There’s really only one place he’d go.
It’s probably why he took me there in the first place, so I’d know how to find him one day. I get turned around twice, the rural roads all looking the same, but when I get to the trailhead, his motorcycle isn’t there. Fuck.
If he’s not here, where is he?
Taking a deep breath, I push past the panic and pull for logic, starting with the last place I saw him: the gym.
Unfortunately, he’s not there. Just a few guys punishing themselves with morning workouts. I force myself to check the locker room, bile rising to the back of my throat when I round the corner to the shower stall. There’s a niggling fear that he may still be there, pale and unconscious, either the drugs finally getting the best of him or his own psyche.
I brace myself on the tile wall when I see that it’s empty, nothing but the shards of glass where Remy shattered the beer bottle remain.
Maybe I shouldn’t do this alone.
But I know if I call Sy, he’ll come running, and protecting Nick is just as important. I exit the locker room and suck in a gulp of air when I’m back in the hall. Giving the cutsults’ lounge a passing glance, I don’t go in because if I see Haley, I may throttle her. Not just because she sucked him off, but because she had to have known he was falling apart. She did nothing but push him further over the edge.
My phone vibrates.
Duke Sy: Any luck?
Duchess: Not at the cliffs or gym. You?
Duke Sy: Yeah. Caught up with him. He’s good. Wants to make a few more stops. U okay? Need us?
Duchess: Let me check 1 more place. Then we can regroup.
Duke Sy: Be careful.
Unfortunately, I strike out again. I thought maybe he went to Jade’s, but when I go in, she’s alone.
“Shit,” she says, looking up from the register. “He seemed like he was really doing better.”
Frazzled, I explain, “Yeah, well, he’s spiraling. Stuff with his dad triggered him and he’s just… I don’t know.” I look up at her, letting the worry hit me for the first time. “I’m kind of scared.”
She walks around the counter and wraps me in her long arms. “I know you are. But he’s out there somewhere. You have to keep looking.”
I sniff and pull back. “Thank you. I will.”
Her kind eyes bore into mine. “I’ll see if he’s reached out to anyone I know.”
But I’m out of places to search.
Duchess: No Remy.
Duke Sy: Meet us at the storage building. Nick says you know the one.
Duchess: I’m on my way
I program the address into the GPS, but halfway there something nags at me. The sun is going down. I spent the whole day searching for him. He has to be somewhere. I look up and see the white circle of the moon already in the sky even though it’s not dark.
Then it hits me.
I jerk the wheel, driving over two curbs and narrowly missing a mailbox. Remy wouldn’t go to the cliffs during the day. He’d go at night—to see the stars.
His motorcycle is parked in the same spot as last time.
I hop out of the SUV and start running.
I hope I’m not too late.
I hope Sy isn’t too late.
I hope my father burns in an inferno of fire.
I say a prayer of thanks to Sy when I reach the top, my lungs stable and my legs strong. If he hadn’t pushed me so hard, so far, I never would have known my limits. For the first time in my life, I feel my own strength. Not just in my new muscles or expanded lungs. I’m not a little girl trapped in a box anymore. I’m the Duchess, and I only have one priority: my Dukes.
I jog out on the granite surface, heart thundering as my eyes scan the rock, but it’s not hard to find Remy. He’s pacing by the edge, hair wild, as if he’s been clawing his fingers through it the way he does. He’s shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Even his feet are bare, and from twenty feet away, I can hear him mumbling to himself, but the words are indistinct.
I freeze, glad to see him alive, but terrified to watch him in such a state.
I don’t call out for him—not at first. I walk closer and keep my gaze fixed on him, at the back of his head and the way the wind makes his hair flutter, and when I get close enough, the side of his face, the shell of his ear and the slight curve his cheek makes.
“Remy.” Softly, so as not to startle him.
Ironic, since it’s Remy who ends up startling me.
He whips around to peer at me, wide-eyed. “No.” His eyes, ringed with red, narrow into slits. “No. That’s not real. Vinny isn’t coming, asshole. You fucked that up. You fucked it up!”
