The Knight (Endgame #2)(51)

A shiver runs through me, because it’s like he sees her standing where I am.

Am I fated to follow her footsteps to the end?

“And you,” I say, turning to Nina. “So determined to make your love affair more than it was. I know how painful it is to love a person who doesn’t return it, but that doesn’t give you any special right to them. She made her choice.”

Nina closes her eyes against my words, shaking her head. A moan of grief escapes her. It turns into a cough that forces her to sit in the nearest chair with her daughter’s help.

Charlotte shoots me a worried look. “I need to get her home.”

I swallow hard, turning to face my father. “And whatever happened the night she died, you had already failed her. She told you she was afraid, and what did you do? Dismiss her. Deny her.”

“She was crazy. What would you have had me do?”

“Believe her. That’s what.” I shake my head, desperate to make him understand. Because there’s only one way someone got those pictures of me—close-ups of my face and body, times when I was naked and unaware. Even sleeping.

I pick up a paperweight made of stone, the shape of a king piece. I gave it to my father for his birthday a few years ago. With a wild swing it slams into the wall. Plaster sprays from the blow, exposing deeper layers of white and the hint of a shadowy space.

Another swing, and more of the plaster falls away. Dust falls around me like rain.

“Christ,” Gabriel says, deftly taking the king from me.

“She heard it talking to her,” I tell him, out of breath. “The house.”

Understanding lights his eyes. Whatever demons chased my mother, they were real. Even fifteen years ago they had plenty of audio devices that could be hidden. And more importantly they had secret cameras. The kind of cameras that could capture me in private moments.

Gabriel glances at the statue as if judging its weight, its strength. And then he smashes it into the wall, making more of a dent than I could. I take a step back, making room, blocking the spray of plaster from hitting Daddy. He failed my mother, but he was still my father.

Damon Scott strolls into the room, expression only mildly curious. “Is this some kind of renovation reality show? Because our ratings will be amazing.”

Gabriel sends him a dark look. “Are you going to make jokes or are you going to help?”

Damon opens his mouth, surely to answer with the former, but then seems to think better of it. He joins Gabriel as they pull away more of the wall with their hands.

A black cord appears, something rubbery in Gabriel’s hands. He pulls on it, and I realize it’s a wire. He yanks hard, dragging a seam through the middle of the wall. The house is coming apart, torn piece by piece by the man I trusted to hold it together. I can’t fault him, though. A puzzle needs to be solved. A game needs to be played.

A house of cards needs to come crashing down.

And then the cord snaps taut, unable to release any more. Damon does the honors, pulling something black and square from the wall. A speaker? A camera? Maybe both.

“Fuck,” Gabriel mutters, digging away more Sheetrock. The darkness goes too deep. No corresponding wall on the other side, at least not for a while, past the triangle of light from this room. Why is there so much space?

I take a step closer, horror weighing me down. There’s a room here. A small room. On the floor I can see more wires. It might be innocuous space, a quirk of old house design, except for the stool sitting inside, old food wrappers piled in a corner. And on the other side of the wall… My mind flinches away from the realization.

That’s my bedroom.





Chapter Thirty-Three





Someone moves past me. My father hobbles closer, an expression of deep fury on his face. “What the hell is that?”

I can’t doubt the sincerity of his outrage, but it doesn’t help to know my father wasn’t involved. Someone had a front-row seat to my room—when I believed I was alone, when I changed my clothes. When I touched myself in bed at night.

This is what my mother sensed, the darkness closing in around her.

And now it’s around me, strangling me where I stand. My stomach flips over, the champagne roiling like lava inside. Daddy leans against the wall, staring into the gaping hole.

“She was telling the truth,” he whispers, regret ripping through his voice.

Then it’s too much to hold back. I turn to the marble fireplace, wretching. I haven’t eaten enough to fully vomit, but that only makes it worse, my stomach heaving against nothing.

“Who did this?” The question is quiet, but the entire room turns toward the authority in Gabriel’s tone. There’s no doubt that the guilty party will suffer under his hand. His glittering gaze scans the room, falling from my father to Nina Thomas to Uncle Landon.

They stare back at him, a mix of guilt and condemnation.

“All of them loved my mother,” I say, falling against the cool stone, pressing my cheek to it.

Gabriel shakes his head slowly. “All of them failed her.”

Instead I hear in his voice, all of them failed you. And the way he looks at me, his jaw tight, his body thrumming with barely leashed violence, he thinks he failed me, too.

“It might not be someone in this room,” Damon says, dark with meaning.

My father trembling with the effort to remain upright, even with the cane to lean on. Nina, eyes filled with tears. Uncle Landon, inexpressible sorrow.