Chapter Fourteen
Valli
Rowan doesn’t speak until we clear the bridge, then he sits hunched forward in the passenger seat with his knee bouncing. Every few seconds he looks behind us, and once the bridge is almost out of sight, he turns and stares out the back window.
I don’t blame him for being on edge. Part of me expected Cave to alert the others, and for them to all come after me, but there is no hearse in sight. I tighten my hands around the steering wheel; I should feel relieved, but I don’t.
Rowan is alive. Cave didn’t kill him, when I know he would have wanted to wipe him from existence.
Hell, I silently wished it, too, after Cipher was hurt.
If Rowan had died, all my problems would have gone away.
I know that makes me a bad person, wishing my brother dead, but Cave saved him—for me.
And I understand why he did it, which is the problem.
I’m furious that Cave looked me in the eye and said no when I asked if my brother was dead, but when I asked where he was, he shrugged.
He made me believe he didn’t know, but he did the entire time. He lied to me.
What I really want to know is what part Cipher and Noa played in this. Did they lie just as much as Cave? They all watched me breathe easier at the thought that it was over and Rowan was finally going to leave me alone.
It was nice while it lasted. A break from all the worrying, all the what ifs hanging over my head, and not knowing what surprise my brother had in store for me next.
My heart squeezes when I see the travel cup in the cup holder.
It’s Noa’s—he left it in here a few days ago when we ran errands for Nixie.
I had to buy it for him because someone out the front of a store stopped him and made him aware of how many turtles die each year from plastic straws.
He boasted about doing his part for the environment.
“Those people are fucking insane,” Rowan finally says, breaking the silence.
I keep my eyes on the road and sigh. “You pulled a fucking gun on me,” I bite out. “What did you expect?”
He scoffs. “I wouldn’t have shot you. You’re my sister.”
I turn momentarily to glare at him. “You aimed it at me.”
“I was scared.”
A laugh nearly escapes me, but there is nothing funny about this. “So was I.”
“They were surrounding me.” He shifts in his seat, turning toward me as much as he can. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Not bring a gun to the island.”
His jaw flexes, and I catch bruises around his throat and marks along his arms. I don’t know how he got them, and I honestly don’t care right now.
“Easy for you to say,” he mutters. “You’ve got three psychopaths protecting you now.”
My fingers tighten around the wheel, and I clench my teeth. Every time I’m near Rowan, he brings out this side of me.
“They protected you too,” I fire back.
He turns his head so fast it must hurt his neck. “They locked me in a cage,” he roars.
“They kept you alive.”
He laughs. “Is that what you call it?”
“Yes,” I snap, and Rowan stares at me in disbelief. Cave could have killed him, the Jester could not have listened, and even if they let him go, Steedy’s men would have ended him. Instead, they kept him alive for me.
Cave may have lied to me, but I refuse to let the good erase the bad. I won’t let Rowan twist it.
Rowan rubs his hands over his face. “Do you really believe they were going to keep me alive? I watched that clown.”
“Jester,” I correct.
“Who fucking cares? I watched him torture Steedy to death.”
“You should be relieved he is dead—it was you or him.”
Rowan sits with that for a second, and I say nothing, needing him to realize how lucky he is right now.
The fact that the Jester killed someone should make me feel something, but I don’t.
Steedy was the scum of the earth, feeding on people’s weaknesses and not letting them out.
He deserved everything that came his way.
“Did the Jester hurt you?”
Rowan drops his hands and looks out the window. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Of course it fucking matters. Everything matters, and the fact that he can’t see that is such a Rowan thing.
“Not really.”
I laugh. “That isn’t an answer.”
“He threatened me,” Rowan says, scratching the side of his neck. “Talked about cutting pieces off me and feeding them to his pigs. He would sit outside my cell, just him. Sometimes he would come downstairs covered in blood and stare at me.”
“That sounds like him,” I say with a smile, though quickly pull myself up when I realize I’m doing it.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No,” I say, laughing again, but this time I don’t hide it.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
I think about his question for a minute. What has happened to me? It’s freedom . . . and love.
