Chapter thirty one
Riven
The bell tower used to belong to the Cathedral.
Now it belonged to ghosts. The stained glass had long since been ripped out and replaced with dark iron framing.
The old pews were gone. The bell was no longer there.
In its place was a gigantic clock, nailed into the walls with rusted gears and exposed mechanisms, all ticking with a slow metallic groan that echoed through the tower like a heartbeat.
Most people in Stonebridge avoided this place. I didn’t. Because this was the only place in the city where my head ever shut the fuck up.
The climb up the spiral staircase was steep, each step creaking under my boots as I ascended higher into the tower. My knuckles still hurt from punching the Cathedral wall after I left the office in the basement. Blood had dried across the skin in thin cracks. I barely noticed it.
The second I reach the top level, I grab the whiskey bottle sitting beside the old armchair and take a long pull straight from it, ignoring the burn as it goes down. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
Not the alcohol. Not the cigarettes. Not the pills sitting untouched beside the ashtray. Especially not the pills. My jaw tightens at the sight of them.
Mood stabilizers. Antipsychotics. Medication to make me manageable. Quiet. Less fucking broken. I hated them. But I hated what happened without them more. The gears overhead groan again.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
When they went silent again, I heard them. Footsteps. I don’t bother turning around. Only one person in this town would climb these stairs like they were ready to start a war.
“Nobody ever teach you how to knock?” I mutter, staring out over Stonebridge through the giant clock face. The town glowed beneath us. Four sides, three gangs. Rotting from the inside out while pretending otherwise. Nadia stops a few feet behind me.
“You always hide up here when you’re pissed?” I laugh humorlessly. She knew exactly what this place meant to me.
“You always follow people when they wanna be left alone? I take another drink, deflecting.
“Only you.”
That should’ve felt teasing. Familiar. Instead, it twisted something sharp in my chest. Silence ensues, heavy and sharp. I could feel her eyes on me. Studying me, calculating me. Probably trying to figure out what version of me she’d walked into tonight. Truth was, I didn’t fucking know either.
I finally turn to look at her. Big mistake. Because she still looks exactly like the thing that ruined me. Leather jacket. Dark eyes. Cold expression sharp enough to cut skin. Only now there was something else there too. Guilt. I hate that more than the anger.
“You gonna say something?” I ask flatly.
“Or just stare at me until I lose my fucking mind?”
“You were in a mental hospital.” Straight to it. Of course. I laugh once, no humor in it.
“Yeah.” The gears cry. She crosses her arms.
“How long?”
“Six months.” Her jaw tightens slightly.
“I didn’t know.” She says, like that’ll make anything about our fucked up situation better.
“You never gave me the chance to tell you.” That hits exactly the way I want it to. I see it in the way her shoulders stiffen. Good.
“You knew about the BPD,” I say.
“You knew about the alexithymia.”
“I didn’t know it got that bad.” A bitter laugh escapes me.
“Whose fault is that? What’d you think was gonna happen, Nadia?” I snap.
“You vanished.”
“I know.”
“No.” I stand so fast the whiskey bottle nearly tips over.
“No, you don’t.” The clock tower suddenly feels too small.
“You left me with fucking nothing.” I hiss.
“No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone.” Her jaw tightens.
“I had to.”
“There it is.” I laugh again, louder this time. Meaner.
“That bullshit excuse.”
“It’s not bullshit.” She refutes.
“Then explain it.” I dare her.
“It’s complicated.”
“Don’t .” I point at her sharply.
“Don’t give me that same fucking answer.”
“It’s true.”
“No, the truth is you left me.” My voice cracks.
“That’s the only part I understand.” Her expression hardens instantly like the ice queen she is.
“You disappear for two years-” I lash out, stepping toward her.
“You come back acting like everything’s normal, and now suddenly there are secret threats and hidden files and whatever the fuck was going on downstairs with Roxy?” She looks away. And that? That ignites something ugly inside me on fire.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Her eyes snap back to mine instantly, cold enough to cut skin.
“Don’t bark orders at me like I’m one of your people.” She sneers.
“Then stop acting like you’re above this.” I sneer right back at her.
“I’m not above anything.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” She inhales slowly through her nose. Controlling herself. I recognize it immediately because I used to be the only person who could make Nadia Slade lose control.
“You wanna know why I left?” She asks.
“Yes.”
The word bursts out of me instantly. Violently. Because I was so fucking tired of not knowing. Her eyes held mine for a long, intense moment. The kind that always existed between us right before something exploded.
“I left because people were threatening you.”
