Dukes of Madness: Royals of Forsyth U (Royals of Forsyth University Book 5)
Dukes of Madness: Chapter 4

The scream catches in my throat, my arms and legs cramped and trapped. I’d kick out, but the walls of the chest close in around me, spine contorted and aching. I look for the light that seeps through the slats in the wood, but it’s not there. There’s nothing but my heartbeat and frantic breaths to count the passage of time. How long have I been in here? Days? Weeks? Maybe I’ve always been here. Maybe all that I am is contained with this awkward, narrow margin of panic. Maybe I was born here, and I’ll die here. Stardust. Isn’t that what Remy used to call me?

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” The words pierce the surface of the darkness and I cling to them. The deep, smooth timbre of the voice is close enough that I can feel the warmth of it. “You’re safe.”

Am I?

I think, slowly processing that it’s Sy’s voice. I begin to remember the last… however many hours it’s been since he pulled me from the chest. The drive, the elevator, passing out, the bath, and then falling asleep against Remy’s chest. But that doesn’t mean I’m safe. Is Sy the kind of person that saves a girl just to break her later?

No, that’s his brother.

The weight of his palm settles on the tense curve of my spine. “You’re not in the box,” he tells me, voice rough with sleep. “You’re in the tower. In my bed. It’s almost morning.”

The shudder of release cascades through my limbs, the paralysis falling off like scales. I remember the last time he found me like this, how he used my prone, frozen body for his pleasure. I’m not getting that vibe from him, though. Maybe, like Remy, all they see is hurt and trauma, not the woman I used to be.

Maybe they don’t even want me anymore. The broken toy, used and discarded, only to be fished back out of the trashcan.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

The idea is more unsettling than I’d like to admit.

“Lavinia?” he asks, climbing over my body so he can see my face. The lamp is bright on the other side of the room, silhouetting the strong lines of his face. He takes my hand from the pillow, careful with the IV as he turns it, pressing his fingers into the thin skin of my wrist. “Are you feeling sick? Any dizziness? Pain?”

Swallowing, I rasp out, “Where is he?”

There’s a beat of silence, his eyes moving back and forth between mine, searching. “Nick? I told you. He’s not here. Even if he tried to come back, we wouldn’t let him in. Remy’s keeping watch.”

I shake my head. “No. Not…” My jaw clenches with the unwillingness to say his name. “The kitten, I mean. What did he do with him?” We made a deal. If I wasn’t here to care for him, then Nick was supposed to pass the kitten off to Verity or one of the other cutsluts. Someone who’d take care of him, love him.

But Nick breaks promises.

I know that now.

Sy blinks. “The kitten.”

“The Archduke,” I say, feeling uncontrollable tears welling in my eyes. “He got rid of him, didn’t he?”

When Sy answers, “No,” it’s like a fist clenching around my lungs. “He kept him.”

I exhale with my whole body, shivering. “He’s still here?”

Sy’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, he’s probably in Nick’s room. That’s where he’s been staying.”

“I need him.” Later, I might think to be embarrassed about the way my voice cracks, but for now, I just stare beseechingly into Sy’s eyes. “Please?”

He stares at me so long that a bloom of worry builds in my chest, but finally, with a set jaw, he mutters, “Christ. Give me a minute.”

He steps out of the room, and I hear the sound of his bare feet on the wooden floor, followed by the click and snap of doors opening and closing. The low rumble of his voice carries back. “…bring her back from the brink of death and all she cares about is that stupid cat.” A door slams, and another opens. “Where are you, you fucking—there you are. Stay still.” Rustling and cursing follows. “Come here, you little shit!” he says. “Don’t you fucking hiss at me!”

He appears a minute later, expression tense, eyes dark, but all I really see is the white ball of fur struggling against his chest. I try to push myself into a sitting position, but my arms feel so weak that they tremble under the weight of my torso. I manage a slight slide up the pillows before Sy unceremoniously dumps the thrashing kitten on my thighs.

