Chapter Eight
Kit
Where is she?
Dylan, where the hell is she?
You have thirty seconds to tell me exactly what you’ve done with her, or I swear on all that is holy that you will spend the rest of your pitiful life regretting this.
WHERE IS SHE?
—Text messages sent by Christopher Abbott-Montgomery, Earl of Clarence, 1 February 2024, 6:07 p.m.
When Dylan finally fetches me from the study, he’s sporting a fresh and quickly swelling black eye. He says nothing as he puts the bag back over my head, and only then do I allow myself an excruciating grin. I will never be Guy’s ally, but I won’t say no to his attempts to sucker me in.
The black van drops me off, still blindfolded, a quarter of a mile from my flat building.
My hands are duct-taped together this time, but thanks to Ingrid, the PPO who sacrificed her life to save mine in the bombing, I know how to break that bond, and within minutes, I’m walking through the freezing cold toward the entrance of our building, trying to keep my teeth from chattering and causing even more pain in my jaw.
“Evangeline!”
My name explodes into a chorus as more than a dozen agents and personal protection officers swarm me, some pouring out from the lobby while others appear in the shadows around me, shielding my body with theirs.
I’m so overwhelmed that I forget they have a real reason to be scared shitless, and when I stumble over my numb feet, a protection officer scoops me up and carries me into the lobby.
He and half a dozen other men with guns immediately cram themselves into a waiting lift, and before I know it, the doors are opening on our floor, which is also crawling with uniforms. Not just MI5 agents and PPOs, but police, too.
Someone shouts, or maybe they’ve already radioed ahead, and as the overzealous officer finally lets me down, Singh appears amidst the chaos.
“Evangeline,” he says, and I detect a distinct note of relief in his voice. “We have a doctor waiting. We’ve already alerted the local hospital, and we have a helicopter on standby to take you to London—”
“I’m fine,” I say, my jaw agonizingly stiff from the cold. “Where’s Kit?”
Singh blinks as he tries to usher me toward the nearest open door. “Lord Clarence is secure. You need to—”
“Where is he?” I dig my heels in, and to his credit, Singh pauses. “I’ll talk to you and a doctor and everyone else after, but I need to see him. Now.”
Without further argument, Singh leads me through the chaos toward the flat Kit and I share.
Yellow tape blocks off the entrance, but we both duck beneath it, and Singh guides me around the broken glass to the closed bedroom door.
He knocks lightly, but before he can speak, I slip past him and push the door open, not wanting to keep Kit in agonizing suspense any longer.
But as soon as I do, something clinks against the door, and I pause, confused. A chunk of blue spherical glass catches on the edge, and as I try to figure out what it is, a familiar scent hits me, strong and almost overpowering.
Kit’s bottle of cologne is shattered.
It’s not the only thing that’s in pieces.
Picture frames and his alarm clock lie broken on the carpet, and even his laptop is cracked beneath a sizable dent in the wall.
The things that don’t easily break—pillows, books, even articles of clothing—he’s torn apart, and my heart drops to my knees.
Nearly all of his things are destroyed, but mine remain untouched.
“Kit?” I say softly, glancing around the dim room, lit only by the light filtering in from the main living area. I don’t see him, and briefly I wonder if he’s in the bathroom until a strange wheezing reaches my ears. Frowning, I venture inside, tiptoeing around the broken glass.
Huddled on the floor beside the bed, with his back against the mattress and his knees hugged to his chest, is Kit.
His entire body trembles with silent sobs, and a dark trickle of blood runs down his forearm, pooling in the crook of his elbow.
I inhale a silent breath of surprise and kneel slowly beside him, joining him on the carpet.
“Hi,” I whisper. The light in the doorway shifts, and I realize Singh’s brought backup in case—what, in case Kit tries to attack me?
But I know what a breakdown looks like. I can feel the terror and anxiety pulsing through him, and it takes everything I have not to gather him in my arms and snap at the agents to get the hell away from both of us.
Several seconds tick by, but finally Kit raises his head enough to look at me. His eyes are rimmed with red, and there’s a shallow cut on his chin that makes me want to cry. “Ev?” he whispers, as if he doesn’t really believe it’s me.
“I’m here,” I murmur. “What do you need?”
