Page 24 of Goldrage
“You’ve lost your fucking mind. And I’m too tired to deal with you. My mother will?—”
“Bring her out too.” The words tumble out as I widen my stance, preparing myself for what’s about to happen. “And Valentine, if he’s here. Everyone. I have something to say that all of you will want to hear.”
His eyes narrow to slits. Suspicion bleeds through his expression like ink through water. “You think you can come here and make demands when?—”
“Aren’t you bored, Julian?”
The question catches him off-guard. I see it in the tiny flinch of his right eye, the way his breath pauses for just a second.
I take the opening, letting the ghost of my old smile play at my lips. This smile used to make his knees weak. Now he barely reacts. “All that responsibility, all thosemeetings. Where’s the danger? The excitement?” I tilt my head, studying him like he’s a puzzle I’m trying to solve. “When’s the last time someone surprised you and you actually enjoyed yourself? Hell, I don’t think you’ve been to The Den in months.”
Something sparks in those dead eyes. Curiosity. Maybe even hunger. He’s currently playing pretend but, deep down, Julian hates this life. He just doesn’t yet understand there’s a way out.
“Five minutes,” I continue, keeping my voice light despite the hurricane in my chest. “That’s all I’m asking.”
He blinks at me, long and slow. I count my heartbeats—one, two, three, four—before he moves.
He steps aside, one arm sweeping toward the door in a mockery of courtesy. “Five minutes,” he agrees. His voice drops, carrying the weight of a death sentence. “Then we finish what should have been finished weeks ago.”
I nod and move inside ahead of him.
The foyer swallows me whole. The glassy eyes of dead things watch from every wall—deer and wolves and bears, all frozen in their final moments of terror. The marble beneath my feet gleams like glass, reflecting distorted versions of myself on its surface. Everything smells like leather and old wood and chemicals. Formaldehyde, maybe.
Julian’s rumbling voice echoes off the vaulted ceiling as he speaks to a guard. “Get my mother, Valentine, and Adrian. Tell them a… guest is here to see them.”
My fingers find the edge of a small mahoganyside table and I steady myself. The wood grain beneath my palm triggers something—a memory that isn’t quite a memory. I’ve never been in this house before. I’ve never seen these particular trophies or touched this specific table. But something about this place and the way things are laid out… the way the light falls through the tall windows…
It’s like déjà vu’s twisted sister. Familiar but wrong.
Weird. Why does it feel like I’ve been here before?
Footsteps thunder down the staircase. My hands won’t stop shaking. I clasp them together, then release them, then clasp them again.
Valentine appears first.
The moment he sees me, his entire body sags. Relief and guilt crash across his dark tan face until I can’t tell which one’s winning. He takes three quick steps toward me, arms already open for an embrace?—
I shake my head. One sharp movement that stops him cold.
“I know you hate me,” he says.
Despite everything, his voice makes emotions gather in my chest. He sounds so broken and raw.
He continues on, “But I’m so happy you’re okay. I regret what I did, and you don’t have to forgive me. But you’re still my daughter. You’ll always be my daughter. I love you.”
My defiance cracks just a hairline. His eyes—those dark eyes that taught me to shoot, that watched me grow up, that kept so many secrets—shine with moisture. He means it. Every word.
But meaning it doesn’t erase the betrayal, and itdoesn’t undo the knife he planted in my back while calling it love.
So I say nothing. I just hold his gaze until he looks away.
I glance at Julian, who’s observing with detached interest. My eyes move back to the staircase. But the next person doesn’t come down then. I hear the ding of an elevator, then squeaking. Adrian appears from around a corner. He’s in a wheelchair that’s being pushed by Bianca.
I grip the table I’m next to tighter; if it wasn’t here I worry my knees might buckle.
My Adrian. Alive. Breathing.
He looks pale and weak, but he’s sitting upright. And these goddamn assholes have chained him to the wheelchair. Cuffs wrap around his wrists like silver snakes, binding him. More chains secure his ankles. They’ve turned him into a caged animal.