“Archie,” I cry, gathering his squirming body to my chest. He’s stiff at first, but one sniff of my hand and his little tail begins whipping side-to-side. I press my nose to the top of his head, cooing, “Hey, my little fighter. I missed you. Did you miss me?” Sniffling, I give him a furtive onceover, confirming that he’s unharmed. He seems bigger—stronger—as if the passage of days has gotten away from me. Time moved and everything grew and changed.

He settles almost instantly, his little motor-purr kicking to life. Archie’s eyes are as blue as Sy’s, and when he strains up to rub his cheek against my chin, I allow myself a feeble smile.

Sy’s at the foot of the bed, glaring down at his knuckles. A bead of blood dribbles down his thumb, and when he looks up, our eyes meet over the distance.

If I had the words, I’d explain that he’s more than a kitten. I’ve spent years in boxes—large and small—and I’ve never left a handprint. The Archduke is a shifted destiny. “Thank you,” I whisper, cradling Archie closer.

“You won’t be thanking me when he gives you some stupid, cat-transmitted disease.” Sy gestures to me, my bare legs hidden under his blankets. “Right now, your immune system is probably running off nothing but three sucrose molecules.”

I smooth my palm down Archie’s fluffy back. “I’ll be fine.”

Sy’s eyes catch on something. The hairbrush, which Remy must have discarded on the bed, hours ago. Sy reaches down to pick it up, eyebrows tugging into a knot. “He painted it black.”

“That’s okay,” I assure. It was in the care package the girls sent to me when I first got here, so it’s not like I’m attached to it.

Sy gives me a long look, like I’m missing something obvious. “Solid black means he’s sorry about something.”

Blinking, I say, “Oh.” Either I’m as loopy as Remy or I’ve spent too much time with him, because it makes perfect sense to me. Why say sorry when you can paint it?

Sy releases a sharp breath, putting the brush on the nightstand. “Well, since we’re all awake, we might as well try to get some food into you,” he says, grabbing a shirt. He pauses for a beat, mouth tightening. “If that fucker pisses, shits, or pukes in my bed—”

“He won’t,” I assure him, collapsing against the pillows.

Sy looks aggressively skeptical about this assertion, but leaves the room anyway. Things are a little clearer than they were before, even if they’re still fuzzy at the edges. My head feels like it’s full of cotton, and my legs—god, my legs ache. Everything hurts, but nothing so much as they do. Any hope of finding a comfortable position is lost the second I try to shift around. My muscles are stiff and sore, and even extending my arms is torture.

Luckily, Archie is a good distraction.

He tramples the blankets around my stomach for a few moments, kneading his little claws into them. He gazes up at me all the while, and I spend a long time wondering what he’s thinking. Did he think I abandoned him? Or did he just wait for me, assuming I’d be back? Eventually my thoughts wander to the vacant patch of bed beside me. Mere minutes ago, Sy had been sleeping there. I roll this over in my thoughts, trying to decide how and why that happened. The thought of being in Nick’s bed—the possibility of him waltzing in at any moment to find me there, weak and vulnerable, makes my empty stomach churn and roil. But if he’s really not here, if his bed is just sitting in there empty, then I would have expected them to put me in it. Tucked away. Unable to bother them.

Why keep me close if they aren’t going to use me?

I hear voices out in the main living space, but they’re quiet and distant and strangely comforting, and mostly I’m just grateful for it. To not be alone. That sense of comfort is enhanced by Archie’s purr, and I know it’s silly, but I like to think I can feel the tender places knitting themselves back together.

I almost fall asleep.

It’s the sound of approaching footsteps that makes me go rigid, eyes flying toward the door.

A moment later, Remy appears, white hair even more disheveled than usual. He braces a hand on each side of the doorjamb, watching me. “Don’t fall asleep,” he says, fingertips tapping the wood. “This is Sy’s third attempt at giving you this soup. He’ll fucking lose it.”

My eyebrows furrow. “Third?” I remember the first, but nothing else.

