand, little sparks of heat prickled through my fingertips. “You never told me how you got these…”
“Do you want to know?”
A beat of silence stretched between us as I considered what I was signing up for. All I’d ever wanted from Dom was answers, and tonight, she was offering them to me on a silver platter. But was I ready to hear this horror story?
I had to be. If she was brave enough to show me this part of herself, then how dare I look away?
So despite the tightness in my chest, I scooched closer with a nod, close enough to feel the heat radiating off of her skin. “I’m listening.”
Her ribs expanded as she inhaled, stretching the marbled skin taut over her back. Then, one long exhale released the tension. “The night that you left, I did my best to clean up the mess Keith left behind. There was… a lot of blood though, and a lot of houseguests.”
I shuddered to think that this story started with that night — that my presence had caused her any more pain than I already knew about.
“Within minutes, two of the housekeepers found me with a mangled body and a blood-soaked mop. I remember trying to explain myself, but the words just wouldn’t come out. I knew how bad it looked, and I was sure that I was fucked: a few years in prison, at the very least.
“But to my surprise, they didn’t ask any questions. They just… started helping me. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were Oracle spies who’d infiltrated the cleaning staff. Ones placed by my mother, apparently.”
That last part came out with a note of wonder. Apparently, this trip had been eye-opening for her, too.
“It makes sense, in hindsight. Why they were so thorough, so efficient. But it didn’t matter how much DNA we were able to scrub from the scene.
Keith wasn’t some random pedo, and you weren’t just any victim; he was my father’s business associate, and you were a business deal.
And there was no hiding from Isaac, especially when it came to his business.
“For days, I was terrified of what he would do to me. I hid in my room shaking, flinching every time I heard footsteps in the hallway or a door slamming downstairs. But he was surprisingly calm.
“He directed the body disposal like it was any other piece of garbage and paid off the cleaners generously for their loyalty to the family. And he made sure that I was comfortable in the days that followed.
“Big meals sent up to my room, offers of a masseuse, a budget for books and movies to ‘keep my mind off things.’ As if I was recovering from a hospital stay and not the murder of one of his closest colleagues.
“I was certain there was some sort of catch. But the plushy treatment just continued. He wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t even look at me, but he made sure I was taken care of.
I thought maybe that was my punishment — that I was basically dead to him.
He would keep me comfortable as some last favor to my dead mother, but other than that, I wasn’t to bother him.
“And as the days went on, I started to get comfortable with that idea. It wasn’t like we had much of a relationship after my mother’s ‘death,’ anyway. This was just the natural evolution of that path. And after what I’d seen, I had no interest in being near him.”
She inhaled once more, letting the exhale ripple out in a dark laugh. “I should have known better than to let my guard down, though. There were no win-wins when it came to Isaac. He only dealt in destruction, and he wouldn’t stop until I was leveled.”
My shoulders stiffened, but I tried not to keep the tension from bleeding into my touch. Maura could be just the same.
What a pair of parents we were left behind with.
Dom shifted onto her back, staring up at the ceiling as my hand came to rest on her shoulder. “One night, just before sunset, there was a knock at my door. I thought it was a housekeeper dropping off laundry or bringing up food. But when the door swung open, it was Isaac.
“My blood went cold at the sight of him. I didn’t think he would ever speak to me again, and then there he was in the doorway of my bedroom — my safe haven.
Wearing that eerily calm expression still.
He asked me to get dressed and meet him in the driveway; there was a car waiting downstairs.
And then before I could say anything, he left. ”
Now that she was on her back, I could see the tight set of her lips, the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders. But she didn’t look back at me, keeping her gaze locked ahead as if she was recounting a movie playing out across the blank ceiling.
“I had no idea what he’d planned or how to dress for it, but I chose a button-down and some slacks. It seemed appropriate for an office, and it was the only thing I could think of that would make him break his silence: something to do with his company.