Flinching, I try hard to recognize that he’s not screaming at me. Inhaling, I call out, “Remy, it’s me.”
Shaking his head, he glares and points at me with the marker clenched in his fist. “Vinny wouldn’t come out here. Not after what I did.”
My feet shift nervously. “You mean Haley?” There’s a morsel of satisfaction in knowing that he understands just how much it hurt me.
It’s short-lived.
He buries his head into his palms, a gnarled, feral scream ripping from his chest. “The colors are a lie!”
Watching him drop to a hunched crouch, I make a move, slowly crossing the granite. The closer I get, the more I see. A scratch near his hairline, thick and jagged, made with a fingernail. Bruises from the fight—one on his jaw, another on his ribs. Dirt smudged on his cheek. His eyes are still dark and wild, but there’s not quite so much of that rapid, drugged-energy from before. He should be cold, though. It’s fucking freezing, and yet he looks as though he barely notices it.
“Remy,” I repeat, shuddering against the cold. “It’s me. For real. Your Vinny. Your canvas.” I unzip my hoodie and tug away the collar of my shirt to show him the death head moth. “It took us six sessions. Remember? It should have only been five, but you ran out of ink and we had to stop.”
“That’s my brain talking,” he mutters, mouth twisting bitterly. “Not Vinny. She hates me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say, taking a step closer. “Yeah, seeing you with Haley hurt like a bitch, but not as much as you pushing me away.” I advance, and it’s strange—the instinct. This is a man I’ve only known for a few months, but somehow I know that coddling him will only make him more suspicious. So I don’t. “And not nearly as much as you basically calling me a whore and making me feel like Royal trash.”
He blinks, eyes reflecting the glow of the moon as they wander to the sky, pensive, searching. “He just fucks with my head.” I’m startled to see a fat tear running down his cheek. Swiftly, he brushes it away with the back of his fist. “Gets in there and scrambles it all around. Now everyone thinks I’m fucking crazy, and you know what?” He meets my gaze, his green eyes full of torment. “I think they might be right. I think this?” He points at his temple. “It’s broken, Vinny, and there’s no putting it back together. The pieces are gone.”
“Hey,” I say, now only a few feet away. I can see over the edge of the cliff, down to the water below. The distance is terrifying, and I can’t help but think of Remy and Leticia falling—what it would feel like to hit that water, hard and cold. “You’re right about your father. We believe you.”
I’m not a hundred percent, but what I do believe is that Remy believes it—and that’s all that matters.
“He’s the one who broke it,” Remy says, shooting suddenly to his feet. “He made me like this! And now I can’t know anything.” Suddenly, he’s the one coming at me, jabbing a forefinger to his temple. “I can think, but I can’t fucking know.”
If I’d seen Remy coming at me like this a couple of months ago, I would have run for the hills. Now, I just reach out, catching his wrist in my hand. “Remy, stop,” I plead, grabbing his face. “If you can’t trust yourself, then you can trust me.”
His eyes flick back forth between mine, face contorted with some unspeakably deep thought. “Can I?”
I answer fiercely. “Always. I don’t want to hurt you. You broke my fucking heart last night, and I still—” My own eyes well with tears and I will him to hear me. “I’ve talked you down from every ledge I’ve seen you on, and I’ll keep doing it. Because you’re right. You’re not crazy. You’re just confused and tired.”
He watches me closely, intensely, head tilting. “You weren’t the one who let him in, were you?” His face sags with anguish. “It was me. He gave me the orange, and I smudged it all over.” Another tear falls, but this time, I’m the one to wipe it away.
“It’s—” Okay, I want to say, but it wouldn’t be honest. “It’s going to be alright.”
“No, it’s not.” He takes my hand, voice thick with emotion. “I wanted to give you the black, Vinny. You know what it means, don’t you?”
My heart twists at the misery in his eyes. “It means sorry.”
“No.” His face pinches. “I mean, yes, but—black. It’s the best of all the colors. The definition, the range, the depth. You can’t make other colors without it. It’s fucking essential, you know? And the best part is that it covers anything.” His face crumbles and he lifts my hand, flattening my palm to his chest. “I didn’t have enough black to cover this.”