“Who?” She doesn’t answer.
“Nadia.” I press. She inhales slowly through her nose.
“My father wasn’t just abusive.” She explains quietly.
“He worked for people.” I frown.
“What people?”
“The ones who built this town.” Something about the way she says it makes my stomach tighten. Not metaphorically, but literally.
“They’ve existed longer than the gangs.” She continues.
“Longer than the Kingsmen. Longer than the Phantoms. My mother was born into it. My father was one of them.” Her nostrils flare.
“They raised me around it too.” I look at her.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There are three people at the top of it.” Her eyes latch onto mine.
“Three founders. Three rulers. I don’t know their real names; nobody does, but they control everything underneath them.”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“They watched me my whole life.” She tells me.
“My father trained me for them. When he left me, I forgot all about Olympus. Then-” She pulls a burner phone from her jacket pocket and throws it at my chest. I catch it automatically.
“They reminded me exactly who they were.” She pauses briefly.
“It started with messages.” Her voice remains cold and controlled, but I can hear the anger underneath it now. The real kind. The dangerous kind.
“Then pictures.” I look back up slowly.
“What kind of pictures?”
“You.” Something in my chest tightens.
“They followed you for months .” Her eyes lock onto mine.
“Everywhere. The clubhouse. The races. The fights. Then, Vegas happened.” My brows furrow. Vegas.
“What does Vegas have to do with this?” Her laugh was bitter.
“Because when I refused to do what they wanted, you got shot.” Everything in me short-circuited.
“That wasn’t random.” She comes closer now.
“You went to Vegas for ‘bratva business’ with Shane and Skylar. I told them no that same night.” My pulse slows dangerously.
“And two hours later somebody put a bullet in your chest.” I stare at her, trying to process it.
“You think that was because of you?”
“I know it was.”
“You don’t know that,” I argue.
“I do.” Her voice sharpens for the first time.
“Because after it happened, they sent me pictures of you bleeding out in the fucking parking lot.”
Silence crashes between us. I remember Vegas.
The pain. The blood. Skylar screaming my name.
Nadia’s face being the last thing I saw before I was out cold, regretting everything we hadn’t got a chance to do yet.
I remember waking up furious because I thought it was a random hit. Not this. Never this.
“You should’ve told me.” I finally say.
“And what?” She snaps.
“You would’ve fixed it?”
“Yes.” She huffs.
“You can’t even fix yourself.” The words hit like a slap. She realizes it immediately too. But Nadia never takes words back, and neither do I.
“Wow.” I chuckle harshly.
“There it is.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She backtracks.
“No?” I stalk closer.
“Sure sounded like it.” Her jaw clenches.
“I left because I thought it would keep you alive.” She snarls.
“And look how well that worked out.” Something flickers across her face then. Pain maybe. Remorse. I don’t care. Or at least I want her to think I don’t.
“You wanna know why I ended up in that hospital?” I ask. Her spine becomes taut.
“Yes.” The word comes lower this time. More honest. I look away first because I suddenly can’t fucking breathe right.
“I stopped sleeping.”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“I stopped eating.” I grinned viciously.
“Started picking fights with literally anybody who looked at me wrong.” Images flash through my head. Broken knuckles. Blood. Empty bottles. Her vacant side of the bed.
“I couldn’t feel anything properly anymore.” My voice sounds strange even to me. Toneless and detached.
“Just anger. Obsession. Then, nothing. Then, too much all at once.” She stays silent, listening intently.
“I tried to drive off Greyveil Summit one night.” That gets her attention; her entire body goes rigid.
“I had just become King of the Daredevil, but I had an urge to just be up there. Wanted to end this misery. I didn’t care if I died.” I shrug one shoulder like it meant nothing.
“Missed the turn because Shane grabbed the wheel. I hadn’t even realized he was in there with me.” Nadia stares at me, no longer cold. Just… still.
“After that,” I continue.
“They gave me two options. Get help or find a grave.” The heavy silence was suffocating. I grab the whiskey bottle again to give my hands something to do. Give myself a distraction from her.
“Met Roxy there.” Her eyes narrow slightly.
“She was detoxing.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” I take another drink.
“Drugs. Pills. Alcohol.”
“What happened to her?”
“She said her family dumped her there because she was inconvenient.” I shrug.
“That’s all I know.”
“That’s not all you know.” I frown.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s connected to the Hattori’s.”
I freeze slightly at that. Is she connected to the Hattori’s? That would make her Kingsmen royalty. Untouchable. Dangerous. An enemy. And I’ve had her under my roof for over a year.