“We don’t even know if Silas is actually planning anything.”
“That’s what I’m going to find out, and based on this text, I’m sure he’s dying to tell me. Stay with Peyton. Text if you need me. That's all that matters now."
“Be careful.”
I head for the east wing, toward whatever trap Silas has waiting, and hope that this time, I can talk him out of a scheme that will destroy the Delano name forever.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen (revised)
PEYTON
I can't breathe.
The ballroom is too hot, too crowded, too full of people who look at me like I'm a curiosity instead of a person. Helena's talking—something about security protocols, about getting me out of here safely, about how her organization will protect me now that Blake's proven himself untrustworthy.
Yeah, I didn’t have to tell her. She could tell by the look on my face.
But I can't process any of it. Can't think past the roaring in my ears, the way my chest feels like it's caving in, the absolute certainty that everything I thought I knew was a lie.
Blake knew my mother.
My mother asked him for help.
He sent her away to die.
And he wasn’t ever going to tell me.
"Peyton." Helena's voice cuts through the noise. "Are you listening? Now that Edmund knows where you stand, we need to move you somewhere secure."
"I need a minute.” The words come out strangled as I start moving toward my destination. "I need some air."
"The terrace is too exposed?—"
"I don't care." I'm already moving toward the doors, toward the cold, toward anything that isn't this suffocating room full of lies and dangerous men. "I need out. Now."
Helena follows, along with two portly women I vaguely recognize as members of the Frost Society. They flank me as I push through the terrace doors into winter that hits like a slap.
The cold helps. Clears my head enough to think, to process, to start putting together pieces that should have been obvious from the beginning.
Blake's guilt. His desperate need to protect me. The way he looked at me sometimes like he was seeing a ghost.
He wasn't protecting me because he cared. He was protecting me because he owed my mother a debt he could never repay.
"Peyton." Helena's beside me now, coat draped over my shoulders. "Talk to me. What exactly did Edmund tell you about Mr. Delano?”
"The truth. Finally." I grip the railing, knuckles white. "Blake knew my mother. She came to him for help three years ago, and he turned her away."
Helena's quiet for a moment, processing. "Did he tell you why?"
"Does it matter? She asked for help, and he refused. Three months later, she was dead." Tears are freezing on my cheeks. I don't bother wiping them away. "He's been lying to me since the moment we met.”
"Men like Blake carry their failures like anchors," Helena says quietly. "They let past mistakes define their present choices. It doesn't excuse the lie, but it might explain it."
"I don't want explanations. I want—" What do I want? My mother back? The last week erased? To never have met Blake Delano and fallen for a man who would have lied to me for fucking ever?
"You want justice," Helena finishes. "For your mother. For yourself. For every woman this town has crushed under the weight of the ruthless men in this town.”
