The Knight (Endgame #2)(12)

I stand, shaking from within. “And I’m a fool?” I ask Uncle Landon softly.

He doesn’t meet my eyes. “You weren’t a fool, but you were trusting. Because your mother and your father trusted me. And you looked at me like family.”

“That wasn’t just my money you stole. It was theirs, what they had put aside for me.” The house my father built for my mother, her pride and joy. “That house.”

“I know,” he says, mournful. “I tried to save it. When you authorized payments for your father’s restitution, I slipped more money out. If you had married me when I asked, you never would have known. We could have sold the house.”

“And lived in a marriage built on lies?” And worse, a horrible substitution—because it’s really my mother he wants.

“What do you have now?” Uncle Landon demands, angry and desperate. “A million dollars! Women like you always end up on your feet, don’t you?”

“Women like me?”

“Like your mother,” he spits. “So beautiful. Everyone wanted her. But I was the only one who really knew her, who loved her. And she chose your father.”

Jealousy fills the air, sick and scented black. “How dare you. My father trusted you.”

“I know,” Uncle Landon says, his voice breaking. “I know.”

And to my horror and shock he breaks down into wrenching sobs.

“He was the fool,” Gabriel says softly.

My laugh sounds sharp, cutting me into pieces on the way out. “Don’t spare my feelings now. I know you think I’m stupid. Gullible. Blind to what’s in front of me.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you’re loyal and optimistic.”

“Either way,” I say bitterly. “The result is the same. I lost the house.”

“Did you?” Gabriel asks mildly.

“The auction,” Uncle Landon gasps. “You can bid on the house.”

Hope sinks its claws into my heart, painful and unwelcome. “I don’t have the money yet. It’s in escrow until the end of the month. And the auction is tomorrow.”

Uncle Landon rifles through the papers on his desk. “It’s still an asset, one with conditions. You can use it as a guarantee of payment as long as the bank confirms its release.” He freezes without looking up. “The guarantor would have to sign as well.”

The guarantor. That would be Gabriel Miller.

Now I know the real reason he came along. So that he could tell me no. So that he could break me just one more time. I look at him, my heart already breaking.

Except he doesn’t look at me with fake regret, with thinly veiled amusement. He doesn’t smirk and tell me that I look so beautiful when I’m shattered.

Instead he pulls out a pen, businesslike. “It will need to be notarized.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“If you want the representative of the holding company to validate an offer, it will need to be notarized.” He looks completely calm, as if he didn’t just offer me hope.

“Wait,” Uncle Landon says. “You need to think about this. The money in that escrow account is all you have left. If you spend all of it, even most of it, on the house, you won’t have anything left. How will you pay for maintenance, taxes—”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Uncle Landon gives Gabriel a brooding glance. “That’s how you got into this mess. You can take the money and build a new life for yourself. Get an apartment. Go back to college.”

My heart squeezes with the desire to have those things back. To join Harper at the parties and late night study sessions. That world seems foreign now. Gabriel wasn’t so wrong when he said it was the only place where I felt safe. The only place I felt loved.

Stay here, sweetheart. Stay small. That’s when you’re safe. Stay safe.

“No,” I say, my voice strong. “I want the house.”

“Why?” Uncle Landon shakes his head, already mourning the loss.

“Sometimes people need what they need,” Gabriel says softly. “Doesn’t matter what it costs. Doesn’t matter what they give up to get it. It’s a question of survival.”

I turn back, surprised by the gravity of his tone.

Gabriel isn’t looking at Uncle Landon. He’s staring at me, as if his words are about my virginity instead of the house. As if I’m necessary to his survival. Except that can’t be true.

Uncle Landon moves into action, appearing twenty years younger as he lunges for his phone. I only distantly hear him talking to someone, telling them to get to the office right away. Shock seems to hold my body in place, like I’m carved out of concrete at the park. And he’s the sun, perpetually shining down on me, heating me from the outside in.

“You’ll outbid me,” I whisper, clinging to my despair.

I’m not sure I can survive a second blow.

Gabriel shakes his head slowly, gaze trained on mine. “It would be a conflict of interest for me to bid on a house managed by my own holding company. A violation of our contract with the city.” His voice turns wry. “And I wouldn’t want to jeopardize my standing by doing something illegal.”

The bland note is a private joke between the two of us, who both know that he’s done a hundred illegal things, a thousand, and would do them again. But he won’t do this. That’s the promise his golden eyes make in the dank office. He would hurt me, but he wouldn’t lie to me. Not about this.