Remy hums. “You almost woke up a couple of hours ago. Tossing and turning, but passed out again.” He finally enters the room, only to fall clumsily onto the bed, into Sy’s empty space. “Sun’ll be up soon. Things might go cyan.” He laces his fingers behind his head, sprawling out, and despite the fact he likely got very little—if any—sleep over the night, he’s practically vibrating with energy, foot bouncing. When he turns his head to look at me, his eyes are wide and shining, dilated to a single rim of emerald green. Casually, he says, “I’m going to kiss you.”

That’s all the warning I get before he pushes his mouth against mine.

As his lips gently brush against my own, I’m so damn thankful that I don’t have any strength. If I did, I’d have to make a choice of whether or not to shove him away, and then I’d have to face the possibility that I wouldn’t, because Remy has this thing.

This thing where he kisses so sweetly.

He tilts his head, and the kiss is shallow, soft. He never moves to deepen it, to pry my lips apart for his eager tongue. It’s a sensual graze of skin against skin, as if he’s simply saying hello.

“I wanted to tell you,” he says, right into the crease of my mouth. “I finally found the stars.”

“For fuck’s sake, Remy.” Sy’s voice jolts through the hush of the moment. “Could you at least wait until she doesn’t need an IV to start humping her leg?”

Remy flops to his back, looking unconcerned. “I was just catching her up.”

“We need to get something in your stomach,” Sy says, balancing a mug and a bottle of water in his hands. “Sit up.”

Shakily, I try to push myself into a sitting position, jostling Archie as my body gives a stilted lurch. I don’t protest when Remy grabs my shoulders, levering up my torso. When I dig my heels into the mattress, his green eyes catch my pained expression.

“Legs must hurt like a bitch, huh?” Remy doesn’t give me a chance to answer, grabbing my waist to wrench me effortlessly up the bed. He props me against the headboard like a ragdoll. “We’ve got some muscle cream,” he says, jumping up and zipping out of the room.

The flicker of irritation that runs through me is sharp, but short-lived. Even in the most ideal of circumstances, there’s nothing worse than being helpless. But in circumstances like these?

“Suck it up,” Sy says, placing the mug—with the soup, I realize—carefully in my hands. “Literally. If you want your strength back, then you need to eat,” he pointedly sets the bottle of water down on the table beside me, “and drink. Get your electrolytes up.”

The soup is warm, but not hot, the heat barely seeping into my palms as I lift it to my mouth.

“Easy,” Sy says, rocking forward to steady the mug when my wrist trembles.

Archie jumps up and spits at the motion, the white fur on his back and tail bursting into a defensive flare.

Sy snatches his hand back a split second before his paw swipes out. “What the—fuck you! This is my bed!”

Archie flattens his ears and hisses so bodily that his fuzz shivers with the intensity.

Sy’s eyes go flinty, fists and teeth clenching. “I swear to god, I will punt this motherfucker all the way back to East End.”

Frowning, I drag Archie back against my hip. “What did you do to him?”

Sy’s eyes bug out. “What did I do to him?” He holds up his hand, littered with scratches. “He’s been terrorizing me since day one. Fucking glorified rodent, running around here like he owns the goddamn place.”

“Chill.” Remy returns, giving his friend a pat on the shoulder. To me, he says, “He hasn’t done anything. Sy’s just got this whole aura about him. Controlling as fuck, self-righteous, joyless. In other words, the Archduke can sense he’s a gaping asshole.” As if to bolster this point, Remy reaches out and gives Archie a scratch beneath his chin with no difficulty whatsoever. “You’ll warm up to him.”

“The fuck I will,” Sy growls.

Remy’s eyes roll. “I was talking to the cat. Now, let’s see what we’re working with.” He yanks the covers back, revealing my bare, bruised legs, and then sits down on the bed, facing me. I clutch the mug of soup to my chest, startled, but Remy just soothes me with a hand on my shin, picking up my legs and settling between them, a calf on each knee.

Sy abruptly becomes interested in something on his desk, sitting down in the chair and opening a worn-looking, leather-covered notebook. “Eat, Lavinia.”

Remy gives me a look. “See?”

Reluctantly, I lift the mug to my lips, finally getting a good taste of the contents. Chicken with noodles, just the right side of salty.