His skin is chilled beneath my hand, and I frantically try to rub some warmth into it. “Remy, you’re freezing.”
Ignoring this, his gaze shifts just behind us, eyes zeroing in on the little meadow where we first had sex. “We were there, and I think…” He places both hands over mine on his chest, pressing hard, as if he could fuse our skin. “We gave each other something, and I ruined it.”
“Remy.”
He points up, head tilting back. The muted glow of moonlight settles in the hollows of his face, making him look like a ghost. “I waited here because I’ve never seen more black.” He stares up at it in awe, and I follow his gaze, lulled by the solemness in his voice. “Sometimes it follows me around. The freckled darkness, always on my heels. It’s endless out here, like the universe knows it has something to apologize for. It’s for you,” he says, eyes locking with mine. Reaching out, he tucks a hand behind my neck, pulling my forehead to his. “I think maybe it’s always been for you.”
“It’s beautiful.” A hot tear tracks down my face, and he follows it with the pad of his fingertip.
Slowly, the light dims from his eyes. “It’s not enough.”
As much as I want to stay up on this cliff and ground him, I know we can’t. There are bigger threats out there than Remy is to himself.
“Listen,” I say, trying to get him back to the moment, “we need to get out of here. We got a tip. My father put a hit out on one of us—the heir in the tower. Sy assumed it was Nick, but if you’re right about your dad, then it could be you.”
He looks down at me, forehead creased. “Lionel wants payback for Perez.”
“Among other things,” I imagine, lacing our fingers together tightly, “which is why it’s probably Nick, but Sy wants us all together until we can come up with a plan, okay?”
His gaze darts over my shoulder, forehead creasing. “Sy’s back?”
I squeeze his hand. “He’s waiting for us.”
The crease smoothes and his fingers tighten around mine. I sense a shift, a clarity in his green eyes. They drop to my neck, his thumb pressing into the tender skin, and I know instantly what he’s seeing. The hickey. “Sy?” he asks.
“Nick.”
“You and Nick?” He scrutinizes me closely. “So everything is white?”
It takes me a moment to remember the color from Sy’s journal.
“…white is healthy, renewal, clarity.”
I lift my hand to brush his hair from his eyes. The platinum hair—the white hair—which I now realize hasn’t been bleached to death for the sake of a fashion statement. He’s covering his head in white, as if it could fix him, as if it could make him—
Healthy.
Renewed.
Clear.
Swallowing back tears at the realization, I cup his cheek, assuring, “Just waiting on you.”
His muscles loosen, and I tug him away from the edge, our fingers knitting together. The tension in my chest eases with every step we get away. He needs sleep, food, warmth, medication, and I’m already patting my pocket for my phone when I hear it.
I’m not sure if it’s the startled bird that draws my attention to the woods, or the snap of a branch, but my eyes are already trained on the cleared path when a figure appears. He doesn’t walk, he’s just… there. Seeping out of the shadows. It startles me and I lurch in surprise, nearly stumbling.
“I knew you’d be here.” He’s wearing a suit, black and finely tailored, but I barely see past the gleaming point of his mask’s horns.
The Baron King.
Remy’s hand tightens around mine, jerking me into the cradle of his body. “Vinny, get back.”
The King raises his hands, thumbs hooking into the bottom of the mask. Nick believed it. Maybe on some level, Sy did, too. But somehow I’m still shocked when the King raises his mask, revealing hazel eyes and a finely-groomed beard.
“It is you,” I breathe, stunned.
Remy’s father, Timothy Maddox, King of the Barons, stands between us and freedom.
“Vinny.” Remy leans down, lips close to my ear. “Is this real?”
“Yes.” I pull his hand to my hip, pressing his fingers against the spot where the star lies underneath my clothes. I don’t give Maddox the chance to wrap his mindfuckery around Remy’s fragile brain. “If this was going to be a dramatic reveal, then it’s too late. We already know your little secret.”
