Chapter 30 #2
Which is unfortunate, because stillness is what my body does when it is preparing to absolutely lose its mind.
I am unable to speak for a few seconds. Too much information has been thrown into my lap like someone handed me a burning archive and said, Kindly organize this by date and emotional devastation.
Hal is alive, has amnesia, and . . . he’s under conservatorship.
Creed is right there.
I have no idea where to begin. Questions. Action. Grief. Rage. A plane ticket. A murder. Possibly lunch, although that seems ambitious.
Once Fitz seems certain I have not entirely left my body, he resumes. “Ms. Crane—”
“You can call me Livia,” I interrupt. “Technically, I’m not Ms. Crane.”
Creed’s jaw shifts.
A tiny movement.
Enough.
My stomach turns because, of course, he knows what I mean. Crane is the name the world kept for me. Not the name that matters here. Not the name tied to Hal and him.
Fitz nods. “Good, Livia. I am going to outline the situation. The foundation fraud you uncovered is real and substantial. We have begun preparations to bring it to federal investigators. The provenance laundering is one piece. The conservatorship is the larger one.”
He pauses.
“The conservatorship exists on the basis of paperwork his family filed at the time of the accident. That paperwork is fraudulent. They claimed, among other things, that Halston’s next of kin were his stepmother and his cousin, Everett.”
I narrow my eyes.
“But I’m his next of kin.” The words come out fast, hard enough that even I flinch. “Creed was his emergency contact.”
“They never let me get close to him,” Creed growls.
The sound travels through the screen and into a place in me that never stopped recognizing him.
“They never let me get to him,” he repeats, lower. “Or to you.”
There it is.
One of the fears Creed had when Hal and I married. What if no one recognized his right as the third spouse? What if a hospital, a court, a family with the correct last name decided he was nothing? What if the law took one look at what we were and chose the cleanest lie?
What if he could not be the person we needed because the world refused to give him a title?
“Creed,” Fitz says, gentle but firm. “Focus. We can deal with your anger later. Call your therapist—I’m sure she’s used to your emergencies.”
Creed’s jaw moves once. Twice. Then he nods as if to say, Continue, but please note I am mentally burning this entire system to ash.
I almost smile.
Which is demented, considering the conversation.
Still.
That, too, is familiar.
Fitz looks back at me. “I have spent the last two days reviewing the original filings. There is sufficient evidence that the family knew about you and chose not to inform the court. That is fraud against the court. It is a felony. It is also, more importantly for our purposes today, the cleanest legal mechanism by which Halston’s conservatorship can be dissolved. ”
Creed says, very quietly, “Fitz.”
Fitz raises one hand. “I am getting there, Creed.”
He looks at me.
“I am asking you to come to New York as Halston Saint Claire’s wife.
To file a petition to dissolve the conservatorship on grounds of fraud.
The petition has the strongest standing if it is filed by you, in person, with the marriage certificate in hand.
The court will move faster on a petition filed by a spouse than it will on a petition filed by Halston himself, because a petition filed by Halston can be dismissed as a function of the very cognitive instability the family has been cultivating. A petition filed by you won’t.”
I look at the screen.
At Creed, who appears to be sitting perfectly still through sheer violence of will. He has opinions. Many opinions. Possibly an entire epic saga of opinions. He isn’t sharing them.
That scares me more than if he had shouted.
“Creed?”
He shakes his head.
There is something there. Something he is holding back because he thinks restraint is noble when really it is just another way for men to be infuriating with excellent tailoring and catastrophic emotional availability.
“I need to know what you’re thinking,” I say.
“This is not my decision.”
“I understand it’s not your decision. I’m asking what you think.”
Fitz sighs. “You can tell her, Creed.”
Creed exhales.
“I think the petition is the right move,” he says.
“I think it is also the most dangerous thing you could possibly do. I think the security company I hired has the infrastructure to keep you safe. I think we have the infrastructure is a sentence I am going to be repeating to myself in the middle of the night, so I don’t get on a plane right now and do something stupid. ”
I cock an eyebrow. “What type of stupid?”
His mouth twists.
“The type that drags Halston out of his apartment, flies to the other side of the Atlantic, and hides with my partners while forgetting the rest of the world exists.”
My breath catches.
Not because it is romantic.
