Chapter Thirty-Seven Hollis
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hollis
Meiringen, Switzerland
“Closing in on the place now,” Easton announced over the headsets from behind the yoke. He and Jason seemed okay, despite the fact Easton had shared we’d gone on a few dates that thankfully hadn’t ended in sex.
My brother was sitting up front by him, and from what I’d gathered, they’d never operated together, even though we had.
It was just Jason and me in the back, because Sebastian had opted to stay at the hotel, working leads with the others.
“Land over there. The helo pad’s covered up, but . . .” Gideon kept talking to Easton, but I wound up tuning them out, too awestruck as the estate came into view.
The manor rose against the Alps like a relic. Stone walls weathered by neglect, shutters sagging on rusted hinges, ivy clawing its way across the front, softening what had probably once been all sharp edges of wealth and power. Now it looked like a forgotten treasure.
The sky growled overhead, thunder rolling like a lion’s warning. Not ideal flying conditions, but what choice did we have? We needed answers, and I prayed we’d find something here while Julian and Gwen worked their miracle at the hotel with the footage.
Jason held my hand, quiet strength in his touch.
He wasn’t at all the man he’d pretended to be over text, trying to keep me at arm’s length.
He was kind, patient, and wicked smart, too.
He was full of knowledge I kept discovering at every turn.
Even as we’d walked to the helo earlier, he’d casually mentioned that Meiringen had also been the setting for one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
The helo slowly touched down, and once it was safe, Jason helped me out and Gideon moved ahead, leading us to the manor. “I had the power turned back on,” he said while unlocking the front door.
A gust of stale air hit us the second he opened up. Were we walking into my past, or a haunted house?
My brother flicked on the lights. Our footsteps echoed across the wide entry hall, bouncing off parquet floors dulled by dust. Portraits glared down from gilt frames, their painted eyes sharp and eerie in the dim light, as though clocking us as intruders.
My fingers trailed the carved banister. I had no idea when I’d last been here, but my body seemed to remember. “Anything from Julian yet about whether I came here recently?”
“He texted en route here. The closest airport where one of our planes landed in recent months was in Germany six weeks ago. You flew to Munich alone,” Gideon shared.
“You arrived on a Tuesday afternoon and left on Thursday. No CCTV footage exists of you outside the airport, though. It was scrubbed. So it looks like whoever destroyed the footage in Rome and the Czech Republic covered your tracks here, too. They didn’t want anyone to know you came here. ”
“Wait.” I held up my hand. “Timeline issue here, right? If it really was Tristan who stole Julian’s source code, I came here before you suspected he took it. So either Tristan’s innocent, he stole it at a different time, or—”
“Whoever has the source code can alter CCTV footage anywhere at any point, they don’t have to do it in real time,” Gideon cut in.
“They tossed your hotel in Rome, your places in London and France, to cover up for what or who you were after. I’m sure they didn’t know you spoke to Julian about the book, or they wouldn’t have worked so hard to hide the fact you were looking for it. ”
“Almost everyone in our family believed the book burned in that fire.” Chills dusted over my skin. “Not me. Doubtfully Tristan.”
Gideon slowly faced me, a harsh breath settling from his lips. “The formula can’t be activated without our blood, and it only interacts with our blood.” He motioned for us to follow him, and I assumed he had evidence to back up his theory somewhere.
A restless energy sparked in my veins. The air grew colder as we moved down a long hallway, the scent of mildew and damp stone intensifying with each step. Our footsteps stirred dust motes that shimmered beneath the lantern-style lights lining our path.
The door groaned as Gideon opened it, and he turned on the lights before we joined him inside what looked like a laboratory frozen in time. “Tristan’s probably had the book this whole time.”
I looked around the large space. Tables sagged beneath the weight of abandoned glassware, cloudy flasks, and tarnished instruments. Rust had eaten into metal clamps, and an acrid tang of old chemicals lingered in the air.
An immense chalkboard stretched across one wall, streaked with faded equations and scribbled diagrams that still clung in ghostly white.
I continued to walk around, Jason protectively behind me as I took in the sight of a corkboard above a desk. The pictures must have been of my grandfather and the child he raised.
Tristan had aged in each photo, going from boy to man.
“So I talked to Julian first, and he didn’t have answers, so I flew under the radar, knowing you didn’t believe it was true, but then I got here and realized Tristan’s had it the whole time.” The words left a bitter taste on my tongue. “But why was I with him in France?”
Easton interjected his two cents. “Tristan probably lied to you when you asked him about it. Pretended to help you find it to keep an eye on you. Ensure you didn’t find the truth.
He clearly didn’t want you to know he had it, for some reason.
Then you got too close, and he set you up in Rome, maybe even with the Putcheskis. ”
I skimmed my finger along dusty notebooks, their edges furled and yellowed. “You really think he baited me to Rome with the book? Could Tristan be so evil to do such a thing to me?”
“It’s sure as hell how it looks, at least. Maybe he even baited the Putcheskis, too. Or was working with them for some reason,” Jason said before Gideon could respond, reaching for my hand. His jaw flexed, and his hand was the steady weight I needed in this storm.
“Tristan didn’t want you to die, he just needed you to forget you found out the truth,” my brother remarked in a low, haunted voice as he stopped by the chalkboard.
“He probably convinced you to keep your search from us, selling you on the idea it was to protect us—or he put it in your head it was one of us who had it.”
“And Kylo wasn’t supposed to be with me. Now . . .” I cupped my mouth, the guilt hitting hard again. “Tristan may not have had it in him to kill me, but what about Kylo?”
“He can’t use the drug on Kylo. It wouldn’t work,” Gideon reminded me.
“But take his life?” He pocketed his hands.
“I don’t know, because as much of a loner as Tristan is, he’s still our brother, and I’m having a hard time believing he did this.
” The faint edge of doubt prickled through his tone like static.
“I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. ”
Jason remained alongside me as the lights flickered, gripping my hand firmly.
“Based on how bad it’s sounding out there, we’re going to have to ride out this storm before we head back to the hotel.” Easton hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to check it out.”
Gideon nodded. “We can’t wait too long. We need to talk to Benjamin later.”
“If he’s holding Kylo for Tristan, so help me if he’s hurt.” I didn’t remember my protector, but he’d sacrificed himself to let me escape, not knowing I’d be walking into a trap anyway, one set by my own flesh and blood.
“I’ll take a look around the house and see if we missed anything, but I’m sure Tristan’s already paid the place a visit. He’d know the manor inside and out, much more than us.” Gideon’s dark eyes slipped from me over to Jason, a silent directive written into his expression: Keep her close.
Once it was just the two of us, he brought our clasped palms to his mouth and pressed his lips to my knuckles. “I’d prefer not to stay here. It’s giving Frankenstein vibes.”
I wasn’t sure which emotion I was feeling, so I split the difference and laugh-cried. “Right there with you.”
I turned off the light behind us and closed the door, feeling as though I was saying goodbye to the past one last time.