14 New Years
Mornings at Ashthorne Hall are usually quiet. But not today.
Voices echo up from below. The scrape of furniture. The dull thud of boxes being set down. Doors opening and closing. The low murmur of men speaking to one another.
The foyer is chaos.
Movers in dark uniforms carry pieces of Ashthorne Hall out like they’re dismantling it. An antique chair wrapped in plastic, framed artwork cradled in plastic. Boxes covered with different stickers. Fragile. Handle with care.
Lucian stands in the center of it all, perfectly still in a crisp dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms. A clipboard rests in one hand, his expression carved from stone as he oversees the disassembly.
I walk over to him, dodging underneath a rug two men are hauling out.
“Good morning, Gracie.” Lucian gives me a small smile.
“Morning. What’s going on?”
Lucian exhales. “Adrienne is having some things moved out.”
“Why?”
“She filed for divorce.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, it was time. Dakota’s eighteen now, she’s at Blackmoore. Our arrangement is complete.”
I chew on my lower lip as I watch people heading in and out.
“What about Dakota?”
“She still has a place here if she wants it.” Lucian looks down at me. “I still care for her. I’ve stood in as a father figure for her. Just because I’m not with her mother anymore, it doesn’t mean I’ll just toss her out.”
I look up. “That’s really nice.” I swallow as I look around.
“Now what?”
“Now, we move forward.”
“Hey, you two!” I turn to face the doors as Savvy walks in, dodging a man holding a large vase. “Are we moving out of Ashthorne Hall?” She looks around as she stops in front of us.
Lucian chuckles, shaking his head. “No, it’s Adrienne’s things.”
A look passes between Savvy and Lucian.
“I see.” She nods slowly. “I’m sorry, Lucian. I know you tried.”
“What?” I look up at him.
“It was a long time ago.” Lucian pats my shoulder, his eyes staying on Savvy. “She was just never the right person for me. Just filled a role.”
“Right.” I glance back and forth between them. “I’m going to go find Maeve.”
“Sounds good,” Lucian says. There’s a whole conversation happening between them, I can see it, I just can’t read enough of it to make any sense.
“See you later, Iz.” Savvy gives me a quick smile, a light dusting of pink spreading over her cheeks.
The week passes in fragments, blurring together like smeared brushstrokes.
Some mornings, I wake up to Jace watching me sleep. Other mornings, Luca’s banging on my door, dragging me to the gym until my muscles scream, sweat drowning out the ache in my chest. Noah always has scenarios waiting, but it helps keep my mind focused.
Maeve slides me coffee before anyone else, curling up beside me with a blanket when I can’t keep up with the boys’ banter, or pulling me into the kitchen to bake when she catches me staring too long out the window.
She laughs with Luca, teases Noah until he cracks a smile, and somehow manages to match Jace’s stubbornness.
At night, sometimes we all collapse on the couches with hot chocolate, the glow of some movie flickering across the screen.
Maeve and I share a blanket, our shoulders knocking together while the boys sprawl out around us—Luca stretches over half the couch, Noah hogs the throw pillows, Jace is always near me, his hand tangling in mine even in sleep.
Other nights, we all end up in the home theater, Luca shouting commentary at the screen while Maeve and Noah bicker over plot holes.
Lucian checks in daily. His updates are short. Daniel is still underground. “We’re watching. Waiting,” Lucian says more than once, but I can hear the strain in his voice. He’s restless, just as I am.
Among all of it, there are small things that stitch me together.
Maeve braids my hair while we sit by the fire, the way Jace seems to be softening with me, Noah grumbling about Luca stealing his blankets in the living room.
Luca insists on watching rom-coms or reading some smutty romance book to me, with all different voices included.
Little moments, ordinary and almost normal, string like beads along a thread.
But no matter how warm the fire burns, or how safe the Hall feels, I can’t shake the truth pressing at the back of my mind. We’re waiting. And waiting means the storm isn’t over—it’s only gathering.
Ashthorne Hall glows from the inside out, the lights golden and warm, flickering against the windows like something out of a storybook.
It doesn’t feel real, not all the way. Not the way Lucian moves through the kitchen, helping Elara and Savvy plate hors d'oeuvres.
Not the way Max, Derek, Noah and Luca spent the afternoon bickering over how to hang garland in the great room.
Not the fact that I was going into a new year… alive. And loved.
Maeve comes up behind me and nudges her shoulder against mine. “Are you ready for your first real New Year’s Eve?”
I give her a small, nervous smile. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means no shouting matches, no hiding in your room, no crying in the shower. It means champagne and fairy lights and possibly a kiss under the stars,” she says with a wink. “It means magic, Iz.”
I let her pull me back downstairs.
The great room smells like cinnamon and woodsmoke.
There’s a fire crackling, low music playing, and Luca somehow convinces everyone to wear party hats, even Lucian.
Jace looks good in black—he always does—but tonight something about him looked softer.
Looser around the edges. His smile when I walked in was quiet, private, like I was the only thing he saw.
When midnight gets close, we step outside to the back terrace. The cold hits me first, but then Jace’s hand finds mine and I barely feel it.
