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“Mother,” Anna said affectionately. “Always so dramatic. First, she tried to get Linus to do it.” I nodded dumbly. Eugenia had told me that, hadn’t she? “Then when he backed out, she wanted me to get together with you and poison your coffee or something.”
“The coffee date,” I gasped, remembering.
“The coffee date that never was,” she laughed. “And don’t forget last week when I switched your pills. Your crazy ass falling off the roof—now that would have been epic. But you saw me, and he saved you, of course.”
She sighed. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. Except that the two of you are as good as dead, this time for sure.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because my mother is downstairs starting a fire as we speak.”
“Oh my God,” I gasped, looking to Jace. How long had Eugenia been in the house waiting, watching us?
“Mother loves her candelabras. That was her first idea—go ahead and burn Richmond House to the ground on the night you came back. But Linus got in the way of that too. And with the storm…we weren’t even sure the house would burn. But there’s no storm tonight.”
Anna pulled a gun from beneath her pillow and pointed it at Jace.
“I know what the two of you are thinking. Anna’s just a little girl.” It wasn’t what I was thinking at all, and it was sick of her to still think of herself that way. “We can take her. We can get the gun away. Think again. I know you’re about as strong as a wet noodle right now, Jace Blackwell. My mother told me that she stabbed you. Right in the back—that must have hurt so badly, Jacey. So, I’m just going to point the gun at you. And your fuckbuddy here is going to do whatever I want.”
“Don’t call her that,” Jace said at the same time I said, “I know you’d never shoot him, Anna.”
“Oh, yes, I would,” she replied, acknowledging me, her eyes gleaming. “I can’t wait, honestly. I think my little unrequited crush has gone on long enough. I’ve given him countless chances to choose the better woman—but he won’t. He can’t. You’ve pussy-whipped him, my beloved niece, and now he’s going to die.”
“You don’t have to shoot us,” Jace said hoarsely. “I’d rather die in the fire. Just leave us to burn up here.”
Anna quirked an eyebrow. I realized the thin carpet of fog I’d imagined snaking across the attic floor wasn’t my imagination after all—it was real. And it wasn’t fog. It was smoke.
“Jace!” I gestured to the ground.
“Just go, Anna, you don’t have much time,” he coaxed her. “Everything you said just now…you were right. I should have chosen you. Greer Richmond has brought me nothing but disappointment. I regret the first day I laid eyes on her.”
Again, I knew he was just trying to get her to spare us, but still his words stung. The truth was, he wouldn’t be here right now, about to die, if it wasn’t for me.
Anna wasn’t convinced. “I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s too late now. I’m not going to save you. But I guess it doesn’t matter if I shoot you or you burn up…as long as you both die.”
“We can’t get out now,” Jace said. “The windows up here are too high, and the smoke’s coming up through the staircase. You’d better go while you still can.”
As if realizing that she’d stayed too long, Anna bounded from the bed without a backward glance, moving across the attic and turning down the spiral stairs toward the second floor as if it was second nature. I guessed it was.
“How is she going to get out?” I asked, starting to taste the smoke in my lungs. Of all the ways I could spend my last few minutes on earth, I regretted my curiosity.
“Seems like she has options. We don’t have much time, sweetheart. Help me.”
Jace had moved over toward the wall. He quickly picked up the corner of a tarp and began dragging it off what looked like an antique ladder.
“There’s no way,” I trailed off. The windows had to be at least twenty feet above us. There were a lot of them, but they were small. Jace struggled to get the ladder upright.
“Stop. Let me do that.” Between the two of us, we raised the splintered, cobweb-covered piece, so it stood against the side of the wall. The ladder barely reached the windows. But to Jace’s credit, it did reach them.
“You first,” he growled as smoke swirled around our shoulders.
“Not a chance, Jace Blackwell. You’re injured. You go first.”
Jace stepped up to me, his jaw tight, his dark eyes raking over me like this might be the last time he ever looked at me. Then he opened his mouth. “Get your ass on the ladder, sweetheart. Or we both die.”
I did what he wanted, hoping he’d be right behind me, but he stayed on the ground as I climbed, only clumsily making his way up after I could kneel precariously on the sill and start fiddling for a way to open the window. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but without the support of the ladder, suspended on the sill, I felt like I was about to fall.
“They’re locked!” I yelled down. From my vantage point, Jace rose out of the swirling smoke. We couldn’t retrace our steps. Couldn’t go back down. It was this or nothing.
