Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
EJ glares at me, pacing the room with slow, deliberate steps. His hands are clasped tightly behind his back, so I can no longer see the gun.
“My grandmother,” he begins, voice low and cold, “she told me stories about this place. About this cabin. About the man who broke her. The family who stole my mother from her.”
His eyes flare with something darker than rage. Sharper, somehow. It’s like I can feel it crawling across my skin. “She told me about the cellar, where your grandmother, Hazel, locked her away. Made her wait in the dark. In the cold. Alone, for hours.”
He stops pacing and turns to face me fully.
His voice drops low and dangerous like distant thunder rolling in.
“She told me about the tunnels she searched for but never found. She warned me about the infamous Foxglove. And all about you, of course. The Wilde women. Hiding out here with your money and your power. Your secrets.”
A crude smile twists his lips as he steps closer.
“My grandmother may not have found the tunnels, but I remembered her stories well enough. Once I got inside, it wasn’t hard to find them.
And after you gave my uncle a key to watch over the place, I only had to steal it and make a copy to start coming here whenever I wanted. ”
He leans in, voice dripping with venom. “It was all going well. I could come here, show clients around. And then…you came along.”
“You had no right to be here,” I say, keeping my voice steady despite the fury in my gut.
“No right?” He scoffs, rubbing a hand over his chin. “This house is mine as much as it is yours. It belonged to my mother, too.”
“Violet,” Mom whispers, voice barely audible. “Your mother was Violet?”
He jerks his chin, eyes lighting up. “So you do remember.”
“You’re wrong. Foxglove has never belonged to men,” Mom spits back at him, fists tight at her sides.
“It would never have belonged to Violet because it wasn’t Charles’s to give away.
It passed from my mother to me. From mother to daughter.
My mother did what she had to do to protect me.
If Violet was your mother, she did it to protect her, too.
And Nancy. Without my mother, you might not be here at all. ”
I stare at her, stunned. My mind scrambles to keep up. “You remember Violet?”
“Bits and pieces,” she admits, eyes flicking back to EJ.
My chest twists with confusion. “It doesn’t change anything.
You’ve wasted your time. Foxglove is not yours, and it never will be.
Long before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye, men have tried to take this house from us. Every single one has failed.”
Mom takes my hand.
I’ve always believed Foxglove has a heart. I don’t mean it as a metaphor or something poetic and beautiful, but something real. A beating thing buried beneath the bones of wood and stone and rot.
As a child I could feel her breathing, and as I stand here now, I swear I feel it again.
This time, it’s beating in erratic, wild tandem with mine as I watch Lewis bleed out on the floor, waiting for this argument to end.
“He’s going to die. Please stop this,” I beg, pointing to Lewis on the floor. “You don’t want this. It isn’t worth it. Please.”
Next to him, Taylor sobs silently, one hand pressed to the bleeding wound in his back, the other—just as bloody—covering her pale face, her open mouth. She looks like she might pass out.
EJ leans back, his free hand clasping the other wrist at his waist. He looks pleased with himself. “Sure. All you have to do is…let me have the place. I’ve already got the papers drawn up. Sign them, and you’ll be free to go.”
I hesitate, looking at Mom, searching for any hint of what she’s thinking.
He leans back on his heels, then bounces forward impatiently. “Come on. Just a little signature and all of this is over. One signature, and your bad karma?” He snaps his fingers, as if to say poof. “Gone.”
Mom’s eyes narrow.
“It’s the least you can do, and we both know it.
I don’t care what stupid little rules you think you have.
This place should be mine after everything you’ve done.
” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head.
“Your family, you just take and take and take. My grandmother is back in this place she hates because she’s sick and needs my uncle to take care of her.
My mother already died—poor and hungry and alone.
All while you sat here on your millions, on what should’ve been hers.
On what should be mine.” He jabs a finger against his chest.
“No,” Mom snaps. “The house is Wilde. No one else’s. Violet was my father’s, but she was not ours, even though we loved her. I’m sorry to hear what happened to her, I truly am, but this is not the way to get justice. It’s not the way to make her proud.”
“Well then.” He raises the gun slowly, pointing it at her, one corner of his mouth fighting a smile.
