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I should’ve seen this coming.
Because this is the red line.Thisis the thing we can’t come back from. Once she has this last piece, everything burns. For all I’ve told Lily, and all I’ve done to her, and all we’ve done together, she’s still innocent.
She doesn’t know how we connect.
I close my eyes against another barrage of memories. Photos in my hands. Gabriel clutching my shirt. Remy’s eyes in the dark.Jameson? Did Mom and Dad look like they were sleeping when they died? Do they look like they’re sleeping now?
“Lily.” Her energy shifts at the sound of her name. The silence tenses. Fuck me. I hate this. “I swear. You don’t want to know.”
I open my eyes. Lily’s eyes, the color of new green shoots, linger on my face, her mouth in a sweet, determined line. This is how she looked when she got into her disasters. This is how she looks when she’s preparing for law school two months in advance. This is how she looks when there’s a problem to solve. A crime scene to clean up. She can’t fix this one. It’s wrecked forever.
“No.” She’s soft, but firm, and it doesn’t matter that she’s wearing a bedsheet. Lily’s collected. “I really do. Tell me what you left out.”
Her focus shifts. Lily’s still looking at me, but she’s also looking at the air between us, like the story I told her is hanging there like a law school outline only visible to her. It hurts my chest to recognize this expression. Mason and Gabriel have taken more than one photo of me with my face like this, looking over a property for Phoenix. Thinking of Phoenix turns the hurt into an ache. Thinking of my brothers and Remy turns it into a stabbing pain. I exhale as much of it out as I can while Lily scans through her memories.
“You couldn’t stay at your house, because the consortium attached the debt from that development to your parents, and made their estate liable.”
Lily hasn’t phrased it as a question, but it feels wrong to stand here like a silent asshole. “Yeah.”
She cocks her head. “Your parents were wealthy enough to join an investment consortium. There’s no way they got that far without estate planning.”
“No. They planned.”
“Then they would’ve shielded their estate from interference like that. If you dad was anything like you—”
A short, wild laugh slips out. “Now’s not the time for jokes.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “Where do you work? When you’re not kidnapping women.”
“This was a one-off.”
“Where do you work, Jameson August Hill?”
Fuck it. I’m tired. Tired from a chronic lack of sleepandtired of hiding. I don’t hide here. Lily’s going to figure it out no matter what I do.
“I worked at my brother’s real estate company.”
“Worked?”
“I doubt he’ll welcome me back to my VP position after—” I gesture to the cabin at large. “All this comes out.”
“And his company is…”
“Phoenix Enterprises.”
Lily rolls her eyes, a brief flicker toward the ceiling. “See? You’re smart and capable enough to earn a VP position at amassivereal estate company. Phoenix is worth billions. Everyone knows that.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of a little thing called nepotism.”
She purses her lips. “How long have you been a VP?”
“Got the promotion last week. I started on Monday.”
Lily doesn’t blink for for fifteen full seconds. “Okay, my point stands. If your dad was anything likeyou, he might’ve been spontaneous in some areas, but he wouldn’t leave his family open to threat from poor estate planning. He would never have used his personal assets as collateral for his business unless the business was in dire straits.”
“It wasn’t.” It was doing so well, in fact, that Mason was obsessed with re-creating that success. He wanted every penny from our father’s businessandour parents’ estate back. Mason wasn’t willing to lose anything to those motherfuckers. He even went and hired a coach to start running again last fall. “My parents had money. His company was doing well. Phoenix is as massive as it is because Mason learned from our dad.”
“I could understand losing the business. If your father put his business up for collateral, it would have been liable for debt the consortium accrued, obviously depending on the contracts and structure. That’s, like, the whole point of businesses. They protect personal assets from seizures.”
