36. Silas
Can she swim yet, bro? We’ll finish this where it started.
I read the texts over and over again and I know he’s not here. He’s not at the brownstone. Not anymore. This started in Sinistral. He’s taking her back there. Back to the place I hate.
I reverse out of the street, tires screeching as I swerve to merge into traffic. I shouldn’t have left her alone. But how did he know where she was? And how did he get past Hamish?
Those questions don’t matter, not now.
I blow through so many red and yellow lights, I can’t count them. The road is slick with what has become a mix of freezing rain and wet, heavy snow, and it’s worse in Sinistral. It’s always worse in Sinistral.
I pass the hotel on my way to the darker, lonelier streets of the wealthier neighborhood, the larger homes, some gated, spaced farther apart, offering too much privacy. If I call the police, tell them Ethan kidnapped Ophelia, would they go to the Fox house? Ethan is still a Fox, and I am Silas Cruz, the illegitimate troublemaker son. But this isn’t a matter for police. No. This is between Ethan and me. It’s always been between Ethan and me. And that is the only reason I have hope. He won’t hurt her, not yet. He needs her in order to hurt me.
This is what I keep telling myself as I park my SUV on the cul-de-sac where the Hart home once stood.
I look up at the Fox house. It’s dark but for a few lights on downstairs casting a dim glow. I draw a deep breath in and hurry up the driveway to the front door. It’s been left ajar. I push it open and enter the house.
It’s freezing inside. I look into the dark living room, dining room. Sly’s office door is wide open. When he was alive, he’d lock it when he wasn’t in there.
I walk toward the dining room, and when I come around the corner, I see that the sliding glass doors stand open. It’s why it’s so cold inside. The outdoor lights are out. I scan the pool area. The landscaping has changed since I lived here and more bushes create more places to hide, but I don’t see anyone. Beyond it, the lights are out at the cottage Mom and I had shared.
“Ethan,” I call out. “I’m here.”
No answer. Just the whisper of snow falling.
They must be inside. I turn back in, the wind biting, but as soon as I do, lights go on behind me and I spin to find Ethan grinning, walking out of the covered area Mira had nagged Sly to build so it would resemble something she’d seen on a trip to Venice.
I step outside.
“Took your time,” Ethan says.
He’s not wearing a jacket but doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cold. I move closer, around the bushes and onto the white stone patio. Lights illuminate the interior of the pool and water glistens a clear, deceptively innocuous aquamarine. I used to love swimming in it when I was younger. I’d do it whenever the Foxes were out.
But now, seeing it, I feel a cold in my veins icier than the wind-whipped snow because sitting at the edge of the deepest end, her legs dangling in the freezing water, her feet tied at the ankles, is Ophelia. Her hands are bound, too, and there’s a thick wad of duct tape over her mouth.
“Ophelia.” I don’t think either of them hear me say her name.
“You didn’t say,” Ethan says, a gun casually held at his side. He comes to stand right behind her, so close all he has to do is give her one tiny nudge and she’d drop right in.
Ophelia’s face is streaked with tears, a fresh trail flowing now. Her hair hangs long and wet down her back. She’s shivering and pale. How long has he had her out here?
I drag my gaze from her to him.
“You didn’t say if she could swim yet,” Ethan finishes.
Ten feet. The pool is ten feet deep where she is.
“What do you want, Ethan?”
I mentally flip through my options. He has a gun in his hand. He could shoot her or me in a split second. He could shoot me and shove her in at once.
“I’m here. Let her go.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s not her you want.”
“No, it’s not. Not sure it ever was, huh, Phee?” He nudges her when she doesn’t acknowledge him.
She makes a sound but can’t speak from behind the tape. I take a few steps closer. I need to get to her. Get her away from him.
“What’s that, babe?” he asks her. He rips the tape from her mouth, and she yelps, bringing her bound hands to her face. “Ouch. That must burn. Sorry, what did you say?”
She looks up at him, then at me. She shakes her head, trying to tell me something, but I’m not sure what.
“It was you,” I say, continuing to walk toward them, my pace steady if slow.
“Me what?” Ethan asks.
“You killed Sly.” I gesture to the ring. “You took it the night you did it. It’s on camera, Ethan. The police are on their way,” I lie. I don’t know if the police are on their way or not.
“He deserved to die, and you know it. Get in the pool, bro.” He waves the gun to gesture, but I keep walking toward them. I’m too far from her. If he pushes her in, she’s done. She can’t swim, and even if she could, her hands and her feet are bound.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask.
“Why not? He was a piece of shit, and it came down to him or me. Besides, he was going to lose the company anyway. To you. Life insurance would cover the loan though so hey, he fucked up but, in the end, he paid for fucking with me all my life and for fucking up in general when it came to signing that loan from you.”
