Present
“We put Rika and Winter through what we did for nothing!” I growled. “We spent years thinking it was about the fucking videos, and it was about you! I did that to my friends. I brought you into their lives.”
I didn’t give a shit about the story she’d just told us. I knew it wasn’t her idea. I knew she had no beef with us.
She just didn’t give a shit about me. How could she let anyone think I did those things to her?
I stepped closer. “Do you have any idea what prison feels like?” I said to her as Alex and I stood in our soaking clothes and Emmy dropped her eyes, her hair in her face. “You could’ve done anything. You could’ve come clean and told me what you did. You could’ve come to me before you signed that damn paper, and I would’ve had your grandmother sent to the best home in the country!” My voice grew harder again as I shouted. “My parents would’ve paid for your education. You never had to do anything alone!”
It had been years. If she felt badly about what she’d done, it would’ve eaten away at her enough by now that she would’ve owned up. But no. I’d found out through my grandfather who, of course, knew it was all bullshit. I couldn’t believe he, my parents, and Kai’s parents didn’t tell us seven years ago, but they probably knew we’d battle it and just wanted us to take the lesser sentence instead of taking any chances.
Everyone stood around, silent as the train whistle rang in the air outside, and I watched her chin tremble and the lump in her throat move up and down.
“What, are you gonna cry now?” I taunted. “You gonna cry?”
Again?
I’d fucking give her something to cry about. I could understand the position Martin put her in. I sympathized.
But my God, was she blind? All she had to do was tell me. Lean on me. Ask for help. That was all she ever had to do!
“Look at what you made of me,” I said, inching forward and slapping my chest of tattoos that depicted home and all the life I’d lost even before I went to prison. “You made me into this.” I screamed in her face. “You!”
She flinched, but just then, someone pushed my ass back, and I stumbled, looking up and meeting Micah’s eyes.
He slipped in between us, Rory joining him and both of them inserting themselves between Emmy and me and staring at me like a warning.
What the hell? I tipped my chin up, glaring as my guys—my guys—now stood in front of her instead of behind me.
Unbelievable.
Peering between their shoulders, I met her eyes once more. “I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.”
She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me.
“When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone…” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.”
And she let her brother tell my family that, not only did I not love her, but I passed her around for my friends to abuse like she was nothing.
When she was everything.
I hardened my voice. “Get the fuck out of my face,” I gritted out. “And it’s fine if you want to get the fuck off the train, too. Go, run back to him.”
I won’t reach for you anymore.
She stood there a moment, her eyes darting around the people in the room and probably wondering something dumb like how she was going to save her pride or some shit.
But then…
She turned and walked away, still dressed in Aydin’s T-shirt and boxers as she slid open the door and slipped into the next compartment.
As soon as she was gone, silence sat like a ten-ton weight in the room, no one speaking.
But then, after a few moments, someone spun me around and threw her arms around me, all of my friends crowding around me as Winter hugged me.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened in there? Why was she there?”
I couldn’t talk right now. I could barely draw in a breath.
Misha pulled me away and yanked me in next, squeezing me so tightly. “What can we do?” he asked. “What do you need?”
And then Damon. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
I held up my hands, sweat seeping out of my pores, and my stomach rolling with them so close. “I can’t.” I backed away, trying to get space. “Just…I can’t right now, okay?”
But Michael grabbed me anyway. “Are you okay?”
I growled, yanking away. “Don’t touch me.” I shook my head, the room spinning. “Don’t.”
“All right,” he breathed out, hands off. “I’m sorry.”
They all stopped and stepped away, falling silent. I could feel their eyes on me and their looks between each other, because they didn’t understand, and I couldn’t get into it right now.
I rubbed my eyes, smelling the familiar scent of the cellar on my hands from the rope I’d tied Aydin up with.
Aydin.
I held my nose between my hands, breathing in the house.
I wasn’t ready. I should still be there. I shouldn’t have left.
“I gotta make some phone calls,” I said, turning and heading for the door and leaving them. We were at least five cars from the engine. Hopefully Emmy was hiding her ass somewhere I wouldn’t have to look at her, because I was so mad I could strangle her right now.
“Your name is on your cabin door,” Ryen said, finally speaking up. “There’s clothes in there.”
I slid open the door, wind and the sounds of the wheels on the tracks rushing through, but then Winter spoke up before I could step through.
“Why would he do that?” she asked.
I stopped.
“Who?” Banks asked her.
“Martin Scott.”
I let the door fall closed, quieting the room and remaining a moment.
Winter continued, “If what Emory said was true, why would he work so hard to make sure you all went to jail? Money does the walking in Thunder Bay. Your presence, or lack thereof, wouldn’t make his career.”
