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“It’s time we go public. You can’t be tied up with a trial.” I almost choked on the words, thinking about Crew. “And the families need to know about our partnership. It will send the right message to our allies, but more importantly to our enemies. We don’t have time to come up with a better strategy. This has to be our strategy. We tell them all tomorrow.”
Kimble pressed his lips together. Even if something had brought them closer today, he wasn’t going to support this. He tipped back a full shot of whiskey. I held out my glass. He filled it.
The bourbon burned going down, but right now it was better than feeling the pain of losing Crew.
Chapter27
Knight
Neither of us got any sleep that night. I twisted my arm around Kennedy, holding her close to me under the sheet. I needed her warmth. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Crew. I opened them and would hear Seraphina crying.
Watching Seraphina suffer gutted me. She had shut me out, turning to Kennedy instead. Kennedy convinced me the only thing I could do to help her now was to talk to Louis Castille tomorrow. If that brought my sister peace. I would do it. She deserved more than to be tolerated. It wasn’t that I didn’t see how she was treated, or I didn’t know that it had started the day our father signed her engagement contract. She wanted action faster than I was willing to act. It was hard to push past my old habits. Strategies. Plans. Control.
Watching Crew die taught me I had no fucking control. He was right there, and he died anyway. Right next to me. I pushed up on the side of the bed and swung my legs to the side. My feet hit the cold floor.
“Hey, are you okay?” Kennedy stretched across the bed, slipping her arms around my chest. She kissed my shoulder. Her hair brushed against my back like a cascading curtain.
“I keep playing it over and over. We could have gotten him out.” I shook my head.
“You and Kimble found him. What happened after that was out of your hands. You were ambushed.” She guided my jaw to pivot in her direction. I still hadn’t shaved. I would have to correct that before I spoke to Louis. “It wasn’t your fault.” She nuzzled into the side of my neck. “It wasn’t. I know it wasn’t.”
“Will Seraphina ever forgive me?”
“She will, and I don’t believe for a minute that she blames you. She has to grieve. And we have to get her through it. She can stay here as long as she needs to.”
“I should move her to my apartments.”
“Maybe we should let her decide where she wants to live,” she suggested.
I exhaled, dropping Kennedy’s hands from my body. I needed air. I didn’t want to talk about what was ahead for my sister. I could only see a bleak and ugly future. She deserved the opposite. She’d always been the light and happiness in our home growing up. I could barely stand to think about how wounded she was with Crew’s death.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I think I’ll read over the files on the merger.”
“You’re going to work?” She stared at me.
“I have to do something I can’t sleep. I’ll be downstairs.” I left her bed. I realized how cold everything suddenly was, but I deserved it tonight. Wherever Crew was, he’d never feel warmth again. I wasn’t ready to accept that. I walked out of Kennedy’s room, doubting my every step down to the first floor.
* * *
I fellasleep in a leather chair in the library. When I awakened the sun was up and my neck hurt like hell. I rubbed the side of my shoulder to try to work the knot out. I ran upstairs to Kennedy’s apartment, but she was gone.
“Where is she?” I asked Seraphina when I found her in the kitchen.
“She went to the police station. Kimble took her,” she explained.
I slammed my hand on the counter. “I should be there. I told her I didn’t want her to go alone.”
“No, you shouldn’t. It’s something she has to do on her own. Can you imagine if you walked in to speak with the investigators with her? Bad idea.”
“How are you this morning? I asked. Her eyes were puffy. There was a piece of toast on her plate she hadn’t touched.
“I’m not anything,” she answered. “Nothing.”
My elbows leaned into the granite countertops. “Have you reached out to our mother?” I asked. “Have you heard from her?”
“No. I don’t want to talk to her.” The light in Seraphina’s eyes had been extinguished. I wondered how long it would take to come back, if it ever would.
