Chapter 29
WELLER
Burnt Amber. Blackcurrant. Herbs.
Cold concrete against my face.
I try to open my eyes, but it hurts. Harsh white light has me squeezing them shut again.
I blink through the pain. Inches from my face, polished shoes shine beneath tailored dress pants, and above them, one hand is clenched hard enough to bleach the knuckles.
My father stands over me. “On your knees.”
He doesn’t raise his voice, but the alpha command snaps through me, and my body tries to obey before the rest of me catches up. I brace one shoulder against the concrete and drag a knee beneath me, but my bound ankles pull together, and pain tears up my bad leg.
Two guards seize me under the arms and haul me the rest of the way. I barely have time to get my balance before my father’s fist catches me across the mouth. They release me, and I land on my shoulder with my cheek against the concrete again.
He’s never put his hands on me like this.
William Dashwood believes physical violence is a sign of weakness.
The blood in my mouth is scorching hot after so long on the cold floor.
My first clear fear is that Bianca is feeling my emotions.
Everything I’ve been trying not to send her.
The air that never came easily through the sack, the certainty that one of us would stop breathing and I wouldn’t be able to reach him in time.
The rope holds my wrists against my back, and when I move my ankles, the knot answers by pulling tighter against bone.
I’ve felt this helpless before, but never this scared. Bianca is somewhere beyond my reach, and the man who taught me to fear his control has just lost it.
I think I hear Owen say my name.
She made it out. She has Freddie. Megan. Winston and his pack. They’ll keep her safe.
The blood from my mouth spreads under my collar, the warmth bringing back a memory.
Coffee.
I’m nineteen, staring through the windshield while the car shudders from the pothole and Bianca catches the styrofoam cup that just jumped out of her hands before the rest of it empties into my lap.
My right hand is locked around the wheel.
The other hovers over the ruined console as though I can still prevent what’s already happened.
“Oh my God. Did that burn you, Weller? I’m so sorry! Winston is always saying I have butter fingers.”
Her voice is young in my mind.
“Weller?”
Coffee has soaked through the white cotton of my dress shirt.
I can feel every place it’s touched my skin beneath the fabric.
I should’ve been more prepared. I should keep an extra shirt in the car.
At eight thirty, I’ll sit across from my father looking like this.
He won’t mention the stain until the meeting is over.
“Are you going to pull over? I think I can make it look less bad.”
I missed the turn toward her school.
“Wells, you’re scaring me a little.”
That gets my foot onto the brake. I signal and turn into the empty lot of a small church. The tires climb the curb and drop back down hard enough to slosh more coffee over the side of the cup.
“Umm, okay.” Bianca looks at the curb, then at me. “Can you talk to me?”
“You’re going to be late.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You will when they call your mother.”
“Weller, stop.” Her hand stays on the seat belt release. “Were you burned?”
“No.”
“Take your jacket off.”
She unfastens her seat belt and reaches into the glove compartment before I answer.
She hasn’t wanted to drive since the fender bender, and Winston has been driving her everywhere.
The rest of us haven’t been any better. She texted me before six to ask for a ride because Winston has a dentist appointment today.
I rescheduled two conference calls without hesitation.
She finds a stack of napkins and sits back with them crushed in one hand. “Come on. Jacket.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Your mouth is saying one thing and your face is saying another. Let me help you clean up. I feel awful.”
I pull at the knot of my tie. It has tightened, or my fingers aren’t working. After the second attempt, Bianca puts her water bottle between her knees and leans across the console.
“Let me.”
“I’ve got it.”
She watches me fail again. “Please.”
Her fingers slide beneath the knot before I can decide whether refusing would frighten her more.
One knuckle brushes my throat, and I trap a groan low in my chest. She has always done this - walked into whatever space exists between us as if there couldn’t possibly be a locked door there. She’s never liked boundaries.
The tie loosens, and I can breathe a little easier if she moves back.
But she doesn’t.
“Jacket,” she says again, softer this time.
I shrug it off. She lays it across the back seat, wets the napkins, and presses them to the middle of the stain against my chest. Cold reaches my skin.
Her other hand settles against my side to hold the shirt flat, and my ribs lock beneath her hand.
Her tongue sticks out as she concentrates.
