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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AXEL
Ever since my stint in the Kentucky foster system, I’d been a night owl. Damian too.
In the beginning, it was an anxiety thing. We didn’t know what lurked around the shadowy corners of each new house, so we were too scared to fall asleep. And then as we grew older, the night anxieties solidified into habit. Now it was a concrete part of my foundation, these night-xieties, and life only kept serving up more things to worry about once the moon rose.
Tonight was no exception. It was the second night with Cora in the penthouse and the world still turned. But every hour with her under my roof begged for…something.
A decision. An update from the Margulis camp. Maybe even just divorce papers.
Whatever it was, the rock in my gut grew larger, wanting some direction. Because Cora was a magnet for me, now that she was within arm’s reach. My only recourse was work. Getting out of the penthouse. Forcing that distance until dinnertime or after.
However much I wanted to erase the distance between us, that rock in my gut was the barrier. I’d caught up with her at dinner. Said a politesleep wellaround nine. And then I disappeared into my bedroom with Zero until the pounding of my heart had subsided.
Having her this close felt like a fist holding my head underwater, forcing me to face down the past, to swallow it all until I choked. Memories I’d thought long dead and buried had started creeping out of the woodwork of my brain now that Cora was roughly twenty feet away from me. I paced my room, trying unsuccessfully to turn off the memories. To stop replaying the night I’d asked her to marry me and the pure joy I’d seen on her face. The way I’d gotten her off with my fingers alone as she sat draped across my lap on that rooftop patio.
Those were the dangerous memories. The ones that had promised a future full of light and opportunity that never materialized. The good times of the past became self-inflicted wounds in the present.
I drifted to the closet, tugging back the big, mirrored doors. In the back corner of the walk-in, I pushed aside last year's suits to reveal the ultimate memento of those days. I tugged the worn leather jacket from the hanger, my gaze washing over it like it had a million times before.
This jacket was long past wearable status. But I’d never get rid of it.
It was a reminder of who I was. Where I’d come from. This jacket represented what Eli and Allan hated about me. This was what I’d hidden in the fern eight years ago when I went to tell Allan I planned on marrying his daughter.
I slid it on, a grin tugging at my lips as the familiar weight settled over my shoulders. It fit a bit tighter these days—that was the virtue of having the in-home gym, which my twenty-year-old self couldn’t have even imagined when I’d first spotted this coat in the bargain bin at a Chinatown second-hand shop. I looked at myself in the mirror, searching my reflection for signs of the Axel Fairchild from before all this wealth.
Looking for a sign of Axel Haynes, who I’d been before the Fairchilds adopted us. Before our entire lives had been upended.
It got harder every year to spot the roots of myself. But I wouldn’t let them become covered up and eventually misplaced beneath the attractive trappings of wealth. That was one of the non-negotiables in my life. It went along with spending every waking moment in service to the under-served, even if we couldn’t talk about it. I’d not let one sister’s death and another’s disappearance be in vain. I would work to change the course of the future as long as I was breathing.
It was well after midnight when I felt strong enough to shuck the leather jacket, venture out of my room and resume my typical ghostly roaming of the penthouse. I couldn’t fall asleep most nights until at least two a.m., not even if I was dead on my feet. And even then, I naturally awoke around seven. There was too much to do in this lifetime to sleep.
Zero only lifted his head, sighed, and then collapsed back into his dog bed at the foot of my bed when I headed for the bedroom door. He didn’t usually join me on my nightly wanderings, but I left the door cracked for him in case he changed his mind.
The penthouse hummed in its stillness, stretching shadowy and sepulchral. City lights filtered in through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining room, illuminating the edges of the armchairs, the curve of a vase, the tassel of a rug. I headed for the kitchen first. I didn’t like lighting the place up at this time of night. I liked pacing in the shadows. Keeping to the recesses of my thoughts. Stumbling upon answers in forgotten corners.
I chugged a glass of water and then wandered. I headed to the gym first, to see if anything inspired me there. It didn’t. I stopped in my office, listening to the hum of the electronics. I paused in the back hallways, staring out over the organized mess of Manhattan.
And the whole time, my mind churned, poring over the challenges of the day, reworking the sticking points of my life to see if I could conjure a different fit. Wondering when the Cora puzzle would finally be solved and ready to triumphantly frame.
One question always returned, the fist holding me underwater:Why the fuck did she choose Eli?
My brothers had tried to hide the news from me when news of their engagement circulated around Manhattan. But there was no way of dodging a family merger like that. Not in our world. Not when everyone lived, breathed, and ate Margulis and Rossberg bullshit on the daily.
The pieces of the puzzle had never quite fit together. I’d offered her everything I had. Promised her the world. She’d said that it was never about the money. Of course her father would have cut her off. But we would have been fine.
And we wouldn’t behereright now. Hiding out from Eli. Pulling ourselves out of the stickiest mess I’d ever encountered. What sense did any of this make? It drove me nuts to board this train over and over again. It only went in a circle.Why had she chosen Eli?
Drowsiness nipped at me finally. Blessedly. I’d had my fill of the day, which meant I could lay my head down and actually drift off. Some nights, that moment never came. So I considered every night that I could yawn a success.
“No…no!”
Cora’s voice wafted into the hallway as I passed her room. It was faint, and I wondered if I’d imagined it. I slowed, listening more intently.
The air conditioning clicked to life, the low hum of cool air pouring out of the vents.
When I heard nothing else, I started toward my bedroom.
