Epilogue
Mid-April
Tate
My husband loves me way more than your husband loves you. Know how I know? This is what he said to me. His words, not mine: “What about something more permanent? Something that can’t be taken off? That you, I don’t know, weld onto me?”
He even left it up to me. License to put whatever marks of ownership on him that I wanted.
I went with an ankle bracelet for now. It’s less of a bracelet, though, and more in the chain arena, which he called out but let me do anyway.
It was the safest option for hockey, because it’s thin enough to tuck into his skate where it won’t get caught on anything.
When he’s done with hockey, I’m replacing it with something thicker.
More noticeable. But what he has now, I’d have to cut it off him with bolt cutters. That thing is on him.
But he did it because he knows it’s my love language.
He knows I have … issues. So he shows me he’s mine in all kinds of ways that calm my insides and shockingly make me less controlling.
I make him feel safe and worthy, which makes him feel less like he has to put himself last. Less like he has to distract himself looking after others. It’s improving things with his brother.
I took the job at North Point. Literally.
It wasn’t exactly available anymore, so I had to take the position.
It took a lot of negotiating. Kazimir wouldn’t give me the same stature in the deal, no kingships on offer, but Coach Bruce was demoted to assistant coach, and I’ll be taking over next season.
I’m on campus a lot for it being the off-season.
Am I supposed to be? Not really, but Kazimir seems to like having me around. I think I’m growing on him.
It's imperative I’m here. I need to know every inch of this campus. Have many options for keeping Ryan and his brothers safe.
Speaking of brothers. Luke and I had a long-ass talk. It took an entire day. He wasn’t happy about all the lies and subterfuge. There’s still a lot he doesn’t understand, but because he wasn’t honest about his activities either, he was willing to let that go. Wipe the slate clean.
But I saw the moment it happened, the one where his heart fucking broke. Now that I’m no longer fully immune to pain when it involves Luke, my heart fractured, too. Seeing him in that much pain threatened to end me.
This was why I never let him know. This was why it was supposed to remain a secret. If I could bring Clarence back to life, I would so I could kill him again. Luke sobbed, reminding me of that day, the one that started it all, robbed of all his autonomy and dignity, crying in his room.
And then, McKinnon bounded in. He was waving the key around, the one Luke gave him via me.
“Luke. You guys done yet? We were supposed to go to your island palace so I could hunt for treasure with this. Um, oh. Am I interrupting something?”
Yes, he was. Again. At least McKinnon didn’t lead with calling him Daddy this time.
“Not at all. I’m ready to go,” Luke said, standing, straightening himself out. He wiped his eyes. Something interesting happened. McKinnon’s presence seemed to heal my brother on the spot. Any fractures and wounds that had been bleeding to the outside shriveled and disappeared.
Was it just because of McKinnon and his never-faltering sunshine? Or had I just witnessed the power of true love?
Either way, I was forced to be grateful for McKinnon. Annoying.
At the same time, bringing Luke to Shadowridge was my idea, and if not for that, they never would have met. Yep, full credit goes to me.
Of course, McKinnon found something with that key, and Luke insisted that I bring Ryan when I came to see what it was.
It’s a Saturday. We signed Ryan out of North Point, but the dean refused to let him off campus in his plain clothes just to be a dick.
At least, that was the verdict when I spoke to Ryan via text, but now I see that my pal Kazimir was doing me a solid.
Infinite aura farming vibes from that guy all around. I’m sending him a gift.
Ryan’s jaw-dropping in his full-dress military uniform. My heart races, dick throbbing. We might not make it to my uncle’s former residence, now Luke’s island palace, as renamed by McKinnon, even though it’s not actually on an island.
“Stop it,” Ryan says, blushing as he gets into the passenger side. He pulls at the fingers of his white gloves, removing them.
“Are you allowed to do that?” I say, raising a brow. “I’ll be a North Point employee soon, gotta uphold policy.”
He throws the gloves at my face. “Fuck off, Tate.”
I catch one, bringing it to my nose, inhaling his scent. “You smell fucking good, baby. Summertime and sunscreen and mmm-hm.”
“C’mere, asshole.” He leans over, and I lean in to kiss him. Then we’re on the road.
McKinnon’s an overeager chipmunk when we get there, greeting us at the door. Luke has to pull him back from his.
“Let them in the door, princess,” Luke says.
McKinnon blushes.
They lead us to the far end of the property where Uncle Jasper had his tomb built.