I look away, not wanting her to see what her touch does to me.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the prob, Bob?”
I can’t tell her the problem is her. I can’t tell her how often I think about her touching me. She trusts me. At least, I think she does. Maybe she understands more than I’ve allowed myself to consider.
“My father will be at the meeting,” I say.
Bianca stops patting at the stain and looks up at me. Her face changes as she fits my father into all the small things she’s noticed about me. She doesn’t tell me I’m being ridiculous to fear him, but it’s been ingrained in me since birth that disappointing him is the worst thing I can do.
“Can you skip it?”
“No.”
“Call and say you had car trouble.”
I look at her. “He would send a car for me.” And then there would be an additional consequence for the trouble.
“Okay.” Her mouth presses into a flat line. “Then we’ll get as much of it out as we can.”
She wets another napkin. Apparently, that’s the end of the discussion. The stain is now something she’s angry with, and she works at it until her brows pull together and a strand of hair falls across her eye. She blows at it once, misses, and keeps going.
She smells like peppermint toothpaste and the shampoo she’s used for years. It’s just Bianca, close enough that every breath brings her further inside.
She dabs at the stain until she’s satisfied.
“Done. That should be less obvious once it dries.” She looks up and realizes I’m already watching her.
Her features relax as she inspects the shirt, satisfied. I want to kiss her badly enough that I have to make an effort not to. The feeling isn’t new. That’s the problem. It’s been growing underneath years of ordinary mornings - the rides, the calls when she can’t sleep.
Her eyes move over my face and catch on my mouth. Maybe I imagine the pause. Or maybe she feels it too, because she doesn’t move away.
I don’t trust myself to decide what any of that means.
I take the napkins from her hand. “You should put your seat belt on.”
Something closes in her face. Hurt, maybe. Embarrassment. I nearly reach for her before I’ve even finished moving away.
“Sure.” She sits back and screws the cap onto her bottle. “Wouldn’t want to make you any later.”
“Bianca.”
“We should go.”
She turns toward the window while I start the car. We drive the rest of the way with the heater blowing against my wet shirt and silence. Twice, I almost apologize. I can’t find a version that doesn’t confess too much or make her responsible for the thing I refused to do.
At her school, she opens her door, then glances back at me. Her face has smoothed out. I can’t tell if the hurt is gone or if she’s tucked it somewhere I can’t see.
“Text me after.”
“After what?”
“Your meeting.” She adjusts the strap of her bag. “Just tell me if he was awful about it. Or don’t. It’s whatever.”
It isn’t whatever. I want to pull her back into the car and ask what she thought was about to happen in the church parking lot. What she wanted to happen. Instead, I watch her close the door and walk away.
My father’s fingers clamp around my jaw, and his knuckles are bright red. I stare at them.
“Are you able to understand me?” His voice is deeply controlled.
The lapse lasted long enough to put me on the floor, and now he’s locking it back up.
Some old part of me is relieved. That’s what humiliates me.
My body still understands his control as safety.
The more control I gave him, the less interest he had in me.
“Yes.”
He lets go and stands. Owen is closest, and I hear him drag in a breath through his hood.
Tristan must be behind me because I can’t see him, but Ezra is lying on the ground on Owen’s other side.
I catch a small movement at his wrists. He’s working on the ropes.
I’ve tried, but they’re too tight. There’s no give.
“Tell me what you did.”
He lets the question linger, and my mind starts trying to satisfy him before I can stop it. Even now, tied at his feet, I can feel the report forming.
I lock my mouth shut.
“Everything you touched,” he says eventually, “will be returned. I’ve spent two days being assured by intelligent people that the assets can be traced while the people doing the tracing fail to find them.”
I’m smart enough to understand that what he needs from me is the only thing keeping me alive right now.
“Where is my money?” He wipes a spot of my blood from his knuckle with his thumb.
“Let me speak clearly so you understand. You can tell me where the money is, or I will kill her. But first, I’ll let Alex and Vincent take their aggression out on her until her body gives out. Then I’ll shoot her in the head.”
Sick crawls up my throat, and I swallow it back down.
“The money is gone.”
I begin to suffocate under his glare. He’d enjoy killing me.
“You couldn’t have done that alone. Tell me who,” he says. “Then we can begin correcting this.”
Correcting.