Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
OBSIDIAN
I reach the east wing in record time, racing down the hall and peeking into every room I pass, hoping to find Ariana. A scream echoes from the direction of her bedroom, and I sprint there, finding the door shut and locked.
I hear the commotion inside and consider my options. I want to pound on the door, but if Uma is in there, and she knows I’m frantic to get Ariana, I give her the advantage.
Ariana’s father and brother arrive seconds later. I don’t know where Kol and Asher are. Her dad goes to open the door, and I push him back.
“If Uma has a gun, and we tell her we’re here, you’re an easy shot. I can get in a different way and use the element of surprise. You stay here. Got it?”
It takes him a second of disagreeing with me, but eventually her dad nods then Bastion nods.
“Good. You hear shots of any kind though, you break down that door. We clear?”
When they both nod again, I don’t bother wasting any more time before I run to my bedroom.
As soon as I’m inside the master suite, I head to the bookcase and pull the Poe book to reveal the entrance to the secret passageway. The dark tunnel feels so much longer than every night I’ve sneaked into Ariana’s room.
So much could go wrong here.
If Uma’s facing the secret door, she may see me, and I won’t be able to get the jump on her. What if she’s already hurt Ariana? What if I’m too late?
I push all the what-ifs from my mind.
Through the door, it’s difficult to hear what’s going on in there, but I hear some kind of muffled altercation. Though it spikes my adrenaline further, at least I hear two voices so I know Ariana is still alive.
Slowly, way slower than I’d like, I slide open the portion of the wall just a crack to reveal Ariana’s bedroom. My heart seizes when I see her tied to a chair, struggling uselessly to free herself. Closer to me, Uma’s reaching to grab a gun off the floor. When she has it in hand, she turns her back to me, pointing the gun at Ariana.
“You’re gonna regret that, bitch,” Uma sneers.
“Help me, someone!” Ariana screams.
The panic in her voice and her eyes is almost my undoing. I don’t have a gun on me or anything to go up against Uma, but it doesn’t matter. I will gut that fucking bitch if she harms a hair on Ariana’s head.
Before I can decide the best course of action, the door to the bedroom bursts open and Ariana’s father rushes through. Uma shifts her stance and fires behind Ariana, hitting him. His body sinks to the floor.
There’s no time to waste. I push the secret door open fully and rip the lamp from the bedside table where it sits, yanking the cord out of the wall, and swing it toward Uma’s head. She’s halfway turned to me with the gun raised when there’s a sickening crunch as the lamp hits her skull, and she falls to the floor. A gush of blood rushes from her head.
Her eyes stare ahead, unseeing, and she doesn’t move. I step around her and kick the gun from her hand, then I whip around to face Ariana. Tears streak down her cheeks and relief floods her face.
I rush over to her and undo the binds holding her to the chair. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” My eyes scan her from head to toe. Besides some red marks on her wrists, I don’t see anything.
“My dad,” she says in a broken voice.
Hesitating, I leave her and crouch beside him. Blood rushes from the wound in his shoulder.
“Get me something to press down on this wound.” I check for a pulse, and I’m relieved to find one. Relieved not because I give a shit whether this guy lives or dies after the predicament he put Ariana in, but because I know she’d grieve his loss.
Ariana returns seconds later with a shirt, and I notice she winces a bit when she bends to pass it to me. I ball up the shirt and push it down on the wound. Before I can ask her where she’s in pain, Kol and Bastion rush into the room.
“What the hell happened?” Kol asks, gun in hand.
“Uma’s dead. This one burst through the door, making himself an easy target even though I told him not to.” I turn my attention to Bastion. “What the hell were you thinking, letting him go inside?”
Bastion glares at me. “When he heard Ari shouting for help, there was no stopping him. I tried. After I heard the shot, I ran to get help and found him.” He points at Kol.
“Ash is meeting with the authorities at the front and will lead them back here.”
I nod.
“Ari, are you okay?” Bastion asks, rushing over to her and pulling her into a hug.
She sucks in a sharp breath in his hold.
“Careful, she’s hurt,” I snap.
He pulls away, and his eyes run over her body. “What’s wrong?”
“She threw me down,” Ariana says. “I think I hurt my ribs or something.”
My teeth snap together when I think of the pain she’s in.
“How is he?” she asks.
I look up and see deep concern in her eyes. “He should be fine as long as he gets to the hospital soon.”