Although it is, damn him.
Because he says it like a confession pulled out of him with force. Like the word ‘partners’ costs him something and gives him something back at the same time.
“You would do that?”
“For you? I’d set the world on fire, Liv.” He glances slightly to the left, away from the camera. “But Lang would stop me.”
“I would,” Lang says.
Creed ignores him. “They think I’m being irrational for wanting to protect the two people in the world who matter most to me.”
The two people who matter most.
Hal.
Me.
I have spent ten years trying to become a woman who could withstand hearing nothing from this man.
Apparently, I didn't prepare for hearing too much.
“It’ll be fine,” I say, which is a ridiculous thing to say, since nothing about this has ever once glanced in the direction of fine.
Creed looks at me.
“Liv. They tried to kill you once. They are going to try harder if you walk back into his life. I have been in this position before, and last time you died and didn’t come back to me.
I don’t get to ask you to come back.” His voice drops.
“For Hal, I have to beg you to come back. I want to know that you understand the difference.”
“I understand.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not only would he hate being stuck in that situation . . .” I stop, pull in a breath, and force myself to say the thing that has already lodged beneath my ribs. “They might be abusing him if he’s under their mercy.”
Creed closes his eyes for half a second.
That is enough of an answer.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “I’m afraid that’s been happening.”
For a moment, no one speaks.
I think of Hal’s hands. The way he used to stand between me and doors without making a performance of it. The way he treated trust like a loaded weapon and somehow still gave me his. The way he would rather bleed than beg.
Then I imagine him helpless among people who know exactly how to make cruelty look like care.
My stomach rolls.
Creed clears his throat. “But I swear we will protect you. Lang is good at it.”
Lang gives a small shrug, as if being excellent at preventing disaster is mildly inconvenient but not unexpected.
He tells me the plan, “We will move you out of Florence on a private plane. The pilot is my cousin, who also owns a security company—his team can handle not only transportation but also your safety. He has an airstrip in upstate New York. From there, you will be brought into the city. You will stay in a secure location. As you know, you are already under surveillance protection, and you will have a larger team once you file the petition.”
“After the conservatorship is dissolved?”
“The team will continue looking after you until we can drag their asses to jail,” Creed says. “They tried to kill you. They’re embezzling money, and—”
“Stop those murderous thoughts, Creed,” Fitz cuts in. “Livia, we need to know your decision. The last thing we want is to interrupt your life—”
“Yes,” I say.
Everyone stills.
I look at each of them, then at Creed.
“Of course I’m going to fly to New York and fight those monsters.”
Creed’s face changes.
Barely.
A fracture in the restraint. A flash of relief so fast he probably thinks he has hidden it.
He hasn’t. I’m sure he forgot I have the catalog.
“Good,” Fitz says, softer now. “We will work out the details. Eleonora will come to you with instructions.” He inclines his head. “Livia, it has been a great honor to meet you in this format. I hope to meet you in person very soon.”
“Thank you, for helping us.”
He bows his head. A second later, he and Lang disappear from the screen.
Leaving Creed and me alone.
The silence after them is not empty.
It is full of everything we have not survived yet.
Creed’s kitchen remains behind him. His mug sits near his hand. He looks at me like he is afraid I might vanish if he blinks.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he says.
My body gives one small, helpless response.
Not a sob.
Not a breath.
Something between both.
“Creed.”
“Yeah?”
“Why did it take you so long?”
The question comes out quietly, which makes it worse. I wanted it to come out with dignity. With polish. With the emotional maturity of a woman who has gone to therapy, read the correct books, and occasionally remembered to drink water.
Instead, it comes out like the ten-years-old wound it is.
Creed lets out a humorless laugh. Not amusement. Something closer to a man discovering the floor beneath him was never there.
“Baby, I tried for years. Your parents had me on a goose chase since—”
“My parents?”
His face stills.
“Yeah. I talked to your mother several times.”
“No.” I shake my head. “She said nobody had reached out to me.”
His laugh this time is worse. Short. Almost broken. As if one of the last supports inside him has snapped clean through.
“For an entire year, she sent me to different hospitals. Said you couldn’t wake up. Said visitors weren’t allowed. Only family.” His mouth presses into a line. “That one hurt so fucking much.”
My fingers curl around the edge of the table.