Chapter Fifty-Four
Clive
Ifound Cordelia’s old leather jacket buried in the back of my closet at four in the morning. Still smelled faintly like cigarettes and gasoline. I sat on the edge of my bed staring at the thing for nearly twenty minutes before realizing my hands were shaking.
Not from age, but memory.
Funny how grief never really leaves. It just waits quietly until something cracks you open enough for it to crawl back out.
And Nadia disappearing? That cracked all of us open.
All of us had barely slept in days. People moved through the halls like ghosts now.
Angry ghosts carrying guns and trauma and exhaustion.
Every room buzzed with tension because nobody knew what Olympus was planning next.
Only that they had Nadia. And that meant time was running out. I rubbed a hand over my face and looked at the jacket again. Cordelia used to wear this thing constantly. Black leather, sleeves rolled up, Phantom patch stitched crooked onto the shoulder because she refused to sew the thing properly.
Beautiful woman. Mean as hell too. I smiled despite myself.
Then the smile disappeared just as fast. Because all roads eventually led back to Callahan.
Always. My son died twenty years ago, and somehow I still built my entire life around the crater he left behind. The bedroom door creaked open quietly.
Abby leaned against the frame, still wearing one of Deck’s hoodies, dark circles beneath her eyes.
“You’re awake.”
“Clearly.” Her eyes landed on the jacket immediately.
“Oh.” Yeah, oh. Abby stepped farther inside slowly.
“You never take that out.”
“Could say the same about you and Nadia’s old trophies.” She snorted softly. Fair. For a while neither of us spoke. Then Abby asked quietly,
“Did you really love her?” She still didn’t know Cordelia was her grandmother. All she knew was that once upon a time, I had fallen in love with a Phantom. When all this shit with Olympus was over, I needed to tell her the truth.
She deserved that. Callahan deserved that. Cordelia deserved that. Still, her question hit harder than expected. Not because of Cordelia, but because of Nadia. Because suddenly I realized Abby was asking if love was worth all this destruction afterward. I looked back down at the jacket in my hands.
“More than I hated anybody else.” Abby smiled faintly at that, then sat beside me on the bed.
“You know Riven hasn’t slept?”
“Boy hasn’t slept properly in years.”
“No.” Her voice turned serious.
“I mean at all.” That got my attention. Abby tucked her legs underneath herself.
“Shane said he stopped taking his meds again.” Of fucking course he did. I leaned back against the wall tiredly.
“That boy’s gonna burn himself alive before this ends.”
“He thinks Nadia’s dead already.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes he does.” Abby’s eyes darkened.
“That’s the problem.”
Silence settled heavily between us. She was right.
Riven wasn’t grieving like somebody trying to save Nadia anymore.
He was grieving like somebody preparing for a funeral.
And men like Riven Deveraux got dangerous when grief curdled into hopelessness.
I looked at the jacket again. Then finally said the truth I once lived by. A truth that turned out to be a lie.
“I used to think the Phantoms killed Callahan.” Abby went still beside me.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.” My jaw tightened.
“After he died, I needed somebody to blame. Scorpions pulled the trigger, but I convinced myself the Phantoms gave them the route.”
“You mean my grandmother?”
“Yeah.” The word tasted bitter even now.
“I thought loving them made her weak. Thought she cared more about peace than protecting our family.” Abby stayed quiet. Smart girl.
Because there wasn’t anything comforting to say about it.
I spent years punishing the woman for a crime she never committed.
Then Olympus crawled out of the fucking dirt and showed me the truth too late to matter.
Callahan died because Olympus needed Stonebridge angry.
Needed chaos. Needed war. The Scorpions tried to cut into Olympus' profits, and everybody else paid the price. My son included.
“I loved her anyway,” I admitted quietly.
That was the ugliest part. Even after all the hatred. All the screaming. All the funerals. I still loved Cordelia Barrett right up until the day they buried our son. I still love her now. Abby looked toward the window thoughtfully.
“Nadia’s turning into you.” The observation hit like a punch.
“Mean?”
“Devoted.”
Oh. That was worse. Because she wasn’t wrong there either.
Nadia loved like a starving animal. Violently.
Desperately. Like losing somebody would physically kill her.
Anton did that to her. Made her into a weapon young enough that affection became survival instead of comfort.
Then Rivenequally fucked up in completely different ways and came crashing into her life.
Of course it became catastrophic. Two people, terrified of abandonment, loving each other that hard, were always gonna end bloody.The front door slammed downstairs suddenly. Voices erupted immediately afterward. Angry. I recognized Deck first. Then Shane. Then Riven.
Abby and I exchanged a look before heading downstairs fast. The second we entered the main room, I knew something bad had happened.
Riven stood near the kitchen island, drenched in rainwater and blood that definitely wasn’t his.
Shane looked seconds away from knocking him unconscious while Deck paced furiously nearby.
“What happened?” Abby asked sharply. Nobody answered immediately. Then Shane said,
“He killed somebody.”
The room went still. I looked at Riven carefully. His knuckles were shredded, breathing uneven, eyes completely hollow. No guilt. Nothing. That worried me more.
“Who?” I asked.
“A Kingsmen guard.” Deck muttered.
“Outside one of the South Side warehouses,” Abby swore under her breath. I stepped closer slowly.
“Why?” Riven chuckled darkly.
“He laughed.” That was it. That was the answer. The room physically tightened around him. Shane ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“The guy made some comment about Nadia not waking up and Riven lost his fucking mind.”
“I asked him where she was,” Riven said flatly.
“And?”
“He didn’t know.”
“So you beat him to death?” Abby snapped. Riven looked at her blankly.
“No.” A pause.
“Mostly.”
Fucking hell. I suddenly understood exactly how close we were to losing him entirely. The boy wasn’t spiraling anymore. He was collapsing. And the terrifying part? I wasn’t entirely sure anybody here knew how to stop it. Riven walked past all of us toward the stairs without another word.
“Where are you going?” Shane demanded.
“Clocktower.” My stomach tightened instantly. Of course that damn tower. Shane moved immediately.
“You’re not going alone.” Riven stopped halfway up the stairs, slowly. Then finally said, very quietly,
“If she’s dead, I won’t survive this.”
The entire house went silent. No one knew how to answer that. Because every single person in the room believed him.