Lucian lifts his glass. “To survival. To strength. And to the people who make life worth it.”
Fireworks burst over the trees a second later, streaking violet and gold. The sound cracks like thunder, echoing through the sky.
Jace pulls me into him as the countdown finishes, his lips brushing my hair. “Happy New Year, Isobel.”
I tip my head up and kiss him.
After the others drift toward warmth, drinks and late-night dessert, Maeve and I find our way to the cozy nook near the grand staircase. A fire burns low nearby, and Elara had left out a tray of hot cocoa and cookies as if we were little kids. I didn’t realize how much I needed that.
We curl up under a blanket, legs tangled, cocoa steaming in our hands.
Maeve tilts her head toward me. “So. First New Year’s without chaos?”
I laugh. “It was pretty good.”
She smiles into her mug. “I meant what I said earlier, you know. I’m glad you found this.”
“This?”
“This place. These people. Yourself.”
I look down at my mug. “It doesn’t always feel like I know who that is yet.”
Maeve bumps her knee against mine. “Yeah, but you’re not running from her anymore.”
That makes my throat go tight.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, voice soft.
She nods. “This year will be better.”
“Deal.”
And we sit there a while longer, sipping cocoa and watching the last fireworks fade into stars.
Everyone has gone to bed. The house has grown quiet, save for the low hum of heaters and the occasional creak of old wood settling into winter. But I can’t sleep.
I turn over and watch Jace’s face as he sleeps. He looks so peaceful. I slowly move out from under his arm. He stirs, his face scrunches with frustration for a moment then smoothes back out.
I slip outside onto the back terrace, sweater pulled tight, breath fogging in the cold air. The sky above me is wide and ink-dark, scattered with stars. I tilt my head back, letting the silence press against me.
“Hey, Tex,” I whisper. My voice barely stirs the air. “You’d hate how soft I’ve gone.”
A laugh tries to rise but dies before it can reach my throat.
I sit down on the cold stone steps, pulling my knees to my chest. For a while, I just stare at the stars—at the expanse of sky that he used to say looked better when you were bruised and bleeding because then it meant you were still alive to see it.
“You were right,” I murmur. “About a lot of things.”
I pull the sleeves over my hands, jaw clenching.
“I miss you.” I can barely get the words out. I wipe my cheeks. “I hope you and Ellie are having a blast. But the selfish part of me wishes you were still here with me.”
I picture his face. His smile. The way his eyes would soften when they focused on me. He was the biggest, scariest guy in the room, but I knew he would never hurt anyone he loved.
And he loved me.
I didn’t deserve that love. I didn’t deserve his kindness. I'm the reason he's not here with me now, looking at me with those knowing eyes, telling me to dance it out.
A feeling washes over me. Tex would be pissed with this train of thought. He wouldn’t accept it. Daniel was the one who fired the gun.
“I will get him. Everyone and anyone who had a hand in it. I won’t stop until they’re all dead.”
I don’t care how powerful they think they are. I’m done running. Done with them thinking they’ve won.
“I’m going to burn down everything they’ve built,” I whisper. “And I’ll do it for you.”
The stars don’t answer. But a gust of wind rolls over the hills, cold and biting, and somehow I know he heard me.
The wind shifts again behind me. Softer this time. Warmer.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I feel him before I hear him—the measured hush of his footsteps on the stone, the subtle way the air bends around his presence.
Jace sits beside me without a word, his shoulder brushing mine, close but not crowding. He wraps a blanket around us. For a long moment, we just stare at the sky together.
He doesn’t ask what I’m doing. Doesn’t try to pull me into a conversation or tell me to come inside. He just sits. Quiet. Waiting. Eventually, I let my head tip onto his shoulder.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I murmur.
“I figured.”
We watch our breath curl in the cold night air, stars glittering above us like broken glass scattered across black velvet.
“I was talking to him,” I say. “To Tex.”
Jace’s chest rises with a slow inhale.
“He’d probably say I’m getting soft,” I add with a faint, tired smile. “Sitting out here crying to the stars.”
“He’d say that,” Jace agrees. “Then offer to punch someone about it.”
That makes me laugh, just a little. The kind that cracks in my throat and doesn’t quite reach my eyes.
Jace turns his head to press a kiss to the crown of my head. His voice is low. “Whatever you said to him… he heard you.”
“I hope so.”
Silence settles over us again. Like it has space for everything we aren’t saying yet. Grief. Rage. Hope.
“I meant it,” I whisper. “This year… they pay.”
“I know,” he replies. “And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
I look up at him. His face was lit only by the moonlight, casting shadows that harden the angles of his cheekbones, but it’s the sureness in his eyes that undoes me.
“Thank you,” I swallow. “For coming out here. For not trying to fix it.”
“You don’t need fixing, Isobel.” His fingers lace gently through mine. “I’m just here.”
We stay like that for a while—fingers entwined, eyes lifted to the sky, hearts still aching but not alone.
And when we finally stand to go back inside, the stars don’t feel quite so distant anymore.