Chapter 50 Bastian
BASTIAN
ci·lan·tro: /s??lantrō/: noun
The call with the limited partners drags on longer than I’d like. I sit in my office with my laptop propped open, watching Harold Fitzgerald’s puffy face fill half my screen as he holds court while the other dozen primary investors listen.
We’re running through final numbers—projected revenue for opening week, anticipated covers per night, beverage cost percentages. The usual pre-launch minutiae that makes my eyelids twitch.
“The reservation system is already at capacity for the first two weeks,” I tell them when Harold pauses for breath. “We’ve got a waiting list three thousand names deep.”
One of the other investors, a hawk-eyed venture capitalist named Taylor Brewer who made his fortune in tech start-ups, nods approvingly. “Excellent. How are we set for press coverage?”
“Cover features are scheduled in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and the Tribune, and we’ve given out nearly a hundred press passes already. Eater is sending a whole team to the gala. Every wannabe blogger with a camera and a Tumblr page is dying to come.”
“Speaking of teams,” Harold interjects, “my team has passed along some interesting rumors. Something about construction delays on-site? Logistical issues?”
My hackles raise instantly. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, you know how it is.” He waggles his fingers through the air. “Little birdies talk. I just want to make sure everything’s on track for next week’s launch.”
“Everything is on track,” I tell him firmly. “Frank Moretti and his team have delivered exactly what we needed, on time and on budget. I was just at the site this afternoon. It’s flawless.”
“No HVAC problems?” Harold presses. “No issues with the fire suppression system?”
I lean forward, letting a hint of steel creep into my voice. “Harold, if you’ve got concerns about the project, I’m happy to arrange a private tour for you. But I can assure you that every single system has been inspected and approved. We’re ready.”
There’s a beat of silence. Harold’s smile looks insincere, but eventually, he nods. “Good, good. Just doing my due diligence, you understand.”
Brewer clears his throat. “I think we’re all feeling confident about the launch. Bastian’s track record speaks for itself.”
The other investors murmur their agreement, and I feel the tension ease. We spend another twenty minutes going over final details before I’m finally able to end the call.
As the screen goes dark, I settle back in my chair and scrub my hands over my face.
I didn’t like that look in Harold’s eyes.
How the hell did he hear about the construction issues?
We’ve kept that information locked down tight.
Only a handful of people even knew there were problems in the first place.
And thanks to Eliana’s hard work over the last two months, those problems no longer exist.
I make a mental note to ask Frank about it when I see him next. But for now, I want to find Eliana.
I push back from my desk and head toward her cubicle. Maybe I’ll convince her to grab dinner somewhere out of the way, just the two of us.
But her desk is empty. Her Garfield mug sits abandoned beside her monitor, still half-full of cold coffee. Her chair is pushed back at an awkward angle, like she left in a hurry.
“Looking for Hunter?”
I turn to find Kyle, Eliana’s least favorite coworker and a consistent pain in my ass, leaning against the cubicle partition with a smirk.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Beats me. She got a call maybe, like, twenty minutes ago? Looked pretty upset about it. She grabbed her coat and booked it out of here.” He pauses and purses his lips. He seems to be enjoying having information I don’t. “Didn’t say where she was going, though.”
I frown. She would’ve texted me if it was something minor.
Unless it wasn’t minor.
I pull out my phone and fire off a quick text.
Where are you? Everything okay?
The message delivers but doesn’t show as read. My frown deepens.
I turn my back on Kyle and start striding toward the elevator, staring at my phone the whole time to see if the Read status on my text changes. After a minute or two of waiting and still no elevator, I grunt in frustration and go for the stairs instead.
I’m charging down the stairs, my anxiety building with every step, when Read: 4:32 P.M. suddenly pops up beneath my text. My phone rings a moment later.
“You alright?” I bark into the phone as soon as I answer. “Where are you? Is everything—”
“I’m fine, Bastian,” she says with a laugh. But I know her well enough by now to hear the tears lurking at the edge of that laughter.
“Then why do you sound like you’ve been crying?”
“Because I have been, dummy,” she replies.
“But it’s okay. It’s a good thing. My mom called and she needed me, and I came here, and we talked, and…
Yeah. It’s a long story, so I’ll have to explain when I see you again.
But I’m gonna take her to a meeting tonight, alright?
