Page 29 of Keeper

He’s right. Morella is the problem here, not me. Not Alex. Not even Ephraim. If she’d loosen her grip enough to let him fuck me just once, just one time on the right day, this would be put to bed. She could have him in the shadows while I hold his arm in the daylight.

But women like her, headstrong, proud women like her don’t bend. They don’t break. I know next to nothing about her except that she reached up from the gardens she built and wrapped her hands around Alex’s heart so tightly, he doesn’t care what happens to any of us. She won’t bend. She won’t break. And she won’t let him go.

I wouldn’t.

Dray leans forward to brace his elbows on his knees, eyeing me closely. “You look like you want to kill her yourself, little keeper.”

Do I?

There’s no use in denying it. It’s the clearest path to fixing my problem. He’d grieve, sure. For a while. But when the dirt settles on her coffin and his world begins again, I’d be there. Waiting. Smiling. Offering him something she never could.

A life in the open.

A real life. A real marriage. A real family.

It’s almost ironic that I’m thinking of killing someone who has brought so much life to these grounds. Like with every plant she nourished, every flower she brought to bloom, she buried a little of herself in the soil. A little of her own life, just pieces at a time waiting for this inevitable end.

Waiting for the day I’d come to finish it.

“I wouldn’t do that. I’m not like you,” I say softly. “It’s not her fault she fell in love. She didn’t ask for any of this. I can’t just kill somebody because they’re in my way.”

He stares at me a few minutes longer before he nods, sitting up straighter again with a sigh like he’s the one who’s carrying the world here. “Why do you think I killed Jake?”

“Because he was in your way. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense at all. Ephraim didn’t know you did it. Alex didn’t either. It couldn’t have had anything to do with me because you didn’t know me until after you thought you killed him the first time, so... he either got in your way or refused to give you something you wanted.”

Pulling a phone from his pocket, Draven types something out and then hands it over. “See for yourself.”

On it are photos of his family, documents of Ephraim Creed’s coming and goings, and when I meet his gaze again, he shrugs. “He was a good hacker, but my boy Damian is better. I don’t know what he planned to do with that information and I don’t really give a fuck. You should probably thank me for it, because if I had run this through my father, he would’ve just told me to cut both of those loose ends. Instead I made sure you were spared. You can keep that phone, by the way. I have others.”

I don’t give a shit about the phone.

This was happening right under my nose and I didn’t see it. I didn’t even come close to doing my job. I was trained to see the signs, to burrow my way deep enough that people let things like this slip. But I didn’t see it. I didn’t know. And if he’d have used this against Ephraim, against Alex or Draven himself? It would’ve been my fault.

“I see. I don’t have any use for the phone, though. I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“You can talk to me,” he offers. “And don’t be so hard on yourself. I have a feeling he didn’t have any use for this information yet, but he was waiting on the day. I just didn’t let that day come.”

Theo would’ve spanked me raw for missing it. Josiah would’ve cut me off for a week, and Beau would’ve starved me. My Keepers were ruthless, unforgiving. My father would’ve punished me too, in his own way. He’d have looked down his nose at me and told me to be more observant, to stop living with my head in the clouds. He’d have tsked and shook his head, then told me how disappointed in me he was. And Ephraim? I daresay he’d have had his own cruel way to handle it if he found out.

But here’s Draven, telling me not to be so hard on myself. It doesn’t feel like I deserve it.

“Why? Why stop him if you hate your dad so much?”

“Because this is what I was raised to do. Alexander is the perfect show dog, and I’m the mutt behind the scenes keeping the family protected. Either way, we’re both trained to know our place, and if the Creed dynasty falls, where does that leave me? A bastard that’s 90% sure he’s not in the will. Call it selfish if you want, I call it self-preservation. People have to have their own back when they stand alone, otherwise they’d just crumble underneath it all.”

I turn my back to him to look over the balcony. The view isn’t much from here, but it gives me something else to focus on as I feel my eyelids getting heavy. “Is that why you throw those parties? Because you feel like you’re crumbling?”

He doesn’t say anything for a few long seconds. “I guess so. The masks let us all be whoever we want to be for a little while. There’s a weightlessness to it.”

“Masks?” Turning slightly, I watch him in the shadows. “What do you mean?”

“The party is anonymous. People go there to unwind, to be no one but the animals our bodies are meant to be.” He leans forward again, looking so damn good in the moonlight I have to grip the railing tighter. “Our carnal urges and desires are released without judgment or shame. The masks make that possible.”

Possible for me, too? I... no.

I can’t.

“How often do you have them?”

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