Chapter 34 #3
By the time I put on the new clothes and pair of new shoes that someone has left for me, and drag myself downstairs, the smell of food makes my stomach turn and my head throb harder.
Still, I find myself at the dining table, if you can call it that.
It’s ridiculously long and has two high-backed chairs standing at either end like thrones.
How Kai eats here, I’ll never understand. Everyone feels miles apart.
Christian sits across from me, finally home, and Elliot is next to him with Kai at the head, recounting everything that happened last night.
I don’t bother listening in.
I stare at my plate of eggs, perfectly cooked, and nudge them with my fork before forcing the food into my mouth.
When Kai finishes, the silence that follows is thick. Christian turns toward me, wide-eyed, his expression halfway between shock and disbelief.
I muster a tight smile. It only makes him frown harder.
My gaze drops instantly back to the eggs. Safer to focus on the yolk bleeding under my fork than the weight of Christian’s stare.
“Adeline.”
My head snaps up. Kai’s looking at me, and it’s that intense stare of his that slightly intimidates me. “You should probably know—”
The words cut off as movement catches in the corner of my vision.
The air shifts.
I turn just as Gabriel Steele gracefully steps into the room. His eyes sweep across the space with ease before they finally, to my great dismay, land on me.
For a fraction of a second, his mask slips. Shock flickers in those pale eyes, gone almost before I can register it. His expression smooths back into perfection, the sharp lines of his face settling into something unreadable, impenetrable.
It’s enough to make the back of my neck prickle.
“You’re early,” Kai says, his voice breaking the silence.
“Change of plans,” Gabriel replies smoothly, though his gaze doesn’t move from me. “It seems the house is… busier than I expected.”
The way he says busier makes my stomach twist. It’s polite, yes, but beneath it is something else. Something I make no attempt to identify since it’s most likely nothing good.
Finally, he tears his gaze away and moves toward the far end of the table. His steps are measured, his posture impeccable, until he lowers himself into the high-backed chair opposite Kai.
Gabriel steeples his hands in front of him. “We’ll need to finalize the preparations for next week.”
Kai leans back slightly in his chair, calm in a way that almost feels deliberate. “The party.”
“Of course, the party,” Gabriel says. “Christmas must be done properly at Steele House. Guests expect a certain standard.” His eyes flicker to me, pointed but brief, before returning to Kai. “I assume you’ve been handling your part.”
“Handled,” Kai confirms.
“Good.” Gabriel inclines his head once. “Then I’ll have the staff double-check the catering, and I want the guest list confirmed by tonight. Too many names last year. A crowd becomes vulgar if it isn’t curated.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. Kai’s jaw tightens, a muscle feathering in his cheek. His stare, when it meets his father’s, burns hot enough to scorch. It’s so raw, so unyielding, that I almost have to look away.
Then, with the ease of someone flicking a switch, Gabriel turns his head toward me.
“Adeline.”
My throat closes. “Yes?”
His expression is polite. Neutral, even. But his eyes are something else entirely. Calculating. Cold. “You must find all of this rather… overwhelming.”
“I—” I force my voice to steady. “I’m managing.”
“Managing.” Gabriel repeats it like he’s testing the word on his tongue, finding it amusing in a way that makes my skin crawl. His fingers tap once against the table before folding neatly again. “And yet, one does wonder what brings you here. Into this house.”
“Father—” Kai starts, his voice low.
Gabriel doesn’t let him finish. “It’s extraordinary,” he says, smooth as glass. His gaze settles back on me. “How alike you all look.”
The table stills.
“What?” I breathe.
At that moment, Sue slips past with a carafe, pouring Gabriel a glass of orange juice. She doesn’t meet my eyes, but when she sets the glass down, her glance flicks toward me just once. A warning. Careful.
Gabriel takes a sip, unhurried. “Your brother. Your father.”
“You knew them?” The question slips out, sharper than I mean it to.
His mouth curves, but there’s no warmth in it. “Knew them? I knew of them.” His voice is polite, but the edge beneath it is unmistakable. “Your father was… memorable. Though, I suppose not in the way men hope to be remembered.”
A chill runs down my spine. “What do you mean?”
He leans back in his chair with perfect composure. “A man’s choices define him. And John Ross made his share of choices. Ones that cost others dearly.”
The room suddenly feels smaller, heavier, as his gaze pins me in place.
Kai’s jaw tightens again, his knuckles white against the armrest of his chair. “That’s enough.”
