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“You steal the princess,” I finish. Or kill the goddamn prince. That’s where this started. “We still need to figure out what they’re after. They’d be taking her to trade for something. It isn’t retaliation, and it’s not money. Frank’s house being ransacked before they ever came for her means they’re searching for something.”
“Maybe she knows,” he muses.
I consider that, but I’ve questioned her a lot the last two days. She was vulnerable and off her game. If she was hiding something purposefully, I’d have seen it. Although my questions were primarily centered around her attack and her conversations with politicians. I need to be more direct about Easton and Ben. Maybe she has some ideas regarding that mysterious book we’ve heard about.
“Not consciously,” I contend.
“Either way, they come for our girl once you’ve claimed her, it’s war.”
I’d love to bask in the casual way Gage tagged Celeste as ours, but my gut wrenches with an intuitive realization that war is a distinct possibility. And war means loss. Which pisses me the hell off.
“They’ve already waged it as far as I’m concerned,” I tell him, wrapping up the scumbags hired to take my girl and ruminating on the fact that the Skulls have no idea who they’re fucking with.
Our anonymity is both a blessing and a curse at times, but it’s up to us to decide how we spin this. I’m not sure revealing ourselves is the best plan. Yet.
Coming for Frank, a high-level member of The Order, is ballsy. They’re clearly confident and after something they deem valuable enough to risk retaliation for it.
But coming after me and my family is fucking suicide. No one touches what’s mine.
I’ll make it damn clear that Celeste is an untouchable by annihilating the entire Skulls species. Until then, I’ll start by informing the Carvers. They need to understand who she belongs to. We’re building a new goddamn legacy.
She’s KORT royalty now.
CELESTE
I’m not sure how to extricate myself from the web of tangled thoughts, images, and decisions that now govern my every waking moment. It’s not the trauma. Maybe that would make more sense. It’s the weeding through options—and strategies in which to approach those options—that plagues me the most.
It’s been ten days since I murdered a man. God knows what that psycho’s plan was. I’m not even remorseful. No idea what that says about me. I’d kill Scott Filmore again and again to protect myself. Not even a question in my mind about that.
It’s the cover-up and the broad view of all it represents that have my head spinning. The Carver name was a candle in the wind that night. Liam not only rescued me; he also kept my family legacy burning. And yet my parents feel I’m tarnishing it by staying here and consorting with seedy hoodlums—my mother’s classification in a recent call—and I can’t say a word in defense.
I’ve always been strong, but I’ve also dutifully played my part. Even when I pushed back, it was done with the understanding that I’d rebel for a night but conform for a lifetime. I don’t know how to tell my parents or grandparents that Liam is the future I want. That I’m not consorting with those seedy hoodlums; I’m one of them.
Purposefully fusing myself with them.
It’s not as though I’m blind. They straddle the proverbial fence of morality in such a drastic stance that I can’t negate my mother’s concerns. I just don’t share them. But anytime I try to broach the subject of staying here with either of my parents, I’m met with stern outrage from my father or a weepy quaver from my mother. It’s exhausting.
Defeating.
I don’t want to play Carver games anymore.
“Family meeting in thirty minutes,” Ivy announces over the house intercom. Her tone is fiery. Someone’s in trouble.
I’m never quite sure where I fall in the family stuff. I’m not officially part of their household, but I’ve been trying to do my part. Ivy wouldn’t broadcast it if it was private though.
Swinging myself out of the bathroom to press the All button on the wall speaker box, I respond with a swift, “Yes, ma’am,” and return to patting on a shimmery lip gloss.
I’m freshly showered after a workout with Gage. It was my first day back in the gym since the beating I’d taken to my ribs and hip. I’m still sore, but thankfully, nothing was broken.
Liam’s voice reverberates through the room via the house megaphone next. “Push it back to four. I have an appointment.”
“It’s not on the schedule,” Ivy chirps in a singsong reprimand. She runs a tight ship around here, cataloging everyone’s whereabouts, insisting on family downtime, scheduling shifts with Felicity, and ensuring everyone has adequate relaxation periods.
She’s become obsessed with monitoring the household’s stress level and exhaustion. A mother hen. It’s cute how they all fall in line, albeit with a fair amount of teasing.
“Don’t piss off the house manager, Graves,” Gage mocks.
“Good point, Big Guy. Sorry about that. I’ll be sure to register all activities going forward. You want me to log everything Ace and I do on the goddamn schedule, High Society?”