“Like I was saying before,” Remy begins, squeezing some menthol-scented cream into his palm. “I figured it out. The stars, remember?” He meets my gaze as his hands begin rubbing the cream into my calves. “I know why I kept seeing you falling.”

“Uhhh,” is all I have to offer, overwhelmed by both the soup and the sensation of his skilled fingers, kneading gentle circles into my muscles.

“Remy,” Sy says, voice soft but firm, even though he doesn’t look up, pen moving over the notebook. “Leave it. She’s not up for this shit right now.”

“It wasn’t you I was seeing,” Remy continues, ignoring him. He was right before about Sy having an aura. It’s dark and unapproachable, a subtle impression of threat. But right now, Remy’s aura is so disjointed that I can’t focus on anything else. It’s frantic and too alert, like a buzzing that never really goes away. “I was remembering your sister.”

Sy slams his pen down, and then turns to glare at him. “What did I just fucking say?”

But I’m frozen, the mug suspended in front of my mouth. “You know my sister?”

“Not even remotely,” Remy replies, making me wince when his fingers dig into the backs of my knees. “That’s the thing. I’ve never even met her, but she was there.”

I lower my mug. “Where?”

“At the cliff.”

I look at Sy, the confusion making my head spin. “When was this?”

“The night Tate died,” Sy explains, running his fingers through his dark, curly mop of hair. The shirt he’d grabbed off the floor earlier clings to his torso, wrinkled and thin, and it strikes me that he looks exhausted. “It was a little over two years ago,” he goes on, retrieving his pen only to tap it against the notebook. “Remy seems to think he was there when it happened.”

Remy turns to snap, “I fucking was there!” and his next squeeze of my calves is less of a knead and more of a vicious clench, making me cry out. He whirls around, muttering, “Shit,” and then, “Sorry, Vinny, sorry.” I breathe through the ache, stiff and reluctant when he lifts my ankle to his shoulder, forcing me to stretch it. “I was there, though. And so was Leticia. That’s why I kept seeing you in the stars. You look so much alike, and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen her—there, at night, on the cliff.”

My thoughts come in tumultuous waves, smashing up against my mind in fits and starts. “Two years ago?” I struggle to think, to catch the threads before Remy’s fingers make them recede into a pulsing awareness of my aches. “That… would have been around the time she went missing?”

“Exactly.” Remy’s mouth is pressed into a tight, grim line, but his eyes shine with a disturbing excitement. “So you should tell us about your sister. Why would she have been there? What’s she like? Is she into the drug game? Did she roll with the Counts, or—”

“Enough!” Sy stands, giving Remy a stern but fatigued look as he gestures to me. “Jesus, Remy, look at her. She can barely hold her soup up. Let her rest.”

I’d wilt under the intensity of Remy’s green stare, except I’m already there. Bone-tired. Sore. So fucking lost.

Remy ducks his head, watching as his fingers skate up my thigh. They pause on a bruise and he spends a long moment staring at it. The excitement fades from the sharpness of his features, leaving something shuttered and dark as he gently lowers my feet to the bed. “Later then,” he says, standing.

I guess it all makes sense now.

The kindness.

The tenderness.

The aching sweetness of that kiss before.

I’m important now because he thinks I know something.

Sy presses his fingers into his eyes, groaning. “I have to get ready for this lecture.”

That’s when I notice the faint light of morning glowing through the window over his desk. Has it really only been seven hours since Sy lifted me out of the chest? He nods at me, the faint stubble over his jaw making him look unfairly haggard. “Eat and drink what you can, then get back to sleep. You’ve still got a few hours left of that IV.”

“You’re leaving me here?” I ask, almost dropping the mug. “Alone? All day?”

Nick will come back. He’ll come back and he’ll find me here, and then he’ll—

Remy takes the mug out of my hand. “Don’t worry, Vinny. I’m staying.” There’s an odd blankness in his eyes when he reaches out, brushing the point of his tattooed knuckle over the line of my jaw.

