“This is Ellie, Maddy’s mother,” she tells me. “What do you know about Sylas?”
I glance at Sylas, whose head is still propped against the window. “I know he’s Maddy’s real dad, and he’s sitting right here beside me.”
“Oh, thank god,” she breathes out with overwhelming relief. “Can you put him on the phone? I haven’t been able to get a hold of him for almost a month, and I’ve been so worried.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to wake him up first, though. Hold on.” I start to set the phone down so I can wake up Sylas when a thought occurs to me. I put the phone back to my ear. “Ellie, do you know where my mom is?” I hold my breath, fearing the worst, that she’ll tell me she’s dead.
“I do. She’s fine. She’s actually planning on contacting you as soon as we meet up with her,” she tells me. “I know she wants to get you out of the city. She had plans to do it within a couple of months from now. But now that Maddy and Finn are married and your father is the beneficiary of their lives, it’s too dangerous for you to be there. There’s a chance a war is coming, and I’m assuming she’ll want you with us. I’d like Sylas out of the city as well, so maybe you can travel together and keep an eye on each other.”
Her words are like a merry-go-round spinning out of control in my head.
A war is coming?
My father is the beneficiary of Maddy and Finn’s lives?
Maddy and Finn are married?
I had hoped that part of Theo’s story had never happened, but I was being naive.
I can’t think straight. Can’t breathe. I’m worried I’m about to tumble into a panic attack.
“Yeah… Sounds good… Let me wake up Sylas.” I can barely comprehend what I’m saying as I gently shake Sylas awake.
He’s deliriously tired as he wakes up and stares at me with glazed-over eyes.
“Ellie’s on the phone,” I manage to choke out. “She wants to talk to you.”
That wakes him up, and he grabs the phone from me. “Tell me our daughter’s okay.”
Noah catches my gaze. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“A lot of things,” I reply thickly as I ball my hands into fists, veering toward a breakdown. But I can’t do that. Not yet anyway. “But apparently, Finn and Maddy are married now, and my father owns their lives.”
“What?” Noah sputters. “How does he own their lives?
I smash my lips together as I shake my head. “I have no idea, but I’m betting my father forced them to sign a contract.”
We fall silent as we struggle to wrap our heads around it. Only a few months ago, my biggest worry was having to marry Isla. Now Finn is the one who’s been forced to marry Maddy. And poor Maddy, she’s had such a rough life and now this happens. I worry that this is my fault. If I hadn’t told her about that necklace, maybe we’d never have gone searching for why she had it and then learned she was an Everford.
Knowing my father, though, he probably had her on his radar for a while. He’s not a sporadic sort of man.
Just how long has he been keeping an eye on Maddy?
Regardless of the answer, I know one thing is for certain. With this talk of a war coming, we need to listen to Ellie and get the fuck out of the city.
CHAPTER 27
MADDISON
Gettingonto the plane goes smoothly, but flying is alarming to me. Having never been on a plane, every jolt and jostle has my adrenaline skyrocketing. Finn is sitting next to me and holds my hand the entire time. It’s nice, but a tiny part of me is worried I’m becoming too reliant on him. But I might just not be used to having someone so trustworthy in my life. It’s hard to tell after spending my entire life unable to trust the people who were supposed to be taking care of me, and this includes Ellie.
I have a ton of questions for her, but she refuses to answer them until we’re safely in the hideout home that’s located in Golden Crest Fall, a quaint town that’s secluded in the middle of the mountains and is an eight-hour car ride from the airport.
Even though the place is out in the middle of nowhere, I’m worried James and the society will find us, since we had to use our IDs to get onto the plane. Ellie, however, assures me that her and Aiden have people working for them who erased all electronic footprints of our travels. While this helps me chill out a bit, it pisses me off that Ellie clearly has this entire life I wasn’t aware of.
And I’m her daughter.
That thought is like a relentless reverberating echo inside my mind.
