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Leo smiles at him, and it’s like watching a wolf. I move to stand in front of him. No one should be seeing him like this, least of all this police captain. “Stop trying to scare us. You’ve done your job.”
The police captain looks me up and down. Head to toe. It’s not like when Emerson looked at me. It’s disgusting. Leo growls behind me. “Get the hell out of here.”
As soon as the front door closes, I turn to face him. “Why did you say that?” I’m pissed again. I’m so royally pissed. I don’t understand. “Why did you say that you kidnapped Haley when you didn’t? They’re going to use that against you.”
“Because it’s true. So close to the truth, it might as well be true. I forced her to be with me. Did you think your brother was kind and noble? No, sister mine. I made her trade her body to save her father.”
I can’t believe it.
I can’t.
He’s out of his mind with grief. He misses her and he’s lying. It’s so reckless. It’s so unlike him. I can’t speak. I leave him standing there in the foyer. I don’t know what else to do.
“I don’t believe you,” I say at the top of the stairs.
He can’t hear me. No one can.
The next timeI see Leo is two and a half hours later, from the door of his office. No more winter sun. Only firelight. He’s sitting on the rug in front of his fireplace, silent tears streaking down his cheeks, Haley in his arms. She keeps wiping them away. Murmuring soft things to him. He can’t take his eyes off her.
The office is a mess. The furniture is turned over, his desk in ruins, the glass paperweight shattered on the floor. A knife lies on the edge of the rug, near the paperweight. My heart might never stop racing.
I hear Eva come in through the foyer. She puts a hand on my shoulder and tries to control her breathing. “I couldn’t get here in time.” Regret colors her voice. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t see anything.” I’m numb with relief, and with confusion. “He made me stay upstairs.”
“That’s good,” she whispers.
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. It’s impossible to say. All I know is that I couldn’t have stopped what happened in here. It looks like a crime scene. The aftermath of a battle. All I heard was a noise in the hall, and when I opened my door, Gerard was standing there along with twenty people from Leo’s security team. They wouldn’t let me come down until it was over.
My sister smooths back her hair. Takes another deep breath. Her expression calms. Eva slides her coat off her shoulders and hands it to me. When she steps into the room, I follow her.
Eva approaches my brother slowly. Carefully. Leo doesn’t look up at her. Neither does Haley. I don’t know where she learned how to do this. How to just—walk into a room like this, where something has clearly gone wrong, where there is so much emotion in the air that it’s hard to breathe. Eva kneels down in front of Leo and puts a hand on his shin.
His arms tighten around Haley. “She’s not leaving,” he says. “Ever.”
“No,” Eva answers. “But I think it’s time to go upstairs.”
“No one touches her.” Leo still hasn’t looked away from Haley. She runs her fingertips over his cheekbone. There’s a bruise on her temple, getting darker by the second. Someone hit her. I doubt Leo will let that person live.
Eva pats his shin until he finally meets her eyes. “No one touches her,” she promises.
“I’m tired,” he says. My heart aches. I wonder if he knows he’s crying. I don’t think he does.
“I know. Go upstairs, and you can rest. Can you get up?”
Leo stands up like it’s nothing. He has a cut on the side of his neck that he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s only concerned with Haley, who looks small, being carried like this. He goes toward the door, his eyes locked on her face, and Gerard ushers them out.
Eva picks up one of the turned-over chairs and sits in it. She puts her head in her hands. Lets out a deep breath.
“Is that what love looks like?” I just want to hear an answer. Any answer. From someone who knows more than me.
My sister laughs soundlessly behind her hands. “That’s more than love,” she says. “That’s an obsession.”
Chapter Seventeen
Emerson
I’m just outof the shower and still cold from frozen surf when my phone lights up with an alert. Three alerts. I missed one of them when I was in the shower. Someone at the gate. Someone coming in. There’s no video feed, because there are no cameras, only motion detectors. I am not interested in watching endless loops of video of the outside of my house. I am not interested in having myself captured on video. My blood pressure rises. Pulse goes up before I can grab it and pull it back down. I finish yanking my sweater over my head and snatch the phone from the shelf.