“I guess you can either sign the papers…or leave the place to your husband in death. The choice is yours.” His eyes dart to me, his hands following until the gun points directly at my chest. “But first…”
My breath catches in my throat, pulse pounding, and then—Taylor.
She moves like lightning, the fire poker held high in her hands. With a crack that echoes through the cabin, she slams it down, the metal colliding with the top of EJ’s head.
The sound of wind fills my ears, drowning out everything else.
I watch in slow motion as he stumbles backward, dizzy and disoriented. The gun slips from his hand and clatters to the floor. His head slams into the carved stone mantel—right where our name is etched: WILDE.
His blood paints the E.
He stumbles again, dazed and bleeding, and the whole room feels wrapped in a sudden, breathless fog where nothing else exists except waiting for him to fall. To die.
For a moment, I think it’s over.
He looks ready to crash to the floor, but he doesn’t. His eyes cross, then find focus again, and he roars back to life. He rushes forward and grabs Mom by her collar, tossing her to the floor.
She lands with a dull thud, curling up on herself. She cries out, winces, breathes. I’m just grateful she’s still alive.
“Mom!” I scream, scrambling to reach her—but EJ stops me. He grabs my wrist and twists it so hard I hear a pop. I yelp, and Taylor shouts.
“Stay back!” I warn her. The police should be here. Where are the police?
I spot the gun on the floor under the chair, but I can’t reach it. It’s too far away, too hidden. If I tell Taylor to grab it, EJ might get there first. I can’t say a word.
“Taylor, run!” I shout, begging. It’s her only chance to save herself. “Please.”
Both his hands wrap around my neck, squeezing, and my knees give out. My back hits the floor so hard it knocks the breath from my lungs. The room spins, my vision blurs.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” he hisses, lowering his face to mine.
He’s covered in his own blood, yet still just as strong.
“You stupid bitch.” He lifts my head off the floor, slamming me back down.
The yelp that escapes my lips is involuntary.
“You stupid witch. This house will burn to the ground before I let you keep it.”
He lifts my head again, his facial muscles tense and twitching with rage as he prepares to slam me down once more. I won’t survive this. I can’t breathe, can’t think.
My hand—desperate, fumbling—slaps the floorboard beside me. Please, I beg. To whom, I don’t know. The universe, maybe. Myself. Foxglove. Grandma. Please.
There. A give. A space. A floorboard, bowed and loose. It shifts beneath my palm. I grasp the board, preparing to strike him, but he’s too quick.
He sees what I’m doing, releases me with one hand, and rips the board from my grasp, hurling it across the room.
Taylor screams, and I realize she didn’t run. She didn’t go. He’ll kill her if I don’t kill him first. He’ll kill us all.
I search, begging. Begging Foxglove and my ancestors and myself.
The woods and my mother and the women who came before.
The meadow and every single piece of folklore and magic that has been passed down through whispers and tears.
Daughter to daughter. Blood to blood. I think of my grandma. Of Hazel Wilde. Dust to dust.
And then—cold. My fingers connect with something cold and hard.
I don’t think, don’t question, I just trust. As his hand returns to my throat, as I feel him squeeze, feel him lift, as my vision blurs, I look at my daughter. She’s crying over her father—terrified and alone.
My eyes fall to my ex-husband—the man I once loved, the man I once hated—bleeding out, probably dead. And then to my mom—eyes closed, curled up in pain.
Then, in one fell swoop, with every ounce of strength I have left, I swing.
The old, rusty knife comes into view for me moments before EJ sees it. He turns his head, terror splashing onto his expression, and I connect the blade to his eye. The metal slices straight into his flesh, piercing the empty black pupil without resistance.
He falls back against the floor. His scream rips through the room, white-hot and full of terror—a pure, animal sound. He covers his face with trembling fingers, unsure what to do, how to stop the pain. Curses fly from his lips, bellowing as he tries but fails to pull the weapon from his eye.
Blood spurts, and his skin swells.
His face is almost unrecognizable in an instant.
My hands find my throat, and the breath that floods in feels like mercy, the sweetest balm on a terrible wound.
I don’t need to watch him die to know that he will.
The blood pouring down his face tells me no one could survive this.
Still sticking out of his eye, the knife’s blade is long and rusted, the handle made of blue stone. It’s simple and beautiful, probably centuries old.