I have never felt so physically safe and emotionally secure, not since our parents died. Rowan was supposed to protect me; he was my big brother. Instead, he put me in danger and made me clean up his problems, all while I protected our baby sister from his bullshit. That has happened to me.
“You used to be normal,” he snarks.
As I take a turnoff, I try to compose myself, but it doesn’t work and I don’t hold back. “I used to be a fucking doormat, holding on to you because you are a piece of them. I was tired, overworked, and scared to leave the house.”
“At least you weren’t living with murderers.”
The manic laughter that escapes me must scare him because he flinches. “Worse, I was living with you.”
He scoffs and looks out his window, turning his body away from me. “Here we go.”
I glance over at him. “Here we go?”
“You always do this. Like I’m the reason your life is shit.”
“Well, you are one of them.”
He turns back to me. “I’m your brother.”
The anger inside me wants to spill over, like it does every time Rowan and I have an argument. I sit here and wish the Jester had killed him. I could have dealt with that. He isn’t one of my men, so I would have mourned and moved on.
“You keep saying that like it excuses everything you have done to me.”
I wish I had a plan, but I have just been driving, trying to think over my options.
If I take him to the house, the cycle keeps going and I will never be rid of him.
When I walked into the Jester’s house, all I could think about was getting Rowan out; I couldn’t have him locked away like an animal.
Yet now all I can think is that maybe he should have stayed there.
But I knew I had to get him away from Cave, because them being around each other would have made everything worse.
There is no way in the world I am leaving my men; I simply need some space to figure out my next move, and long enough to stop being so angry that they lied. Realization hits me—I should have told them I was coming back, but I just got mad and left. Guilt washes over me.
The way Cave looked at me when he stepped aside replays in my mind. I should have said something, or found Cipher or Noa. But I was so angry and confused that I needed to leave.
“What are we doing?” Rowan finally asks, and it’s a good question.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I need somewhere to stay and to keep a low profile for a while. Steedy might be dead, and some of his men, but those left will know I was involved.”
A headache forms behind my eyes. “There are motels near the bus station.”
He laughs. “With what money?”
I glance across at him. “You don’t have any?”
He looks at me as if it’s the stupidest thing I have ever asked him. “I have been locked in a basement.”
“You didn’t have any money before that?”
His mouth presses into a hard line, and he shakes his head. “Steedy took everything. I owed him.”
Now it’s my turn to shake my head because of course he has no money—he never did.
Any he got his hands on was gone before the day ended, lost to gambling, drugs, anything he could get his hands on.
Things never change with him, but they have with me.
Without him in my life, I don’t look over my shoulder, and I no longer hide money.
“You always owe someone money,” I scoff.
“I didn’t ask for a lecture,” he snaps.
“No, you usually ask for money.”
He narrows his eyes at me, but he can’t deny it. The only times I have seen him in the last few years were when he needed money or a place to stay.
“You would have plenty now.”
Yeah, well, he isn’t wrong. Both Leni and I are doing amazing, and it’s funny the only thing that has changed is Rowan no longer sucking us dry, physically and mentally. I now have a balance in my bank that isn’t in the negatives.
My foot eases off the accelerator, and the car slows before I even realize what I’m doing.
“What are you implying?” I ask him.
“Come on, Valli, that place must make a fortune. The ticket sales and the freaks running around. Your boyfriends must be loaded.”
Cold dread washes over me. My brother has been free for less than an hour, and he is already counting money that doesn’t belong to him.
“They’re not giving you anything,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t say they had to.”
“You were going to. I know you, Rowan.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to help me get back on my feet.”
A car passes us and honks its horn. I shouldn’t have stopped where I did, but the audacity of this man has stunned me. “I have been helping you for years. You’re a grown man and it’s time to stand on your own two feet.”
“You’re my sister, and you don’t understand what I’m going through,” he complains, but that is my breaking point.
“I don’t understand?!” I practically screech.
“No, you don’t.”
Blinding red-hot anger boils over. “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to be held against my will for weeks.”
He turns toward me, but I keep speaking.