She nods and looks at me as though she wants to say something more, but she doesn’t.
I hate the distance between us. It doesn’t feel right. But what else am I supposed to do after what she did?
A few minutes later, paramedics arrive and take her father out on a gurney. It’s clear to me that Ariana is torn between going with her father and staying with me.
I nod after the paramedics. “Go. You need to get checked out too.”
Her shoulders sag as she walks out with a paramedic.
Whatever. I need to clear my head after everything that’s gone down tonight. It’s been a fucking lot .
Kol and Asher stand on either side of me, watching her go.
The police arrive, and we give them a quick rundown of what happened. Asher, being Asher, manages to put them off for a bit, allowing them to do what they need to in order to process the room, but tells them that if they’d like to speak with us further, they’ll need to talk to our lawyers.
“You okay?” Kol asks with a frown.
“What do you think?”
“I think we could all use a drink,” Asher says. “Let’s head to my office before the authorities want to speak with us all. We can have some of my Macallan. I’ll text Nero to join us.”
I nod, and the three of us walk to the west wing and sit in Asher’s office. He’s just handed Kol and me each a glass of whiskey when Nero walks in.
“What the hell is going on?” Nero asks.
I fill them all in, starting with what Marcel told me and ending with what happened in Ariana’s room.
“There has been way too much shit going on with this family the past couple of years,” Nero says.
I bring the glass to my lips and down all the scotch, then hold out the empty glass toward Asher for a refill. With a sigh, he gets out of the chair, takes my glass, and brings it back half full. I immediately take another healthy sip.
We’re all quiet for a minute, my brothers staring at me.
Kol says, “What are you going to do about Ariana?”
I give him a what-the-fuck look. “What choice do I have but to pack her things and kick her out?”
“There’s always a choice,” Asher says.
I look at him incredulously. I did not expect him, of all people, to suggest I should give Ariana another chance.
He shrugs. “From what you’ve said, she grew up in a shit situation. We know better than anyone what that’s like and how it can affect you.”
My mood darkens further at the allusion to our father and the hell he put us all through.
“She only did what she did because she was desperate to save her family and herself, Sid. If it were you, you’d do anything in your power to protect the people you love. You have. We all have.”
I stiffen, knowing Asher’s referring to the night our father died. “That doesn’t mean I can forgive her for deceiving me for so long. How do I know what she said she felt for me is real? Maybe it was just a ploy to make it easier to steal shit under my nose.”
Kol shrugs. “Maybe. But you won’t know unless you talk to her.”
“It wasn’t a ploy,” Nero says.
I whip my head in his direction.
“I’ve seen you two together, and there’s no way she was faking that,” Nero adds. “She’s in love with you, Sid.”
Looking away from him, I stare into the amber liquid in my glass.
“I know you think you don’t deserve it, but you do. She looks at you like Rapsody does me, Cinder looks at Nero, and for some reason, the way Anabelle looks at Asher,” Kol says.
“Fuck off,” Asher says. “By some miracle, the universe gifted us each with the perfect woman. Don’t let her slip through your fingers because she was up against the wall and had to do what she had to do for her family. I’m not saying you don’t question her about it, and it might take time, but you guys can get past this. We’d do just about anything for our family, right?”
“If I know you, you’ve been waiting for the shit to hit the fan since you realized you were in love with her.” Kol gives me a look daring me to say he’s wrong.
But I can’t. I was so happy with her, but that feeling of dread still seeped in, telling me it would all end soon enough. That our time would come to an end. That I’d never be able to keep something so good in my life.
“How did you forgive Cinder when you found out she lied to you about Maude?” I ask Nero.
He shrugs. “It was easy. When her life was in danger, it became clear to me that I still loved her. I would’ve done anything to save her. Anything. That right there told me what I needed to know.”
“When you saw that Uma had a gun on Ariana, how did you feel, Sid?” Kol asks.
I sigh into my glass. “Like my life would be over if hers was.”
“That’s your answer,” Kol says in a grave voice.
“It’s just a choice, Sid. It’s a decision to forgive her, then you move on,” Nero adds.
I suck in a breath and toss back the rest of my drink. Could it really be that easy? Just decide to forgive Ariana and start fresh?
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter, setting my empty glass on the coffee table and standing to leave.
I need to be by myself to think, and I know exactly where I’m going to do it—the secret garden.