“It took him long enough.” Maddox tucks the mask under his arm, taking a step forward. As much as I want to stand my ground, I don’t think Remy needs to be close to him. I push him back. “I’ve been passing along little clues for years, but my son has been so focused on becoming a Duke that he can’t own his legacy, even when it’s right in front of him.” The cut of his smirk is cold and casual. “Isn’t that right, Remington William Maddox.”
I’m not sure I follow, but making sense of this asshole is the least of my worries. “You need to let us pass. My father has a hit out on one of the heirs and since that includes your son, he needs to get somewhere safe.”
If this news concerns him, he doesn’t show it, but I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise from a psychopath like the Baron King. I know firsthand how ready he is to watch blood spill. I guess that applies to his son, too.
“Remington,” he says, ignoring me, his voice sending a shudder down my spine. “It’s over.”
“What’s over?” I ask, looking frantically between them.
“This little foray into independence,” he answers me, but stares at his son. Without the mask, I see the two faces become one. The eyes that watched with glee as Nick spared me the game. The sharp jaw, mouth set in a mocking slant just like it had over our dinner at the club. Slowly the features click together, like pieces of a puzzle. He goes on, “You’re spiraling: manic, missing appointments with Dr. Weatherby, and I can’t imagine what kind of garbage would show up on a drug test.” His eyes sweep over Remy’s bare upper body as if he can see underneath the tattoos to the scars and mutilations. “You’ve continued to self-harm, and on top of all of that, you’re a liability. That contract, which I know all about, is the last straw.”
“Don’t listen to him, Vinny,” Remy says, muscles coiling as he shifts his focus to his dad. “You’re a fucking liar.”
Maddox shakes his head, gazing at his son with such tenderness that I finally understand just how convincing he can be. ‘I’ve never once lied to you, your whole life. If you really think back, I think you’ll find—’
Remy explodes. ‘You’ve been twisting shit around!” The vein in his temple pops as he surges forward, but I tug him back. He snarls, “Poisoning me about Vinny. Giving Nick that gun. All the little shit to fuck me up!’
“Clues,” he says, eyebrows rising. Just as quickly, his face falls. ‘I had such hope for you. A brother in blood. A son of shadows. My black heir. Instead…’ He gestures lamely, sighing, ‘A Duke.” I get the feeling he’s speaking to an audience, but it’s just the three of us.
Or so I think, until I hear the low chuckles.
I startle as the outlines of three Barons become more defined. They’re robed, wearing masks of their own, but I know them. I’ve seen their faces.
Will, Liam, and Billy.
All the air gets sucked from my lungs. “You’re all named William.”
Just like Remy’s middle name.
“As I said,” Maddox lifts his gloved hands. “I had such high hopes. But you keep stretching toward the light, son. Why is that?’
Anxiety tickles the back of my neck, but I speak anyway, “Because he’s not a crypt-dwelling, bone-hoarding, secret-keeping psychopath, that’s why.”
The look he gives me is sympathetic, like I’m a fucking idiot. “It’s attention, dear. He thrives on it—always has. Which is very frustrating when one is trying to maintain secrecy. You see now why he has to go. Sitting in that tower, putting himself on display when he should be in the darkness, with us. Do you understand,’ he asks Remy, ‘that you don’t belong there?’
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Remy looks at his father with such a demented amount of disgust that I tighten my grip on his arm, fearing that he’ll charge him. “You killed Tate. You were here that night when I—”
His father gives a long, exasperated sigh. “Once again, you fail to decipher the clues in front of you. That’s been your only saving grace. If you actually knew who killed her, this whole system would crumble.” He fixes his son with a hard stare. “But it wasn’t me.” Tipping his head toward the Baron just behind him, he mutters, “Wish I had. It’s made such an impression. You see what I mean.”
The masked Baron nods once, voice solemn. “He doesn’t understand death.”
“Nor our relationship with it,” Maddox adds curtly. “Don’t insult us. We don’t kill for vengeance or petty disagreements, Remington. We kill for the art of it—the respect for it. And sometimes, the Royals of Forsyth,” he waves a hand elaborately, “give us the opportunity to worship it.”
I blame the lack of sleep and the sheer trauma of the last week that it took me so long to see it.
