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“I’m so sorry, girl.” I pick up the tiny kitten and settle her back in beside Eli’s sleeping head. I stand at the window, sucking in breath after breath, trying to disgorge the nightmare from behind my eyelids.
But there’s no getting rid of it. Because my nightmare is my reality.
I boiled Alec LeMarque to death last night.
Every time I close my eyes, he screams inside my skull, the way he screamed inside the bull.
I don’t regret it. Not for a single fucking second. What a way to spend my last night of freedom.
Because the real nightmare is about to begin.
Grace’s story will hit the media this morning, and it will burn my life to ashes. I’ll be shoved back into the media circus I lived through when Felix died. My life won’t be my own until the media drags all of my father’s sordid deeds across the coals.
He deserves every bit of the shit that’s about to be flung his way, but it feels like history repeating itself – too much like last time, and last time ended up with my mother floating in our swimming pool.
Back then, during Felix’s trial, I only had one person left on this earth I cared about, and she left me. This time, I have Claudia, the guys, Grace, George, Yara, even Tiberius and Ms. Drysdale. I have a real family. And the thought of losing them makes me sick.
Last night when I watched the brazen bull glow, when Alec’s screams scoured my soul clean, I wished they were my father’s screams instead.
There’s still time. But let the press pick the meat from his bones first.
I go downstairs to Howard Malloy’s gym, lock the monkeys in their pen, and run on the treadmill until my legs wobble and I can’t hold myself up any longer. I deliberately don’t turn on the TV or look at my phone. Maybe I’ll be able to get a few blissful hours of ignorance before I have to deal with this new wave of bullshit.
Fat chance. When I head upstairs to the kitchen, Gabriel has the news blaring. The others sit around the table, glued to their phones. Every station, every paper is abuzz about Grace’s article. “…residents of Emerald Beach have woken up to an exposé that’s turned their world upside down. The beloved Senator Marlowe – who won his seat for his tough stance on organized crime – has been unmasked accepting dirty money from the billionaire Howard Malloy to fund illegal performance-enhancing drugs – the very same drugs that killed his son, Felix Marlowe. Following Felix Marlowe’s death, Senator Marlowe sued Malloy in civil court, all the while fabricating evidence that extricated himself from blame, and our sources indicate he also put out a hit through the notorious Dio family for—”
“Turn that shit off,” I growl. But as I reach for the coffee pot, I catch a glimpse of my father’s face as he’s led from our house in handcuffs. Something like happiness twists in my stomach, pulling my facial muscles in directions I’m not familiar with.
“Look at that.” Gabriel grins. “Noah’s actually smiling.”
“They arrested him already?” I grab the phone from his hand. The camera scans our house as armed police swarm through the front door. The DEA is there with drug-sniffing dogs, and the FBI. Holy shit, this is big. Grace, you’re amazing. You blew this wide open. Maybe it’ll save another athlete from ending up like Felix. The announcer continues her commentary in a chipper voice. ”—, while the body found inside the house—”
My heart sinks. Body? What body?
Everyone has gone silent, except the reporter, who keeps on talking as if her next words aren’t going to ruin my life. Her voice has become a vacuous siren, a witch’s wail.
Eli grabs his keys from the table and tugs my arm. “Let’s go.”
I don’t remember the car ride over, or how we talked our way inside the secure perimeter. The next thing I know, I’m marching up the marble steps toward the gaping front door just as the paramedics wheel out a tiny, frail body strapped on a stretcher, an oxygen mask pressed over her face.
Grace.
My whole world stops.
Not Grace.
Please, no.
I can’t lose her, too.
She was supposed to be with her friend, she promised us she was safe.
“What happened to her?” Eli demands.
“We don’t know yet, kid,” the paramedic says as she shoves him out the way. “We found her in a bedroom upstairs. She wasn’t breathing. We think she might’ve overdosed on something. We’ve given her oxygen and restarted her heart, but until we know what she’s taken, there might not be much we can do.”
“I’m her son,” I choke out. “I’m coming to the hospital.”
He helps me into the van. Claws climbs up beside me. The ambulance screams as we tear out of the driveway, but I don’t know if I’m hearing the siren or the screaming inside my head.
