♦ ♦ ♦
I do not go quietly, but make as big of a scene as possible as Ty drags me up the stairs. My mother tries to help me at one point, but my father pulls her away. Ty finally manages to get both of my arms behind my back and he pushes me down the hall to my room.
“I’ll tell everyone what you did,” I threaten over my shoulder.
“Really? And then what? When your father has disowned you, where are you going to go? Do you think the Latsis family will take in a disgraced Jordan girl?” He laughs cruelly. “If you think they’re so much better than us, maybe you should try. Go see for yourself.”
“Is this how you’re going to walk me down the aisle, too?” I ask, digging my heels into the carpet.
He isn’t fazed, just pushes harder. I trip, stumbling forward, and slam against my closed door. “If that’s what it takes. Because unlike you,” he pauses, opens the door, and pushes me into my room, “I’d do anything for my family.”
The door slams behind him. I throw myself against it but I’m too late. I hear a key turn in the old-fashioned lock, which has been disabled on the inside. I bang my hand against the door and scream until I’m hoarse, but no one comes. Finally giving up, I slide down the door and hug my knees to my chest, letting the sobs come.
How did things go so wrong so fast? I thought I was being smart about it, putting everything in place before facing my family, but I did it all wrong. I was stupid and naive, and now, I’ve lost Theo. I’ve lost my freedom. I’ve lost my job. I’ve lost everything, all because I was a coward.
I sit there as the sun goes down and plunges the room into darkness. A thunderstorm passes over, rattling the windows. The rain slows to a drizzle and then stops. The house beyond the door is silent, but there’s a weird tapping noise coming from somewhere. I push up onto my knees and look around.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The window. I rush to my balcony and carefully slide open the door in case Ty is in the garden below. But the garden is dark, lit only by the pool lights. Rain has left the air humid and hot.
“Hello?” I call, my heart in my throat. I saw Theo lying there, saw the blood, but Ty said he wasn’t sure. Maybe, just maybe…
But then a small figure takes shape in the dark, and I find myself looking down at Valentina. “Daphne, oh, thank God, you’re okay.”
“Valentina? What are you doing here?”
She looks around, then scurries across the pool deck to just below my balcony. I squat down to hear her better. “He’s alive, Daph.”
“Theo?”
“Yes.”
My chest aches and I have to cover my mouth with my hand to hold back my sob. If he’s alive, then not all hope is lost. “How do you know?”
She sniffles and looks up at me, her eyes swollen from crying. “This is all my fault.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not.”
“I told him. Ty found me, and I panicked, and I was scared. I told him, and now people are dead, and you’re locked away—”
“It’s not your fault,” I interrupt her, my voice a harsh whisper. “If anything, I should have told him so it didn’t come down to you. I should have stood up to my parents a long time ago. Now, tell me about Theo.”
“The police are looking for him,” she says. “I know where he is.” She looks at the door again and we both go silent. After a few seconds, she says, “Can you come down?”
I look over my shoulder at my locked door. “I’m locked in.” Then, I look at the garden and the shimmering blue water of the pool. It’s a crazy idea, but I used to do it all the time. Granted, it’s been twenty years since the last time, but if today isn’t about taking risks, I don’t know what it is. “Get ready to run,” I tell her.
“What?” Valentina asks, but I’m already taking my shoes off and pulling myself up onto the balcony railing.
“As soon as they hear the splash, Ty will be out here. We have to get over the wall before he is.”
“Holy shit,” Valentina curses, moving back. “Daph, I don’t think—”
But I don’t get to hear what she thinks, because I launch myself into a perfect dive toward the pool. The first time I did this, I was seven and Ty dared me to. After that, it became a party trick for my girlfriends. But for some reason, it’s a lot scarier now. Thankfully, I hit the water cleanly, and within seconds, surface. Valentina is there, grabbing my hand and pulling me out.
“Go, go, go,” I whisper to her.
Light floods the garden just as we slip behind the bushes. Valentina shows me where the brick is crumbling in the wall, creating hand and footholds. I climb quickly, my wet clothes creating rivulets down the brick. Once I’m at the top, I turn and pull her over.
“Hello?” I hear Ty’s voice just as we drop down on the other side. “Who’s out here?”
“What is it Ty?” my mother asks faintly, probably from just outside the door.
I imagine Ty looking up at my window. He’ll see the open balcony door, the ripples in the pool. Hopefully, the wet concrete disguised my wet footprints. “Shit!” Ty says, right on cue.
Valentina and I don’t wait around to hear more. We run down the sidewalk toward her Mustang, which is parked smartly in the back alley, leap into it, and pull away.
Chapter Ten
Theodore
“You’re lucky I’m not completely reformed, you fucking idiot,” Andrej gripes as he uses his access code to open the back door of the Oakwood Club.
“I told you, I didn’t do anything,” I say, following him inside.
He pauses and looks back at me. He’s as put-together as always, his blond hair tousled into submission and his blue eyes steely. “You married Daphne Jordan.”
“Okay. I did that.”
“The one person put on this world that you should have avoided at all costs.”
I scrunch up my nose. “I couldn’t do that.” I feel numb and broken, but that, at least, I know is the truth, in spite of everything. My marriage to Daphne didn’t cause this. What happened today was a long time coming. Mac’s fault. Ty’s fault. My fault. But not Daphne’s.
With a roll of his eyes, Andrej turns and leads me down the hall. We’re in the Oakwood Club’s dungeon. I’m not a frequent visitor, but I recognize it—the stark hallways, the dim lights, the closed doors. Privacy being of the utmost important, it’s probably one of the most secure places in the city. He opens one of the doors and pushes me inside.
“Stay here. Don’t touch anything, and don’t fucking leave. Not until we figure this out.”
I nod. “Got it.”
He shuts the door, and I turn to survey the room. Four-poster bed, some kind of weird bench, a wooden X hanging on the wall. I open a drawer and shut it just as quickly when I get an eyeful of what looks like riding crops and whips. Jesus Christ. I always knew Andrej was freaky, but imagining his goody two-shoes girlfriend down here with him…he’d probably poke my eyes out for the images running across my brain right now.
It isn’t until I sit down on the edge of the bed and take a deep breath that the heavy weight of sadness presses back down on my chest. I’ve been so busy running, trying to stay alive and hidden, that I haven’t let myself process everything.