I listened, everyone silent as the words hung in the air.
Banks spoke up, figuring it out first. “Unless he’s working with people who have power. People who wanted you in jail.”
My stomach coiled tighter and tighter.
“You heard what she said,” Kai chimed in. “He had plans for Michael, too. And then nothing. Michael never got fingered for anything.”
“Because Trevor didn’t want his family embarrassed,” Misha said.
“Because Evans Crist didn’t want his family embarrassed,” Rika said instead.
I closed my eyes, not surprised at all. My friends picked up on things without missing a beat.
“Motherfucker,” Michael said. “It wasn’t about Will. Or his hatred of Will. His grandfather was coming up for re-election that year. He almost lost because of the bad press.”
“And Kai and Damon?” Banks pressed.
No one said anything, and I finally spoke up. “Evans knew that Schraeder Fane accounted for Damon in his will.” As executor of his estate, he would’ve known who Damon really was. “If he planned on marrying Rika to Trevor, he wouldn’t want to share the fortune with Damon—and by extension, Gabriel.”
“And Katsu Mori was forced to step down from the boards of Mitchell & Young and Stewart Banks,” Rika explained. “Both of which helped finance Evans’s real estate projects over the next several years.”
“Which my father might not have been inclined to support if he’d still been on the boards, since he hates your dad,” Kai said to Michael.
It had all come together. The past seven years spreading out before us in a maze that took all of us to complete, but finally made perfect sense once and for all.
The amount of people who had played us like puppets for their own end, and the amount of time I wasted being ignorant of all of it and floating with the current…
I almost wish I could go back to the nights at Delcour and fucking with Rika when we thought it was all her fault. How simple it was then.
“Alex?” Rika said. “You okay?”
I looked over my shoulder, realizing Alex hadn’t spoken since we boarded. She leaned into the windows, arms folded across her chest and staring off.
After a moment, she nodded but didn’t make eye contact, the usual square to her shoulders in an unnerving slump.
“Only three of you came on board,” Damon said. “Where are the other two prisoners? Our research said there were five.”
But neither Alex nor I answered.
I stared at the dazed look on her face, completely defeated.
She’d never see him again.
But just then, she pulled herself up straight, cleared her throat, and cracked her knuckles. “I need to spar. Now.”
“Rika or me?” Banks asked.
She shot off, toward the door where I stood. “I’ll take you both.”
She passed me and left the car, followed quickly by the girls with Winter’s hand locked in Rika’s as they all followed Alex.
I hesitated only a moment before I opened the door again. “I need to make those calls,” I said, leaving.
But Michael’s voice rang out behind me. “Is anyone from that house coming for us?”
But I didn’t turn back or answer. Aydin Khadir was problem six hundred fifty-three, and I was only on number four.
• • •
I ended my fourth call, setting the phone down as I rose from the chair. I was still in my semi-wet jeans, but instead of heading into the shower or changing into the suit laid out for me on the bed, I turned and stared out the window instead.
The night passed by quickly, the sea on the horizon calm and black as I ground my fist.
Martin Scott was dead meat. He deserved to rot in an unmarked grave in the middle of the woods where he’d be alone and forgotten.
The hell he put Emmy through…
I was angry and disappointed with her, and I’d never look at her again, but as much as I hated to admit it…maybe I understood how she thought she didn’t have any other choice.
Her only unforgivable mistake was the years of silence since.
She should’ve stepped up and sought us out. How did anyone live like that?
I didn’t want to make her suffer anymore. I just wanted her out of my life for good. It was obvious now that we weren’t right and that she wasn’t one of us.
I was ready to live.
A knock sounded on the door, and I tensed, hearing it immediately open behind me.
“Hey,” Misha said, and I heard the door close.
I drew in a deep breath and exhaled, his presence making me feel like the walls were closing in. We were always close, despite the age difference, but I hated that he’d gotten tangled up in this. He never liked drama, and he hated my friends.
And I’d been without him a long time. Too long.
I turned and studied him, seeing the tail of a tattoo drift over his collarbone and his lip ring gleam in the small light.
He shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you,” he said.
I crossed my arms over my chest and headed back to the desk, folding up the notes I’d taken from my calls and slipping the paper into my back pocket. “I wasn’t waiting for a rescue or expecting one.”
“Your fucking parents,” he mumured. “They just…”
“They didn’t send me there,” I told him.
My parents would never do that. They were at their wits ends, trying to figure out what to do with me, and they hid it from the rest of the family pretty well, but they wouldn’t give up on me like that.
