Chapter 50
vera
“Vera?”
Elaine’s voice was soft in the damp morning air, and I looked back at where she came out onto the overlook—the Whitecliff stronghold was in an old converted church, and most of it felt like a living space, but up here on the steeple, where the wind tasted like rain and the brass of the bell, it was hard to forget where you were.
I’d been forgetting where I was.
“You’re up early,” I said.
“You’re up earlier.”
I stood up, and I took the paper from my coat pocket, unrolling it. Elaine’s eyes went wide at the sight.
Our contract.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“I don’t think this will be necessary anymore,” I said, and I tore the contract down the middle. Elaine gasped, reaching for it, her fingers stopping just short.
“Vera—”
“It’s for the best,” I said. turning the paper and tearing it down the other way, too. “For both of us. You know that being with me would only destroy you. And then it would destroy me.”
She welled up, clutching her hands together at her chest. “I’m not going to leave you alone, Vera. Not after everything we’ve been through together.”
I tore the paper one last time, and I stood at the railing, taking a long breath before I cast it out to the wind.
Elaine reached for it, paper scraps slipping through her fingers, and she stood there still frozen, reaching for it, as I spoke.
“We saw what happened at the manor. The Blackbirds are trying to get rid of you. You need to hide, Elaine. Somewhere far away from here.”
“What?” She turned to me with tears springing up on her cheeks. Like I needed that right now. Like I needed to see this woman, the only person I’d ever realized I could love, crying from what I was doing to her. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“What happens during the assault on the headquarters? Do you walk into the lion’s den? Do you stay unprotected in the manor or in some enemy family’s safehouse?”
“But…”
“You have to go.” I put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing tightly. I had to drag in a shaky breath to not start crying too, seeing her like that.
To think Elaine Whitner, the woman who should have been an easy target, was the one to break me. The one to make me love. And at last, the one to make me cry.
It could only ever have been her.
“You have to go,” I repeated, quieter this time. “Somewhere it’s safe. Please. Do this for me. For both of us.”
“I can’t… it’s not fair,” she sobbed, wiping her face. “What if something happens to you? I told you, we have to prioritize everybody getting out safely…”
“I’m going to be okay. I promise.” I brushed my thumb over her cheek. “But you need to stay out of danger. Even if we fail and have to retreat. You need to be somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere safe.”
“I can’t. I won’t. I’m a part of the family. You know that!”
“And what if that family wants to protect you!?” I snapped, and she shrank back. I squeezed my hands. “Elaine… please. I can’t keep losing people I care about. I’m sorry. But it has to be this.”
She made a visible effort to pull herself together, not to cry, and she breathed in, shakily, out, chest heaving. “I have to say it, you know,” she whispered.
“Don’t.”
But she did it anyway, the damn woman. “I love you.”
I gripped the railing so tightly I felt like it would slice through my fingers. Just like the chain-link fence. Just like the railing on the cliff when I watched her die.
“I love you, Vera,” she said, again. Impossible words hammering into me. I closed my eyes.
“We need to stop being seen together,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”
“Vera…”
Slowly, I took off my wedding ring, and I handed it to her. She refused to take it, so I took her hand and pressed it into her palm. “We don’t have time to waste,” I whispered. “You need to get to safety. I have contacts who can help you.”
She wiped her eyes, and she turned back to the stairs. “Vera…”
I gritted my teeth. “Please.”
“Even now… I just wish you could be happy.”
She left me with that haunting whisper, echoing in my mind, long after she’d left.
I was hanging my head over the railing, staring blankly into the distance, and it might have been five seconds or five hours before the heavy, thumping footsteps behind me told me who it was.
Only one person who stomped in boots like those.
“You’re a damn fool, Farkas,” Petra said.
“So, you were watching. Feeling lonely or something?”
“Wasn’t watching.” She leaned on the railing, looking at the streaky clouds rolling past, shaking her head. “Just saw Elaine running back to the room with two rings trying not to cry.”
“Love is a person’s biggest weakness. You do stupid things for love. You make stupid mistakes for love. And when you lose someone you love… you never recover.”
Like my father never recovered. Once a strong, silent man who cared for the family, my mother dying turned him into an animal, a savage beast that needed to be put down.
The scar still stung sometimes. A reminder.
A reminder of who I was. Of what I was.
“So what are you planning to do after this, huh?” Petra scoffed. “Burn down the Blackbirds’ HQ, leave a trail of devastation in your wake, you’re a free bird, and then you just… what? Sit around waiting for someone to get revenge on you?”
“Hell if I know, Petra. Horizon will be done. The South Yard will be irrelevant. And Elaine will be safe. If I die, she’ll claim my inheritance. Won’t have to worry about money ever again in her life.” I shrugged. “I guess that means I’ll have done everything I needed to. Can’t betray the family.”
“Think you just did.”
“Thanks for that.”
She scoffed again, turning back to the stairs. “Thought heights were the only things you were scared of. Guess I was wrong.”
I hung my head. “I’ll be up here just a bit longer. I know we’ve got work to do.”
“Fuck off,” she said, and she started back down the stairs, her boot steps receding slowly into the quiet, leaving me alone.
That was how it always ended up.
How it always should have ended up.
And once I died, the story would all have come full circle.
I’d just have to take Quayle with me.
This time, the detonator was going to go off.