Relief at knowing Nick can’t get to me, allows me to exhale and sink back under the covers. But I don’t close my eyes. Instead, I watch Remy as he leaves. These men have proven they value me. At least on some level. As Duchess or just a toy they don’t want anyone else to have? I don’t know. Remy turning cold, making me feel unbalanced—guarded—is so familiar that it covers me like a blanket. One I drag over me until I curl into the Archduke’s purring body and fall asleep.

I dream about Leticia again.

I dreamed about her before, too, when I was in the chest, but I never saw her—I only heard her voice. This time it’s the opposite. I’m inside the house—my father’s house—and I’m looking out the window to where she’s swaying on the swing set, the pale light of the moon catching like fire in her golden hair. She’s younger here, still sporting the budding curves of late middle school. Her legs kick and bend, and she’s sitting perfectly straight, face set into a stony serenity. It’s one of the things people like most about my sister. The poise. Tisha never breaks frame. She’s exactly what my father only pretends to be, shaped so precisely by his lessons that she grew up into this perfect visage of relentless dollhood. I used to wonder how badly it galled him to watch her. Does my father see her as his masterpiece? Or does the sight of her make him feel inadequate?

I don’t know how long I hold onto the dream, but it feels like I watch her on that swing for a very long time. So long, in fact, that she ages right before my eyes, growing from the slender middle schooler to the young woman I remember last seeing two years ago. She grows sharper, more refined, hair longer, and she never looks away from me—not once.

It should be unnerving, but it’s not. There’s an odd peacefulness about it all, deathly quiet even when the wind blows, whipping her hair around her face.

And then she begins decaying.

Her cheeks go gaunt and gray, eyes milking over. The skin over her knuckles, wrapped around the swing’s ropes, splits and curls. Her legs kick and bend, kick and bend, and she deteriorates right before my eyes, her gaze never leaving mine.

A pinch tugs at the back of my hand, stinging, and I lurch away from the window, waking with a full bodied flinch.

Instinctively, I yank my hand back.

“Chill, Vinny.” Remy’s soft voice cuts through the sleep. I blink and the hard line of his jaw comes into focus. “I’m just taking out the IV. Don’t go all green on me.”

The sting only lasts a second, and then he swipes something cold, wet, and astringent-smelling over the skin. I’m aware of the rustle of my sheets and the feel of this thumb on my hip, counting stars, even though he told me it’s all real. That he saw her.

Leticia.

Still, I need to ask. “Did you really see her?” I whisper.

He looks up from my hip. Remy has fascinating eyes—green, but so bright that they could be yellow in the right light—and I find myself lost in them for a long moment. Until he nods. “I saw her.”

The words are quiet but sure, and carry with them one captivating fact.

Maybe Remy isn’t so crazy after all. “Do you know what she was doing up there? With Tate?”

The puzzle pieces are too much for me to try to sort and link together. Leticia. Tate. Cliffs. Death. “Nothing makes sense,” I mutter, voice thin and wan, and I want to ask to see his Lady of Sorrows—to know this is still real—but I don’t.

Warm fingers brush over my forehead. “We’ll talk about it later, then. Sleep, Vinny.” And then Remy tells me something I’d said to him weeks ago. “It’ll be better when you wake up.”

But I think of that dream—of watching Leticia on the swing as her skin grows papery thin, cracking and curling, and my hand reaches for him just as he steps away. “Could you… stay?”

He pauses, head tilting. “You want me to lay with you or something?”

Once the thought is put to words, it sounds terrifying. “Could you… read to me? Just for a while. It helps—”

“It helps you know when you’re dreaming.” He blinks twice, and then starts looking around the room, fingers tapping his thighs. “Right, let’s see what we’ve got.” He picks up a thick, heavy book from Sy’s desk. It’s got colorful adhesive tabs sticking out every which way, and Remy flips to a blue one. “He’s been researching whatever they were doing to me at Saint Mary’s.” Staring at the page, he warns, “This shit’s so boring, it’d make paint peel.”

“I don’t care.” I tuck my hand beneath my cheek, watching as he reclines in the empty spot beside me. He shifts around, tucking a sleeping Archie between us. His eyes haven’t regained any of that manic wildness from before, but now there’s a weight to them, his eyelids heavy as he scans the page.