She wanted me to go and I want to be there for her. ”
I soften at once. That fear for her safety, the ever-present thought of What if Aleksei does something I don’t expect, goes whooshing out of my stomach. “Yeah. Of course. Of course that’s alright. You need anything from me?”
“No, but thank you. I’m just gonna spend some time with her. I think… I think things might be changing for the better, Bastian.”
It’s the hope in her voice that undoes me. That’s what makes Eliana Hunter special, I think. Well, one of the many things. It’s that her hope is un-fucking-killable. She masquerades as a cynic, a pessimist, but deep in her heart and the marrow of her bones, that simply isn’t true.
She’s a hoper. A dreamer. A believer. She saw good in me when there was none, and what do you fucking know? That made the goodness appear.
I’m not so foolish as to think that she’s redeemed me. One look at what I did to my little brother is proof that I’m forever beyond redemption.
But she’s made me believe that not all is lost. Not for her or for me. Not for Sage or her mother. Maybe even Aleksei is salvageable, though I’m not foolish enough to try that, either.
We’ve all got sinners inside of us. We’ve all got saints, too. A little darkness, a little light. It’s the tastes of both that make us whole and human.
It’s the balance.
It’s the hope.
I’m overcome by a sudden and irresistible desire to see Sage again.
He’s been around these last few months, of course.
He’ll eat dinner with me and Eliana, or coerce her into serving as his target practice while he repeatedly snipes her with bazookas or whatever in his video games.
But in the way of all teenagers, he withdraws into his room as often as not.
Now, though, I want to see him. I want to crush my baby brother in my arms and remind myself that he’s alive and so am I, and as long as that’s true, there’s hope.
There’s always fucking hope.
The Range Rover chirps as I unlock it and slide behind the wheel. I’m pulling out my phone to text Sage that I’m coming home early when I remember that it’s Tuesday. Physical therapy day.
So I change plans, steering toward the clinic instead of the penthouse. The drive takes twenty minutes in traffic, and I spend most of it replaying Eliana’s voice in my head.
Things might be changing for the better.
God, I want that for her. I want her to have good things. Easy things. Things that don’t require her to be strong and resilient and capable every single fucking second of every single fucking day.
I want to give her those things, too. As much as she’ll let me.
The clinic parking lot is half-empty when I pull in. Through the windows, I can see Sage working with Bishop. My brother’s face is screwed up in concentration as he pushes against resistance bands.
I kill the engine and just watch him for a moment.
He looks like a man suddenly. When the hell did that happen?
I could swear it was just yesterday that he was a red-faced and squalling bundle of blankets in my arms. Who is this stranger with a man’s muscles and a man’s jaw and—well, not a man’s mustache, you can’t fairly call it a mustache if it’s just a dozen blonde hairs, but dammit, he’s changing and I barely even noticed.
When Bishop leaves the room for a moment to grab something from a closet, Sage looks at Lilah, the assistant he swears he’s never had a crush on, and gives her a wink and flex of the biceps.
She fans her face like Betty Boop and giggles, and the blush that steals across my brother’s cheeks makes me grin like an idiot.
That’s my brother. That’s my family, goddammit. That’s my blood.
I step out of the car and go in. They both look up at me, and when Bishop emerges from the closet with a medicine ball in hand, he looks up at me, too.
“Everything alright, B?” asks Sage with a concerned frown.
“All good,” I promise. “I just wrapped things up at the office early, so I thought I’d swing by to give you a ride home.”
“Suspicious,” he remarks with a laugh. He looks at Lilah and nods his head toward me, as if to say, Get a load of this creep, will ya? She laughs again, and I laugh, too, happy to be the butt of the joke if it means seeing him smile.
“We’re just finishing up here, Mr. Hale,” Bishop says. “One last set and I’ll cut your brother loose.”
“Oh, man, not the medball!” Sage complains.
“Yes, the medball,” Bishop confirms, chuckling as a vicious twinkle lights up his eyes.
“I hate this fucking thing.” Sage scowls as he accepts it into his lap with an oof. But he dutifully hoists it overhead and holds it there, straining and sweating, as Bishop times him with a stopwatch and Lilah cheers him on.
When he reaches the designated time, he dumps it to the side with a disgusted sideways look at it and then up at me. “Not bad, eh?” he brags.
I grin at him and give him a slow golf clap. “You’re the strongest man in the world, little brother.”
“He’s all yours, sir,” Bishop tells me. “See you next week, Sage.”