When I do, my stomach drops. “My father hired the Barons to do the hit. He hired you.”
He gives me a saccharine, condescending grin. “Smart girl. A father would be proud.” He dips his chin. “Not yours, of course.”
“You can’t kill your son.”
Maddox looks insulted. “Of course I can’t. He might have fallen a little far from the tree, but he’s still my apple. Remy belongs with me. With us. This little game with West End has come to an end.” He tilts his head, staring me down. “You’re right that your father contracted us. But it wasn’t for him. It’s your Bruin.” Shaking his head, he adds, “Disappointing, though. When I saw what he’d done to the Perez boy…” His eyes sparkle excitedly. “Oh, it was truly a treat to collect him. We don’t often get bodies like that, you know. He was murdered so viciously—with such love for you.” Fisting his hands behind his back, he asks, “Did you keep his head?”
When I do nothing but gape at him, disgusted, he flicks a hand.
“In any case, I know how expansive Lionel’s thirst for revenge can be. First, it’s the Bruin boy, and then Perilini, for rescuing you from Lionel’s home, and lastly…’ His eyes jump to Remy’s, darkening. ‘It will be you. But I won’t let him order your death, son. If that means locking you away into my shadows, then so be it.’
“No,” Remy says, beginning to shiver. “I—I won’t go back.”
“You will. You’ve given me no choice. There’s a spot for you at the hospital.” When Remy sucks in a long, wet breath, his father softly assures, “Not Saint Mary’s. A different one, with a higher quality of care, far away from Forsyth.”
“No, no, no, no, no…” Remy drops my hand, our connection broken, and claws his fingers back into his hair. “I’m not crazy. You are the Baron King! I was right! I’m not fucking crazy!”
“It’s a private set up,” his father continues, unconcerned at the outburst. “Beautiful view of the Alps. You’ll be safe and out of harm’s way. I don’t know why you make such a fuss. You know I’ll take care of you.” His voice drops into a softness that I know is only meant to be between them. “You’ll be in the room next to your mother’s.”
My heart lunges into my throat, and I feel the cold creep down my spine. The thought of this man locking Remy away, hiding him in the darkness…
It might be a hospital, but all I can see in my mind is Remy, being stuffed into a cage.
A box.
A wooden chest.
I do everything Sy taught me. I breathe, pushing past the paralysis inching across my muscles, and declare, “You’ll have to kill me first.”
Politely, his father says, “Oh, I will.” Swinging his gaze to Remy, he explains, “You’ll come with me, or the next body in my crypt will be hers.”
I reach out to touch Remy’s stiff back, which is how I know his lungs rattle with his long, agonized groan. Scoffing, I say, “So much for not killing people over your own petty disputes.”
“There’s nothing petty about this,” he snaps. “Remember what the old Kings told you the night you came to see me? To kill someone with your own hands…”
I shudder. “…is an act of love.”
My own father has never loved me. There’s never been any tenderness or care. For the first time, I’m grateful, because if this is what fatherly love looks like?
Give me contempt.
Maddox sighs. “I love you, Remington. Your blood is my blood. I tried to give you the light, to make you happy and keep you safe, but it wants to consume you. Can’t you see that? And you.” His eyes skim over me. “That night you came to me, it was like seeing a ghost. You look very much alike, you know, and your sister’s body was so pristine when we found her. I wonder if yours will be the same. Skin like a pearl.” He grins, the moonlight cutting his eyes into blots of darkness. “I sliced through her like butter.”
I fight the rise of bile in my throat. “You’re sick.”
He shrugs, not arguing. ‘It’s for the best. In truth, I’d always dreamed of my son’s black wedding. She’d be the wickedest Baroness this town has ever seen. A sinister sister. A queen. He deserves no less. But this? You? The Count’s scrawny little castaway?’ He grimaces. “Unacceptable.”
I reach around to the small of my back, and in a blink, I have the barrel of my pistol pointed at his forehead. “How about his fury?’
There’s a moment of stillness, even the trees seeming to pause in their sway.
And then Maddox laughs.