“Grandpa?” Misha guessed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I wasn’t ready to talk about Blackchurch and how I came to be there until I was sure my plan would work. I wasn’t in the clear yet, and I didn’t want to come clean until I was.
Misha stood there like they all stood there, because shit had changed, and it would be a while before we got back to normal. If ever.
He chuckled lightly. “I seem to remember your advice about not getting tattoos anywhere visible while wearing a suit?” he teased.
I met his eyes, seeing his gaze on my hands and the dark ink I’d added over the past year while I was gone.
I stood by my advice, but fuck it. I’d been bored there.
He approached, but I kept my gaze averted. “You were there for me—or tried to be as much as I would allow—when Annie died. I’m so sorry it took us so long.”
His hands shook a little, and I could hear the sorrow in his voice.
It took a moment to get the words out. “I was always coming home,” I assured him. “Don’t worry about it.”
He was going to be pissed when he found out who was really to blame. I didn’t want him carrying any guilt.
“You’re different,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I grew up.”
“I wish you hadn’t.”
I stopped and looked up at him.
“You never did see how much everyone needed you.” A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You. Just the way you were.”
No one needed me. I’d been useless.
But I wasn’t anymore. Devil’s Night was in three days, and Thunder Bay would be ours, free and clear, in four days if I had anything to say about it.
Misha looked like he wanted to hug me or something, which was strange, because he wasn’t affectionate, but then he turned and walked for the cabin door, opening it to leave.
I wanted to go after him, but… I picked up the phone, getting ready to make another call instead.
Nothing was going to be normal for a while with any of them. I had to stay focused.
But then I heard Damon’s voice. “I need to talk to him.”
I shot my eyes up, seeing him loom over Misha and trying to squeeze past.
“I’m trying to fucking leave, if you would move,” Misha spat out.
Damon pushed his way in, Misha stumbling into the hall, but I stalked over and grabbed the door before Damon could close it.
“I can’t right now,” I told him. “I’ll talk later.”
“No…”
“I can’t.” I pushed him out the door. “Please, man…”
My pulse raced, my blood boiled, and my brain was spiraling out of control. I had a chess board full of pieces, and I was playing both sides. I needed to think. There was no time to lose. He could ruffle my hair later.
“Dammit,” Damon growled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him, hanging in the doorway as he glared at me from the corridor. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I need to sleep.”
Rolling his eyes, he gave in and spun around, heading off. “Fine.”
But then guilt nipped at me. “Wait.”
He stopped and turned, his white T-shirt wrinkled and his black pants stark against his pale, bare feet.
I felt a smile pull at the corners of my mouth. “So, what’s his name?”
A gleam hit his eyes. “Ivarsen.”
Ivarsen. My heart warmed a little. We had another boy running around. Kai’s son, Madden.
Needles pricked my throat. I’d missed Winter giving birth.
“Next gen, huh?”
“Get your ass moving and catch up,” he teased.
Yeah. I didn’t see kids on my horizon any time soon, but…someday.
He started to leave, but I stopped him.
“Where are we?” I asked.
He met my eyes again. “North of the border,” he said. “We’re cruising the coast, and we’ll pass under Deadlow Island and arrive home in the morning.”
So, Canada, then. Where the hell had they gotten this train? And there was a tunnel underneath the seabed between Deadlow and Thunder Bay? No one ventured to the small island off the coast of our town, beyond Cold Point, because it was surrounded by an impassable reef.
It was deserted, or so I’d thought.
“Sorry it took us so long to get there,” he told me. “We had a find a way in undetected, and some of the track was in bad shape.”
It’s fine. I didn’t need them there any sooner, but I wouldn’t tell him that.
“Just make sure…” I paused a moment. “Make sure she doesn’t actually jump off the train, okay?”
She could be that stubborn, and I knew what I had said to her, but I was mad. I didn’t want her dead.
And I definitely didn’t want her to end up in Aydin’s hands again. He’d had enough influence over her in five short days.
Damon struggled to hold back his smirk before he turned and left, and I closed my door, the phone in my hand forgotten.
Trailing over to the bed, I ran my hand over the black suit laid out, shivers running down my spine at the long-lost feel of good clothes.
Then I spotted my mask sitting on the bed, as well. I reached over and picked it up, the familiar texture filling me with memories and a charge of excitement in my veins at all the moments I wanted to keep, despite the ones I wanted to leave behind.
For a second, I felt like the old me, and I gazed at the white mask with the red stripe down the left side, suddenly ready for a thousand more adventures.
I smiled. Whatever was I going to do with Emory Scott when we got back to Thunder Bay?
