23. Ellie
Ellie
From here, the country club gardens look like a perfectly innocent green maze lit by fairy lights, valets working the front drive, a slow parade of black cars spitting out men in tuxedos and women in ridiculously expensive gowns.
The string quartet's airy music spills out through the glass doors into the perfect evening, along with the ambient chatter of rich people talking and fake-laughing about absolutely nothing substantive. The champagne is already flowing.
I came out here to breathe.
I'm still surprised Kade let me come to this thing at all after Mom mentioned it. I'd expected a fight, or maybe another lockdown. After all, these events are drowning in booze, and there's always a socialite you can bum a couple of pills off while the bathroom attendant looks the other way.
My mother is one of them.
Instead, Kade agreed, somehow, and Cyrus drove me in absolute silence. He dropped me off at the valet stand, and told me to text when I was ready to be picked up.
And that was it.
A kiss on the knuckles through the driver's window and a dry behave, Miss Riggs before he pulled away.
I smooth the front of my dress down. It's pink, a deep rose silk with a tie neck that covers the metal collar, because I've just learned to dress around it.
"You're early."
The low, familiar voice comes from behind me.
I don't turn around right away because I need a second to not look as shocked as I am. It's bad enough I'm sure he saw my back and shoulders tense up.
"Kade."
"Princess."
He steps up beside me at the railing, and I finally look.
He's in a tailored black tux. The jacket fits his broad shoulders perfectly and his hair is combed back, a few loose strands falling over his forehead.
The scratches I left on his face have faded to three thin pink lines.
Someone, and I'm guessing it was Jinx, considering the tattoo concealer seamlessly covering every inch of ink, made him look like he belongs here.
He does, actually.
He looks like he owns the fucking place.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm your date for the evening."
"You are not."
"Oh, but I am."
"My mother will see you, Kade," I hiss. "My stepfather will see you."
"Your mother didn't recognize Cyrus at dinner in a fucking bow tie," he scoffs.
"She's not going to recognize me. And by the time the appetizers are cleared, she'll be three glasses of champagne into whatever cocktail she's pre-loaded with tonight.
" He looks out over the garden, the lighter absent from his hands for once. "You know I'm right."
He is, and I fucking hate it.
"There's still Todd," I remind him.
"Todd has never seen my face. I've made sure of that."
"The Kings aren't exactly anonymous."
"He's seen masks and heard our code names. He's heard of King, he hasn't ever seen Kade Gallagher in a tux at a country club." He finally turns his head to look at me, and gives me a wink I try very hard not to find charming. "Trust me, context is everything. I've been at this longer than you."
I sigh and take the arm he offers me. "Just try not to get us killed."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Inside, Kade tucks my hand into the crook of his elbow. We make the first circuit around the ballroom slowly and Kade immediately spots the chairman of the county party with his wife.
"Tell me that's a toupee."
"Nope," I answer. "That is his real hair."
"Jesus Christ," he mutters. "Who's the woman in the green?"
"Alma Phillips. Her husband runs the regional bank and she's having an affair with the household staff."
"Pool boy?" he offers.
"The nanny."
He does a double take. "Damn, Alma."
I purse my lips and bite back a snicker. He guides me around a waiter with a tray of miniature bullshit foods.
"What about the guy by the ice sculpture?" he asks next, clearly sizing up the room.
"State senator from district four," I say. "Todd hates him."
"Why?"
"Because Todd hates everyone who might vote against him on appropriations."
He snorts. "Of course he does."
He keeps doing this through the whole room. He also tells me his theories about which men here would sing like canaries under a polite threat, and who's fucking who behind their spouses' backs.
He's right about more of it than I care to admit to him, the smug son of a bitch.
By the time we reach the dance floor, I've developed a nasty habit of genuinely laughing like I used to, and I have to stifle myself because the sound of anyone having fun is usually enough to summon Todd.
The quartet shifts into a slower arrangement. Kade raises his eyebrow and gestures toward the parquet.
"You don't dance," I say suspiciously.
"Of course I dance," he says, slipping an arm around my waist and yanking me against him. The other one closes around mine, and I discover that Kade Gallagher knows how to fucking waltz. "I just don't do it often."
"You nearly refused to go to homecoming," I remind him. "And you spent the entire time pretending you were too cool for it."
"No, I spent the entire time watching you," he corrects.
My face warms as he steers me through a turn, and the ballroom blurs around us. He's good. Better than good, actually.
"We used to argue about this, you know," he murmurs, watching me.
I raise an eyebrow at him. "About what?"
"Which one of the four of us you'd pick."
My feet almost stop moving. He corrects for it, subtly, the pressure at my back steering me through the next turn like nothing happened.
"Who did you think I'd pick?" I ask, realizing the very thing I dreaded, having to choose between one of the four people I already thought I couldn't live without, was already a topic of conversation for them.
Kade falls silent, his smirk flattening. "Well. Certainly not me."
He says it so matter of factly, like there was never a doubt in his mind.
"Kade," I start. "I…"
"Eleanor."
Todd's voice comes from my left and I jolt. It's just instinct at this point. Todd is threading between two couples on the edge of the floor, a champagne flute in one hand.
"Eleanor, sweetheart," he says with that election-winning smile. "You didn't tell me you were bringing a guest."
As friendly as he sounds, I read between the lines.
You should have told me.
Kade's arm slides from my back to my waist in a movement that looks possessive to me but probably comes off as chivalrous to Todd.
"Senator." Kade's voice has changed. He's draped a posh, old-money accent over the harsh edges of his usual tone. "Aiden Winthrop. Forgive the surprise, sir. Eleanor said you prefer advance notice on her plus-ones, but it's entirely my fault. I only flew in from Aspen this afternoon."