He stares at me, his eyes pools of black, until he reaches for me with aching slowness. Like he thinks I’ll vanish if he moves too quickly, and he gently cups my jaw and brushes his thumb against my swollen lower lip.
“Dylan?” he says jaggedly, and I nod, leaning into his warm palm.
“Don’t worry. He paid for it.” I touch his bleeding arm and try to find the source. “Are you hurt? What happened?”
He glances down, as if only just noticing the blood. “I thought…when they told me you’d been taken, I thought…”
He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to. “I’m okay. I promise I’m okay,” I say. “Dylan texted me. He told me…He made me think you were in danger if I didn’t do exactly what he said, and—”
“You let him kidnap you?” Confusion and hurt flicker across Kit’s face, and I shake my head. But after a moment, I reconsider and nod.
“I didn’t know that’s what was going to happen, but…he sent me a picture of you in the pub, and it looked like it was from some kind of rifle scope. I didn’t think I had a choice,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry. I panicked, and—and I didn’t have time to think.”
He’s still now, so completely unmoving that I’m not sure he’s even breathing.
But though guilt washes over me like liquid concrete, sticking to every part of me and solidifying into stone, I know I didn’t have much choice in the moment.
I’d done the only thing I could do then, and now all I can do is murmur my apologies over and over until Kit finally slumps into my arms, his damp face buried in the crook of my neck.
After what feels like hours of simply holding each other, he sniffles into my collarbone, taking slow and steady breaths.
“I’ve been having panic attacks since Liam died,” he admits, his words tickling my skin.
“They started at his funeral, the first time…the first time someone called me Lord Clarence. That was the moment I realized he was really gone, and I…”
My heart cracks open as he swallows hard, and I thread my fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. I’ve never questioned why he hates his title, assuming it has to do with the pretentiousness of the whole aristocracy. But this…
“I spent that first year after his death numbing the panic and grief with drink and—partying, and all those pictures you saw from Ben’s posts,” he mumbles.
“I was in therapy, too, for a while, but I dropped it when it didn’t seem to help.
It was a shit time. A really shit time. Things Ben or Maisie said would set me off without them realizing, and I couldn’t look my mother in the eye or even speak to my father, not when he was so insistent on bringing up the responsibilities that should’ve been my brother’s.
It was too much. It’s still too much sometimes.
But then you came to England, and…the worst of it quieted. It became manageable.”
Kit’s arms are still tight around me, but he pulls me into his lap, and I rest my head on his shoulder, silent and listening.
“The panic attacks became easier to control,” he continues softly.
“At least for a while. But after Sandringham…they’ve been more frequent again, and I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like they were your fault.
They’re not. Something inside me is broken, and I don’t know how to fix it. ”
“You’re not broken,” I say, pulling away enough to peer at him.
“You’re not. You’ve been through a lot, and your brain is finding ways to cope, that’s all.
” I hesitate. And I am making it worse, but I can’t say that aloud.
“I’m here, okay? Always. To talk, to—to distract you, if I can.
Or if not, to just listen. Whatever you need.
Whatever you want, all right? I love you. ”
The urge to say more nearly overwhelms me, but I bite my tongue as he nods, and that’s enough for now.
We fall back into silence as Kit leans against the edge of the mattress, me in his lap and our limbs tangled together.
From the living room, I can hear the murmur of voices and the sound of glass being swept up, but no one disturbs us.
Even Singh has left us alone for the time being.
“What happened?” he manages after what must be several minutes, his voice so low it’s more of a rumble than a whisper. “With…Dylan.”
I glance at the doorway once more to make sure we’re still alone. “It wasn’t just Dylan,” I admit softly. “He brought me to Guy Fawkes.”
Kit’s eyes widen, and in a hurried whisper, I tell him everything that happened, from the moment I realized he was missing to when I stepped back into our bedroom and found Kit like this. I don’t leave anything out, but I do save the best for last.
“And I think—I think I found the list,” I whisper, nearly breathless now.
“I didn’t get a real look at it, but when Guy was talking about Fox Rex alumni, he started to pull this book out, and it didn’t have a title on the spine.
And it wasn’t dusty like the others, so I think he handles it frequently.
I noticed it before he got in the room, but I didn’t have a chance to check—”
“So you don’t know for sure?” says Kit. I shake my head.