The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(83)

With a rustle of branches, a man dropped down to the snow. He held a rifle in one hand, a scope affixed to the top. His collar was turned up against the cold. “Lottie,” Milo said shakily. “Is Hadrian still alive?”

“You—what did you do?”

“I put Hadrian down,” he said, his eyes wild. “I came here as quickly as I could, Lottie, I have something to tell you—something—”

“Milo, what have you done?”

Her brother shook his head, as if to clear it. “My team told me he’d escaped from his holding cell on the plane. I saw him threatening our uncle. I put him down. Lottie, you need to know something about Lucien—”

As gently as my hammering heart would let me, I said, “You’ve made a mistake.”

He frowned, as though that’d never been said to him before. “What mistake? Is Leander all right? I admit I took a risky shot, but I’m fairly sure that I saw—”

Charlotte Holmes put her hands to her face. She was crying. “Milo,” she said. “Milo. Milo, no. No, you didn’t.”

In the distance, a car started up. There was yelling, someone crying out, Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, and then wheels on loose gravel. When I turned to look, a lone figure, a man, was standing in front of the Holmeses’ dark estate. Like someone locked out of their home, or a drifter looking for a place to spend the night.

Emma was gone. Hadrian and Phillipa—where were they?

“I—” Milo was shaking. He held the gun out in front of him. “Is August—and Hadrian—God, Lottie, I can’t do this anymore. Lucien disappeared. He disappeared. There’s no footage, no intel, no . . . I can’t keep doing this. How could I, and succeed?”

The master of the universe, asking us this question.

Holmes wrenched the rifle from his hands. Without looking down, she stripped the gun of its clip and dropped it all on the ground.

“Leander’s done,” she said. “August is dead. Is this it for you, too? Are you leaving the two of us here to pick up this mess?”

“It’s your mess,” Milo said. “Isn’t it time you did?”

I was only half-hearing it, what they were saying. In the distance, the ocean raged louder. The cold bit at my hands. August Moriarty was spread-eagled, and it wasn’t a dream, I could see the outline of his coat in the snow. I couldn’t look at them, either of them, Holmes or Holmes, two faces of the same terrible god staring out in opposite directions. Passing their judgments. Firing their guns. And the figure in front of the house—he was gone, the field empty now, and the ocean was deafening.

But it wasn’t the ocean. It was sirens, a cacophony of sirens, and by the time the red and blue lights reached the top of the drive, Charlotte Holmes and I were alone.





Epilogue


FROM: Felix M < [email protected] > TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] > SUBJECT LINE: Sorry to spoil your holiday Dear Jamie,

Well, here we go. Trying this out. One of those time-delay email tools. This should arrive around the New Year, after you’re safely home. I don’t want a fight. I don’t want to talk about this in person. So I’m taking the coward’s way out.

Most likely, we won’t see each other again. That isn’t any judgment on you; please don’t take it that way. (I know you’re taking it that way. Stop.) But I’m realizing that mine isn’t any kind of life, not even for a man that’s dead. Sitting in this cell of a room in Prague isn’t helping matters, I’m sure, but it’s more than that. I need out. The auction tonight will happen, and whatever awful thing Charlotte’s been brewing will happen, and you’ll be the collateral damage, one way or another.

How could you look at a girl like that and trust her with anything other than your life?

That isn’t me being flippant, understand. I imagine she’d do anything to keep you alive. But giving her your heart is like handing a glass figurine to a child. She’ll flip it over, peer through it like a lens. Shake it to see if it makes a sound. In the end, it will slip her hands and shatter. In the end, it’s your fault. You were the one who gave it to her.

I imagine you’re thinking, August and his terrible metaphors. I do know you’re better with words than I am. I see you scribbling in that journal, trying to put down a version of you and her that makes some sense. A story you can tell with confidence. I know what it’s like, trying to make a myth out of your life while you’re living it. But this isn’t a story. It isn’t a history. It isn’t anything other than a horrible gamble, and Jamie, I know my older brother, and you tangling yourself up in someone else’s business won’t get you anything but dead.

And if you find yourself reading this and thinking, Moriarty is being horribly condescending, you’re not my dad, etc., then think of this as a letter I should’ve written myself, years ago. Think of yourself as another version of me. And if that makes you angry, too . . . then just think of yourself, full stop.

If you can’t do that, run.

Happy New Year, Jamie,

August