But when he opens his mouth, it’s not to read. “Did Perez fuck you?”

I run my palm down Archie’s back and wonder if it’d make a difference. Perez fucking me. Would that make me used goods? “No,” I answer.

He swings his gaze to mine, searching. “One of the other Counts? One of your dad’s guys?”

“My dad would never let any of them have me. Not until…” I trail off because I suppose it’s moot now. Marrying Perez suddenly seems like such an impossibility, and it hits me—really hits me, maybe for the first time—that this is what being a Duchess means. That I’m spoken for. Claimed. Off the table.

Remy cements this with a single question, eyes blazing into mine. “Then whose thumbprints are bruised into your thighs?”

I go still as stone, hand freezing against the curve of Archie’s sleeping back. Suddenly, the coldness in his eyes before makes sense. I pull my limbs in tight, as if that could protect me from the memory of Nick moving over me, digging his way inside. Tucking my arms around myself, I just shake my head.

But Remy knows.

I can see it in the way his eyes shutter, face going blank.

He turns back to the book. Clearing his throat, he begins, “Neuropsychiatric stimulation therapies. Principles and practices of electroconvulsive therapy. Part one…”

I don’t fall asleep.

I dive into it, rushing for the reprieve.

“Son of a—” the curse is a grinding whisper followed by a soft thud. I roll over and see Sy easing between the sheets. His forehead is furrowed, a dark scowl settled on his mouth. Even half asleep, I know that look.

Sy vs. the Archduke.

Our eyes meet in the dark and he freezes. There’s a tense beat of silence before he speaks. “I hate your fucking cat.” Then, awkwardly, “You need any water? Food?”

The clock across the room says 1:32. No light comes in the small window at the top of the brick wall. He’s shirtless and wearing black shorts—just going to bed.

I shake my head, distantly wondering where Remy went. I can still hear his quiet, rough voice in my mind, reciting the words off the pages, but that must have been hours ago.

Sy’s lips form a tight line, jaw tensing. At first, I think it’s a sign he doesn’t believe me about the food, but his eyes dart down to the swell of my breasts and then back up, a motion so quick that it strikes me as involuntary. His pupils swell and contract.

When my stomach twists, it’s a dull, lost sensation flickering back to life. As involuntary as his own glance, I look down at his lips. The night of the Baron’s equinox party seems like a lifetime ago, but I still remember the way he kissed me, clumsy and desperate and too forceful. That must be why I’m thinking of it now. I never had the chance to process it, to compartmentalize it, to stuff it into the back of my brain as something unimportant—a one-off. How odd to think of those lips as having been on mine, warm and wanting. And now that I’m in his bed, in the dead of night, weak and pliant, he’s free to have it again.

A long beat stretches on where the only movement between us is the pulsing muscle in the back of his jaw. Until…

Mew?

Archie breaks the moment, pushing the air back between us. Sy scowls down at the kitten, who’s curled against my neck, and without another word, he positions a pillow between our torsos.

He turns the other way, rolling on his side.

It’s a respectful gesture that worms inside my brain. Sy’s never been respectful to me, making it perfectly clear what he thinks women are useful for. I’ve lost count of the times he’s called me a whore and a slut. It dislodges another question that has been worrying me. It’s a question I’ve ignored, but as I stare at the pillow-wall it filters to the surface.

Did Remy tell him what Nick did to me? Does he think I deserved it? It’s hard reconciling the two different sides of him. The one that hurts versus the one that heals.

It takes me longer to get back to sleep this time, and I’m not convinced Sy’s asleep either. A smoldering heat builds between us, even over the distance. Finally, I hear the steady rhythm of his breathing. I focus on that sound until my brain settles down and once again, I slip away.

“I have a secret.”

I jolt awake, heart racing, arms searching, looking for her.

Of course, Leticia’s not here.

She’s not here, but she’s in my head, filling it with questions and worries, and I let it drive me upright. Sweat runs down my back, cooling from the touch of air. The sun shining in through the window is bright and warm, with all the luster of a bright autumn morning illuminating every corner of the room. Once my pulse settles, I also process that I’m alone, and I’m okay with it.