He twists to grin at the Barons over his shoulder. ‘There’s that West End finesse we all know and tolerate.’ His smile falls like a lead balloon, eyes turning ice cold. ‘Or used to. You see, I’m not your father, little girl. I don’t head a house of sporadically disloyal cockroaches.’ He raises his mask, sliding it over his head, and the Barons behind him—all three—lift their hands.
The shadows bleed.
That’s what it looks like when the Beta Nus begin stepping out of the trees, all at once. Robed figures, masked just like Barons, but with simpler designs, crawl out of the shadows. I freeze as they descend, more than I can count in the panic of the moment. Thirty? Forty? Fifty?
More men than I have bullets for.
‘My darklings don’t fear me. They follow me,” he says. As they approach, their phone flashlights flicker to life and the whole cliffside is cast in an eerie yellow glow. William, Bill, and Liam position themselves at the forefront and Maddox adds, “Your death will be their act of love for me.’
“You’re not taking him!” I bark, even though my voice cracks. I step back, wrenching Remy with me.
He stumbles but backs away with me, saying, “This isn’t real, this isn’t real.”
Keeping the gun aimed at Maddox, I can’t see a way out. Even if I shoot the King and his three Barons, the other men will come for us. We could run, but we wouldn’t get far.
There are just so fucking many.
“This isn’t real,” Remy keeps saying, eyes darting from masked figure to masked figure. He’s back in his spiral, caught between panic and denial. He has to be so goddamn exhausted, and when I look in his eyes, that’s what I see.
He’s burnt out.
I jerk him closer to me, begging in a whisper, “Come on, baby, I need you with me so we can get out of here.”
The Barons start to close in, and I pull him the only direction I can go: toward the edge of the cliff. It’s fully dark now, the void below the rocky face swallowed in black. I only give it a quick glance before looking back toward Maddox and his ghastly bronze face.
When Remy turns to me, his eyes are wide and full of a grief that’s big enough to fill the sky he’s gifted me. “I’d rather die than let him take me.” Reaching for my face, he cups my cheek in a cold palm, green eyes pinning me under their stare. “I’d rather die than let him take you.”
I reach up slowly, covering his hand with mine. “I know.” Taking a breath, I slide my eyes toward the black, and if I squint, I can see it: the reflection of stars freckling the surface of the water below. I think of the sky, of apologies and the beauty of birds, of flying away, but always soaring back when the wind commands it.
I know what we have to do.
Another tear races down my cheek. “Remy…”
He nudges my face, turning my gaze to his. “Hey.” His lips curl into a sad smile. “We’re all just stars inside of a grave we haven’t laid down in yet.” He brushes the tear from my cheek. “Remember, Vinny?”
The night he told me that, we were drenched in the sky, so painfully alive that we could have powered the heavens itself. He tried so hard to tell me that jumping from this rock, knowing he was about to die, was beautiful. I couldn’t see it then, but I see it now—so clearly that it steals the breath from my lungs.
The beauty isn’t in the acceptance of death.
It’s in the open defiance of it.
What could be more beautiful than the fight to survive?
“Fifty-fifty shot,” I say, smiling tearfully as I parrot the words Nick said to me in that dank, dark crypt. “Just need a little luck.”
We meet over the distance, our lips locking together in a kiss so soft that it hurts. I cling to it. To him. To the knowledge that somewhere out there, our family—our real family, however mangled and messed-up it may be—is waiting to gather us close.
His green eyes hold mine and his head moves, just a fraction, sort of wistful. “I love you, Vinny.”
The truth is that, here in Forsyth, it’s cold. Always has been. It’s disappointment and death and misery and pain and unfair, and if love can exist for someone as beaten down as Remington Maddox, then maybe we’re already lucky.
This flame, hot and sure in my chest, is more than people like our fathers will ever get.
It’s how I know we’re ready to jump. It’s why I curl into his embrace, his arms winding around my shoulders and tucking me close. It’s why I turn my head to peer into the chasm of nothing with him.
We step off the edge together, tangled like two vibrant vines.
Behind us, the sound of Maddox’s scream echoes in our wake, but Remy and I don’t make a sound.
We fall into the stars.
Just like he always knew we would.