“I forgave the loan. You know that.” Did he? Sly could have put the contract away and that’s why it wasn’t on his desk.
He shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah, I did. But it doesn’t change who he was. Hell, once things got back to normal and he had the company again, what do you think he’d do to me? He was counting on the old man dying. Greedy bastard. Never had enough, our dad, did he? How can you not be happy he’s gone?”
I’m closer now—still too far to disarm him and get to her if he shoves her into the pool, but closer.
“Oh, I’m not unhappy but honestly, I stopped caring about Sullivan Fox a while ago.”
“That so? Change of heart?”
I look at O who is looking up at me, eyes wide. I nod. “Yeah. Let her go, Ethan. She has nothing to do with this. This is between you and me. It’s always been between you and me.”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing. I kill you and,” he shrugs a shoulder, “it’s done. Over. Boring. But hey, I’m going to give you one more opportunity to rescue her. In about one second, Phee here is going to go for a swim. And I’m going to start shooting when she does. If you’re already in the pool, you have a chance to save her. I’ll even give you a head start getting her out before I shoot. If not, well, I guess you’ll have her blood on your hands. Now get in the motherfucking pool.” He sets his dirty shoe on Ophelia’s back readying to push her in.
I hold up my hands. “Tell me something first. Tell me one thing and I’m in. Tell me why you hate me. Because I never understood that. Couldn’t have been jealousy. He treated me like shit. And you and me, Ethan, could have been good. We could have been brothers,” I say, not sure I believe it, but remembering the boy sobbing as his father beat him that day so many years ago.
Ethan’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline before he snorts then laughs. He outright laughs. “Brothers?” he asks. “You and me?”
I look at Ophelia. She’s trying to get the tie she’s bound with undone without alerting Ethan.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You know what he’d always tell me? When he beat the shit out of me any time you pulled some shit? Because yeah, he punished me for your sins, asshole. The night he broke your nose, you think I got off easy? I didn’t, motherfucker. I didn’t. And all the while, with every fucking hit, he’d ask me why I couldn’t be more like you. Because at the end of the day, you are like him, aren’t you, bro? You walk the same. You talk the same. You even look the same. Everyone knows it. Everyone fucking knows. All they have to do is look at you. Now get in the fucking pool or I shove her in. You’ll go in anyway to save her, I know you will, but then you’ll both die rather than just one of you dying. So choose. Choose who dies. One of you or both of you. I don’t give a fuck either way.”
Police sirens in the distance have us both turning. I don’t know if they’re coming here or not but neither does he.
“Police are on their way, Ethan. You don’t want this. You don’t want more blood on your hands,” I say, taking one more step toward him. But I miscalculate and he raises his leg to shove Ophelia. I jump, fully clothed, into the icy water. I go under, the sound of water pounding my ears deafening before I surface again. “Stop! I’m in. I’m fucking in!”
Ethan grins. Ophelia lies on her side on the edge of the pool. He’s got her pinned with his shoe pressed to her neck. He points his gun at me.
I dive, torpedo toward them from under water and he misses, but when I surface to grab his ankle, he aims again. I’m too close. He won’t miss this time. I tug him off balance. He pulls the trigger as he goes down. The bullet hits my free arm, but I manage to hold on to his ankle. I’m a dead man at this range but no way in hell am I leaving her to his mercy because once I’m gone, nothing will stop him from killing her, too. I know that.
He cocks the gun again as I draw him toward the water, the barrel just feet from my face. There’s a splash as he pulls the trigger and I go under.
I’m waiting for the pain, for the burn of this second bullet. Water bleeds red around me, turquoise going black with it, and I realize that splash was Ophelia. She’s there with me, hair floating around her face, eyes wide with shock. The pain still doesn’t come, and it takes me a long, long minute before I know why. Before I understand.
She jumped in. Hands and ankles bound, she threw herself in to save me.
I break the surface with her in my arms.
“Ophelia?”
Her face is deathly pale. I push her hair back and the blood keeps on coming, somehow warm around us.
“O?” Fuck. No. Fuck. No! “Ophelia!”
She blinks, barely managing it, and tries for a smile. “I’ll come for you, too. I—” Her breath catches and her eyelids flutter. Those sirens blare closer, and maybe they are coming for us, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I pull her out, her clothes and mine making us heavy. I lay her on the edge, legs still dangling in the water, blood staining the pristine white stones, seeping into them.
“Ophelia?” I push hair from her cold face, bring mine to hers, hold her, hold her, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t make a sound. Doesn’t take a single breath.
All she does is bleed. She just bleeds.