38. Kate
Kate
The woods were frozen, the cold seeping through even my thick black coat as I crouched low, dodging low branches and stepping over uneven ground.
The silence wasn’t silent; it was layered with wind-rustled trees, the faint hum of the river beyond the bluff, and the crunch of snow under my boots.
I was dressed in black from head to toe, no makeup, my hair tied in a low braid under a beanie. Ghost mode.
When I got the call about the night guard, Mr. Hendricks, a kind older man who always carried butterscotch in his pocket for Amber, something inside me snapped. The hospital said he’d been found crumpled near the northeast gate, clubbed in both knees. A message.
I had to do something.
So here I was, out in the dead of night not waiting for Vega or Drew, trying to set up my own motion cameras with infrared, crawling on frozen earth like some rebel in a war movie.
I had just finished mounting the first one when I felt the breath behind me.
Then, slam.
The air was knocked from my lungs as a heavy body tackled me to the ground. I twisted, elbowed, and landed a solid kick.
“Jesus, Kate, stop! It’s me!” Brett’s voice, muffled and pissed.
I stopped thrashing.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“What are you doing here? We’ve looked everywhere for you.”
I blinked up at him from the ground, my chest heaving. “Trying to stop the madness. Drew stashed me here. Right under everyone’s noses.”
He rolled off me and sat back in the snow, breathing hard. We stared at each other for a long second. He looked ragged, shadows under his eyes, anger bleeding through his expression.
“I thought you were one of them,” he muttered.
“I thought you were a gang member.”
We sat in silence on a patch of frozen earth, watching the moon reflect on the river below. Then he said, “This is messed up.”
“I know.”
“Claire…” he started. I turned my face to him. “Is she really into him? Remi?”
“I can’t answer that.”
Brett’s jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists.
“Are you in love with her?”
He didn’t answer.
“You never liked me,” I said quietly.
He huffed a breath that could’ve been a laugh. “Thought you were a threat. Thought you’d ruin him. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t.”
“Remember the first night we met?” I asked. “At the VIP opera lounge?”
He looked sideways. “You wore emerald green. That slit went halfway up your thigh. Every man in that room noticed. Michael looked like he was gonna kill all of them.”
I laughed softly. “You glared at me the whole time.”
“Because I knew,” Brett muttered. “Knew you were the type that flips the table over and changes the whole damn game.”
“I just wanted to build a music school.”
“And you ended up neck-deep in mob politics.”
We were quiet again. The stars overhead twinkled like smug little secrets.
“They beat Mr. Hendricks,” I said. “And now they’re paying gangs to steal my supplies. I can’t even pour a foundation. Every week it’s another permit issue, another lawsuit, another delay. They want me gone.”
“They’ll break you if you stay, Kate.”
“This land,” I stopped, swallowing emotion. “This land is my blood too. My parents, my grandparents. It’s not just theirs… the tribe… the council’s anymore. It’s all of ours.” I exhaled hard. Then, “I have an idea.”
Brett turned to me.
“The FBI guy. Mulligan. What if instead of turning Michael in… we turn in the Councilmen? The bad actors? Redmond, Krystal’s brother, their allies. The ones pulling the strings. You and me. We become the informants.”
Brett whistled low. “Snitching.”
“To save Michael. To save Claire. To save the land—myself. We cut the rot out. The rest, the tribe, the legitimate businesses, can stay clean.”
“Michael can’t know.”
“I know.”
He stared at me, long and hard. “And Drew? You with him now? Guerra?”
I shook my head, breath fogging. “He’s become a friend. A trusted friend.”
Brett let out a low whistle between his teeth. “Drew and Michael are bitter rivals… you’re in the middle of another war now, babe.”
He pulled his phone from his coat, thumbed through it, then tilted the screen toward me.
Photos: Drew at some rooftop bar, city lights glittering behind him, arm slung around a stunning raven-haired woman.
Sleek black dress, red lips, laughing at something he whispered in her ear.
Another shot: them leaving together, her hand on his chest.
“His new mistress,” Brett said, voice flat. “Name’s Valentina. Old money, older connections. Council’s blind spot.”
I stared until the image burned. Drew’s smile, easy, unguarded. The kind he used to flash at me across the penthouse kitchen.
I mumbled, more to myself than Brett, “That explains why he’s never around much anymore…”
Brett pocketed the phone. “He’s covering his bases. You’re not the only one playing chess. And Drew and Remi stay out of my crosshairs, because you say so.”
“They’re my friends.”
He stood, reached out a gloved hand, and pulled me up.
“Then it’s us, Kate. You and me. We fix this.”
And just like that, in the dead of night, under stars and secrets, an unholy alliance was born.
A new war.
And maybe, just maybe, a new ending.
Things started to get better. Brett, now running his own silent mission, slipped out a few nights a week without telling anyone, not even Michael.
He helped secure the perimeter of my construction site, dealing with troublemakers the old-fashioned way.
A few punks who came to tag fences or steal materials found themselves being thrown into the river by dawn, cold and shaken, with a silent warning burned into their bones. Sink or swim. None came back.
Remi and Drew stepped up too. Their crews helped us secure a deal for extra-tall industrial fencing, twelve feet high, barbed wire strung across the top, and electric current to ward off any repeat visitors.
With the land surrounded, finally protected, the noise began to quiet.
Permits stopped getting delayed. Lawsuits slowed.
No one said anything directly, but the pressure began to ease.
It wasn’t peace. But it was progress.
Gertie and I began spending more and more time at the site under the watchful eye of a new security detail. I even had a decoy they drove back to Drew’s penthouse while I slipped out with the construction crew. It was working somehow.
Now Gertie and I stood together in hard hats, steel-toed boots, and warm coats, clutching paper cups of bad gas station coffee, watching the land slowly come alive.
The old buildings came down. Crews leveled out debris.
Plans were drafted. Architects arrived with portfolios and sketches.
Designers followed, ideas pouring from their mouths faster than I could process.
Someone brought up a scholarship fund, inviting students from around the world. We all froze.
Genius.
We weren’t just building a school, we were building a legacy.
Which meant dormitories. An admissions office. A scholarship board. Funding. International outreach. PR. Campus security. Classrooms. Practice rooms. Studios. Outdoor performance stages. Walking trails. Gardens. And yes, fountains. So many fountains.
“We’ll need a cafeteria,” Gertie murmured one night as we reviewed blueprints. “And affordable housing for staff.”
She was right.
That’s when I made the call, to my own holding company.
The condo building I lived in had dozens of units sitting empty, investment purchases that had never been rented.
I’d kept it quiet. Never even told Michael.
Now I offered them up to the incoming music and arts faculty, rent-free for five years.
Teachers, dancers, vocal coaches, musicians from around the world would have a place to land, to build a life.
We needed someone to lead admissions, someone to manage donations, someone to design the program with heart and soul.
And me? I threw myself into the work.
I still thought about him, of course. At first, every few seconds. Then every twenty. Then every minute. Slowly, time began to stretch. Not because I missed him less, but because I was filled with something else—purpose. The purpose of a lifetime. The kind you feel from soul to bones.
Still, at night…
When I was finally still, showered, quiet, curled on my couch with Amber asleep at my feet, those memories poured in like a tidal wave.
The sound of his voice. The warmth of his body. The way he said my name.
And for a little while, I let them drown me.
Then morning came, and I got back to building the dream.
My voice might have been broken once. But this place, this school, would sing. Even if he never heard its melody.