Yeah, an entire tomb for when he died, like he’s some kind of Egyptian pharaoh.
It looks like a stone house from the outside, one tall enough to fit VanCourts.
I’ve only been in it once, after Jasper died, but as I step in, everything feels familiar, as if the ghost of him has been living here all this time.
It’s colder inside than it is outside, the marble walls and floors having drained all the heat from the space.
Rain taps softly against the stained-glass windows that still cast soft washes of tinted color across the room in the places where the muted light hits them.
Dark veins of black twist through the white marble like old scars.
Gilded accents trace carved arches and columns.
Gold candelabras line the walls, the candles with charred wicks standing like worn soldiers, waiting to be lit again.
Old scents linger in the air. The mildew, the papery smell of dust, and I swear to fucking god, I detect his nauseating cologne. I’ve officially lost it.
At the far end is where the old bastard was laid to rest, under a statue of himself in an elevated sarcophagus. There’s a loud crack of thunder overhead, followed by a brilliant burst of lightning.
Mood.
“What are we doing here, McKinnon?” I snap. I don’t like this place, and I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to. Memories bleed into my brain, tar-like goo threatening to bury me.
Ryan takes my hand, squeezing it. I squeeze back.
“Watch this,” Ace says. McKinnon slides a panel near the edge of the sarcophagus aside and inserts the key. There’s a suspicious rumble, and the floor slides open, revealing stairs that lead underground.
“We are not fucking going down there,” Ryan says.
“Why, Savage? You scared?” McKinnon taunts, heading down the first.
“No.” Ryan releases my hand, chasing after him, even though he’s definitely scared.
After what his father did to him, he doesn’t like small, dark places.
Or being tied up. Neither do I, but now, because of fucking McKinnon, he’s goaded my husband into heading down there, and I’m going to have to go after him.
Because where he goes, I go.
Luke laughs.
“Not funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” he says.
Underground is an extension of the tomb, all paved with the dark-veined white marble. Did someone have to come down here to clean this shit? Thank fuck there’s electricity. But it’s still spooky as hell.
And so, so cold. I walk faster to generate heat and to keep up with my husband.
The hallway finally opens into another room with two more sarcophagi, each with a statue.
Terry and Amelia VanCourt.
“Mom and Dad,” I say with the astonishment clear in my voice. “They’ve been here all this time.”
“Yes,” Luke says. “He told us he’d never been able to find out where they were buried.”
“So damn strange,” I say, gravitating to Mom’s burial site, reaching a hand toward her outstretched one. Why did Jasper give this to me? He bequeathed me that fucking key. Why bother ever to show me?
Maybe no reason at all. Maybe just to keep me up late wondering, so he’ll haunt the corridors of my mind forever.
“They look so real,” Ryan says, peering at her.
I look closer, because they do look incredibly realistic.
“Actually,” McKinnon says. “So, look, I spend way too much time on Reddit, and well, long story, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a guy who experimented with electroplating humans. Allegedly, it was offered as an alternative to cremation or burial.”
“No. No fucking way. This is a statue, it’s not my dead mother, McKinnon.”
“I mean, it’s just a theory—”
“A fucking crazy-ass conspiracy theory,” Ryan says. He slides an arm around my waist.
“They died in a car accident; they were probably unrecognizable,” Luke says. In other words, they wouldn’t make good statues.
“And who told you guys that? Jasper? Didn’t he lie a lot?” McKinnon says. He just wants more proof of his morbid theory. “I think it’s cool.”
He reaches out to touch Dad, and I snap my head in his direction. He pulls his hand back. If McKinnon’s crazy theory is true, that means the statue of Uncle Jasper up top isn’t a statue. Yeah, we’re not going with McKinnon’s theory.
“You spend too much time on Reddit threads, McKinnon,” Ryan says, leaning his head on my shoulder.
But McKinnon doesn’t know when to stop talking. “You know, Savage, if electroplating humans is a thing, you should keep that uniform. You would look hot in it as a statue.”
That’s it. I lunge, hellbent on killing McKinnon. At least maiming him. He’s about to become a fucking statue. Luke pulls Ace behind him, using his body as a shield. “It’s okay, brother. I’m taking him away.”
McKinnon bites his lip to keep from laughing, not as scared as he should be, while my heart races.
“Don’t ever call my husband hot again.”
“Noted, Coach,” he says.
“Come along, McKinnon. I think you’d be safer in the house.”