I arch a subtle eyebrow at him. Aiden fucking Winthrop? Really?
Todd's eyes sharpen a little. "Winthrop," he echoes, clearly checking the name against his mental rolodex.
"Yes, sir," Kade says without a second's hesitation.
"Of the Boston Winthrops? The pharmaceutical family?"
He smiles. "One and the same."
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough it hurts, because of course he picked pharmaceuticals.
Todd's entire demeanor shifts as Kade takes his hand. He squeezes a little extra, as a test, but Kade doesn't react.
"Well," Todd says, sounding somewhat pleased. "I've heard great things about your family's work. Eleanor didn't mention she knew you."
"Eleanor is discreet, sir. A quality I appreciate, if I may say so."
"As do I." Todd's eyes slide to me, and the approval there makes my skin crawl. "I'd love to speak with you later, Aiden. There are things about your father's foundation I've been meaning to look into."
"I'd be honored."
"You two enjoy the evening." Todd nods at me, squeezes my shoulder as tight as he squeezed Kade's hand, and moves off into the crowd with his champagne.
I wait until he's out of earshot, dancing another half-turn in silence. "That is the most pleasant he has ever been to anyone I've stood next to," I mutter.
"I'm fluent in douchebag. Every single dialect." His eyes darken as they follow Todd through the crowded room. "I'm going to enjoy taking him apart like a fucking engine."
"Isn't that more Tank's domain?" I ask dryly.
Kade smirks, his eyes finally settling back on me. "Only when it's actual machines. I'm better at dismembering human bodies."
"Spoken like a psychopath."
Across the ballroom, Todd climbs the low dais beside the string quartet, a microphone in his hand, and the lights come up a notch in response. Polite applause patters through the room.
"I'm honored to have each of you here tonight, friends both old and new. Campaigns like ours run on community, and tonight proves that our community is stronger than ever."
I stop listening, because he's not actually saying anything anyway.
I look for my mother instead.
She's standing at the edge of the dais in a pale gold dress.
Her hand is curled around a flute of champagne, watching Todd with that blank look that reads as Stepford adoration to most people and chemical haze to me.
But only because I know firsthand. She keeps shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"Kade…"
"Hm?"
"She doesn't look good," I murmur. There's something off about her color. She's paler than she should be, even under the makeup.
Kade's jaw tenses but he doesn't say anything.
"—and to my beautiful wife, Marney, who has stood beside me through every campaign," Todd rambles on, "every vote, and every long, exhausting night in this work. Sweetheart, raise your glass."
My mother lifts her flute with a smile.
The glass tips from her hand in slow motion, champagne arcing into the air before the flute hits the parquet and shatters with a sound that cuts clean through Todd's next vacuous words.
My mother's knees buckle. She goes sideways against the edge of the dais and then down onto the floor in a pool of gold silk.
"Mom!"
My body moves automatically, pushing through the crowd. Kade's hand is still locked around my wrist, guiding me through the gaps between the guests. Someone screams once, shrilly for no fucking reason, and gets shushed.
I reach her at the same time Todd does, but only I drop to my knees.
She's on her side. Her lips are blue and there's a thin line of foam at the corners of her mouth.
"Mom," I cry, lifting her shoulders into my lap. I press my fingers to her throat and feel the irregular, thready beat. "Somebody call 911. Call fucking 911!"
"Eleanor." Todd's voice comes from too close to my ear, his hand closing around my upper arm. "Let the staff handle this."
"She's overdosing."
He winces and looks around like his primary concern is who heard that and not the fact that my mother and his wife just collapsed on the floor in a pool of glass.
"Keep your voice down," he growls, his hand tightening on my arm enough that his ring presses into my flesh.
Kade steps in between us before I can respond, effectively blocking Todd and crouching next to me, one hand going to my mother's wrist to check her pulse and the other steady and warm in the center of my back.
Todd straightens. A manager in a navy blazer materializes at his elbow, and I hear Todd's voice shift back into its public register as he starts managing.
At least he's calling 911.
The paramedics swarm us what feels like both moments and a whole eternity later, cutting Mom's gold dress with shears, pressing something against her thigh. Her chest jumps once and then settles into a more steady breathing rhythm.
Kade's hand hasn't left my back.
They load her onto a gurney while the crowd herds around, watching at a slight distance. The quartet has already started playing again, very softly, as if this is a dinner party recovering from a minor social embarrassment and not my mom fucking collapsing and getting naloxoned back to life.
Todd walks beside the gurney with his hand resting on my mother's shoulder. His face is one that will play well on the news if anyone happened to be filming. He looks like the perfect husband, worried about his poor, troubled wife, and I'm sure he is worried. This looks bad on his campaign.
At the door, he turns back to face me. "Eleanor, come with us."
"I'll follow you in a car," I manage. "I need a minute."
I watch him considering this, the gears turning in his head as he considers the optics of insisting I go with him in a crowded room full of people watching our every move.
"Don't be long," he says gruffly.
Then he's through the doors after the gurney, and my mother is getting loaded into a fucking ambulance with a man who'd rather she was dead than embarrassing to him.
Kade rubs my back and I only realize then that it feels like my soul has been peeled away from his body, because his touch pulls me back. "Breathe, Princess."
Easier said than done.
"She could have died," I croak.
Kade doesn't answer right away. He takes my hand instead, standing and pulling me up with him. "Come on. I'll drive you to the hospital."
"Okay," I hear myself saying, drifting away from my body again. All I know is if I had to be in a tight space with Todd right now, I'd lose it completely.
Kade squeezes my hand and doesn't let go.