But Gabriel doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes on me, unblinking. Then, finally, he rises. “We’ll speak again,” he says, not to me, but almost over me. And then he turns, striding out of the room without another glance back.
I finally turn to Kai.
He hasn’t moved. Still sitting there, still watching the doorway where Gabriel disappeared, but his face—god.
The charm is stripped from his face, leaving something harder, darker.
His features are drawn so tight with anger he looks almost unrecognizable.
For a second, I think he might actually break, shatter this whole table into splinters.
Then he closes his eyes. Just for a moment.
And when he opens them again, it’s gone. The fury. The fire. Everything.
The shift is so swift it nearly frightens me more than the anger itself.
The scrape of his chair against the polished floor makes me flinch. Kai stands, and without a word, he turns and walks away. His footsteps echo until they fade into silence.
I glance at Christian, who’s still staring at the space Kai just left, his gaze wary.
Elliot clears his throat into the silence, and it’s too loud, too forced. “I should… probably go too.” His shoulders are stiff, his smile quick, brittle. He pushes back his chair and disappears down the hall.
Now it’s just me and Christian.
“Is he okay?” I ask quietly.
Christian sighs. “Honestly? I never know.”
I nod at that. It’s something I can understand all too well.
His eyes slide back to me. “Are you?” he asks. “Okay, that is?”
A smile pulls at my mouth, thin and tired. “I never know.”
He studies me for a long moment, his eyes hiding behind his glasses just enough that I can’t read him.
“You know what he meant, don’t you?” I ask suddenly.
Christian doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer.
“He didn’t like my father. Why?”
His chair scrapes as he stands abruptly, and I jolt, blinking up at him.
He doesn’t answer. Just says, briskly, “Put on a coat. We’re going for a walk.”
***
The cold hits me the moment we step outside.
I wrap my arms around myself as Christian and I walk in silence down the gravel path, our footsteps crunching in sync.
I don’t ask where we’re going. I’m not sure it matters.
Christian shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets. He’s quiet, thoughtful. Not unusual for him, but there’s something different about him at this very moment.
“Truthfully,” he says after a while, “I debated not telling you.”
I look up at him.
“I didn’t know if it was mine to tell,” he admits, eyes fixed on the horizon, where the trees line the edge of the estate like a dark wall.
“Or if knowing would even help you at all. But then I saw you back there, sitting across from Gabriel, holding your ground, and I thought maybe you deserved to know.”
He finally meets my eyes.
“You look the same,” he says, but it’s almost like he’s speaking to someone else entirely. “But you couldn’t be any more different.”
I slow, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
Christian exhales, turning his gaze forward again. “Your father,” he says after a beat, “was more involved with the Steeles than you might think.”
My stomach knots, even before he continues. But I don’t say anything. I just listen.
“They were in love,” Christian says finally, and his voice shifts into something harder. Resigned. “Your father. Kai’s mother, Irina.”
I stop walking.
He turns with me, watching my face closely, but he doesn’t soften it. He doesn’t try to dress it up. “It started years ago. Hardly anyone knows.”
My breath clouds the air in front of me, but I don’t feel the cold anymore. Just the static under my skin, buzzing through my bones.
Kai’s mother… and my father?
But how is that even possible?
The words rattle around in my head, but the more I try to repeat them, the less sense it makes.
That can’t be right.
He must have said it wrong.
I must have heard it wrong.
Because there’s no world where my father, my rational father, would ever put himself in that position.
Not her.
Not them.
And yet…
It explains something.
No, it explains too much.
Is that why he would go to those alleyways? Because he was meeting her.
In the only way he could.
Did my mother know?
Christian says nothing. Just watches me like he’s waiting for something to crack.
And maybe something does.
“And what happened?” I ask. My voice sounds smaller than I expect.
Christian lets out a slow breath. “They got caught,” he says simply. “Or maybe they stopped hiding. It depends on who you ask. Either way, Gabriel found out.”
“And Irina?” I whisper.
His jaw tenses.
And it’s the way he looks away that answers me first, like the words taste bad before he even says them. And there’s so much more behind his watchful expression, I realize. Pain, maybe. Or regret. Maybe both. Maybe more.
“Got addicted to drugs. She was in bad shape for a while,” he says eventually. “She died soon after your father, and Wren, did.”
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. My lungs are too tight anyway.
My hands are shaking, though I don’t remember when they started.