I swing my legs over the side, testing the weight of my legs. It’s not the first time I’ve stood or walked. Both Remy and Sy have assisted me on trips to the bathroom, hovering awkwardly outside the door, but they were quick trips with only one destination in mind: to get back to the bed.

Right now, I want nothing more than to leave it.

Using the regained strength in my arms, I push off the mattress and immediately reach for the wall. I stand apprehensively, testing my legs’ ability to hold my weight. I steady myself and then take a tentative step, then another, my bare feet silent against the floor.

The bedroom door is already open; a sign the guys are keeping an eye on me. Time has passed in vague increments of light and dark, sleep and wake, and even that seems fuzzy and ill-defined, arriving with no order. How many days has it been? My brain no longer marks time in the passage of days, and it bothers me, not knowing.

I enter the main room, my steps stilted and careful, and pause when I see Remy asleep on the couch. His long legs stretch over the end, bare feet dangling. He has his arms crossed over his chest, like he’d fallen asleep in the middle of some unspeakable brood, enhanced by the faint divot between his eyebrows.

I listen for Sy, for anyone else, and when I’m certain I’m the only one awake, I tiptoe past him and focus on my destination.

Nick’s room.

His scent hits me at the threshold and my spine grows rigid. I didn’t even know he had a specific scent until it slaps me in the face. It’s warm, musky, male. The first thing my eyes dart to is the bed. The memory of Nick tying me down, pushing himself inside, comes flooding back.

“You hurt me, I hurt you.”

I shake it off like a mist that’s threatening to cling to me. I’m not here to relive the past. I’m here to find proof of it.

Instinctively, I know this is where I’ll find what I’m looking for. Nick was Daniel Payne’s most sterling protégé. He has a way of knowing his enemy’s weak spot, and I’d given him that knowledge when I’d asked him to steal it for me.

Taking a deep breath, I step into the impersonal room. Nick never decorated. He didn’t hang artwork like Remy or fill a bookshelf like Sy. He only wanted one possession in this room—me.

I avoid the bed until I realize there’s nowhere left to search, but then it clicks. He’d want it close, a trophy to touch at his every whim. Of course, it’d have to be here, on this bed where he already took so much from me.

I walk over and lift the pillow.

Underneath, next to the long, sharp blade of a knife, is the cigar box, elastic bands still in place.

Slowly, I lower myself to perch on the edge of the mattress, removing the bands one at a time. When they’re piled in a stack beside me, I turn the box, and take a deep breath. I feel like Remy, unable to trust my memory anymore. To know what’s real or not. I knew my sister had secrets. She loved them. Traded in them. But hearing what Remy said, that she was up on the cliff the night their friend Tate died?

It doesn’t fit. Leticia is the perfect daughter, my father’s favorite. She did everything right—better. Except… she did have secrets. Often, she’d sneak out at night, forcing me to cover for her with sharp sneers and whispered threats. I just figured she was hooking up with frat boys at the University—sowing wild oats until our father shackled her to Perez.

In no world did I think hers would cross with West End.

I lift the tiny gold latch and lift up the lid. Inside are Leticia’s treasures: A granite rock, a dirty, stained ribbon, a receipt with scribbled numbers on the back. I pick up the bullet, holding it up to the light, like that could solve some incredible enigma.

It doesn’t.

I set those all aside, laying them across the top of Nick’s mattress, until I get to the photo at the bottom.

Nothing about the picture made sense to me before. Two striped socks in the foreground, a body of water, and trees in the distance. It’s an overlook, a cliff. I study the feet, trying to find a clue, something that will tell me why Leticia kept it here, in this box of odds and ends.

In the end, I just feel like a fucking moron, knowing I’ve missed something so obvious. I blame it on the fact I haven’t been able to really inspect the contents of this box. First, I had to hide it from my father, and then I was traded around Forsyth like a wayward pet. But now, I see it, plain as day. It’s all in where the toes are, pointed toward one another, pinky toe to pinky toe.

Same socks.

Different girls.

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