“My grandmother,” he begins, voice low and cold, “she told me stories about this place. About this cabin. About the man who broke her. The family who stole my mother from her.”
His eyes flare with something darker than rage. Sharper, somehow. It’s like I can feel it crawling across my skin. “She told me about the cellar, whereyourgrandmother, Hazel, locked her away. Made her wait in the dark. In the cold. Alone, for hours.”
He stops pacing and turns to face me fully. His voice drops low and dangerous like distant thunder rolling in. “She told me about the tunnels she searched for but never found. She warned me about the infamous Foxglove. And all about you, of course.The Wilde women.Hiding out here with your money and your power. Your secrets.”
A crude smile twists his lips as he steps closer. “My grandmother may not have found the tunnels, but I remembered her stories well enough. Once I got inside, it wasn’t hard to find them. And after you gave my uncle a key to watch over the place,I only had to steal it and make a copy to start coming here whenever I wanted.”
He leans in, voice dripping with venom. “It was all going well. I could come here, show clients around. And then…youcame along.”
“You had no right to be here,” I say, keeping my voice steady despite the fury in my gut.
“No right?” He scoffs, rubbing a hand over his chin. “This house is mine as much as it is yours. It belonged to my mother, too.”
“Violet,” Mom whispers, voice barely audible. “Your mother was Violet?”
He jerks his chin, eyes lighting up. “So you do remember.”
“You’re wrong. Foxglove has never belonged to men,” Mom spits back at him, fists tight at her sides. “It would never have belonged to Violet because it wasn’t Charles’s to give away. It passed from my mother to me. From mother to daughter. My mother did what she had to do to protect me. If Violet was your mother, she did it to protect her, too. And Nancy. Without my mother, you might not be here at all.”
I stare at her, stunned. My mind scrambles to keep up. “You remember Violet?”
“Bits and pieces,” she admits, eyes flicking back to EJ. My chest twists with confusion. “It doesn’t change anything. You’ve wasted your time. Foxglove is not yours, and it never will be. Long before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye, men have tried to take this house from us. Every single one has failed.”
Mom takes my hand.
I’ve always believed Foxglove has a heart. I don’t mean it as a metaphor or something poetic and beautiful, but something real. A beating thing buried beneath the bones of wood and stone and rot.
As a child I could feel her breathing, and as I stand here now, I swear I feel it again.
This time, it’s beating in erratic, wild tandem with mine as I watch Lewis bleed out on the floor, waiting for this argument to end.
“He’s going to die. Please stop this,” I beg, pointing to Lewis on the floor. “You don’t want this. It isn’t worth it. Please.”
Next to him, Taylor sobs silently, one hand pressed to the bleeding wound in his back, the other—just as bloody—covering her pale face, her open mouth. She looks like she might pass out.
EJ leans back, his free hand clasping the other wrist at his waist. He looks pleased with himself. “Sure. All you have to do is…let me have the place. I’ve already got the papers drawn up. Sign them, and you’ll be free to go.”
I hesitate, looking at Mom, searching for any hint of what she’s thinking.
He leans back on his heels, then bounces forward impatiently. “Come on. Just a little signature and all of this is over. One signature, and your bad karma?” He snaps his fingers, as if to saypoof.“Gone.”
Mom’s eyes narrow.
“It’s the least you can do, and we both know it. I don’t care what stupid little rules you think you have. This place should be mine after everything you’ve done.” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Your family, you just take and take andtake. My grandmother is back in this place she hates because she’s sick and needs my uncle to take care of her. My mother already died—poor and hungry and alone. All while you sat here on your millions, on what should’ve been hers. On what should be mine.” He jabs a finger against his chest.
“No,” Mom snaps. “The house is Wilde. No one else’s. Violet was my father’s, but she was not ours, even though we loved her.I’m sorry to hear what happened to her, I truly am, but this is not the way to get justice. It’s not the way to make her proud.”
“Well then.” He raises the gun slowly, pointing it at her, one corner of his mouth fighting a smile. “I guess you can either sign the papers…orleave the place to your husband in death. The choice is yours.” His eyes dart to me, his hands following until the gun points directly at my chest. “But first…”
My breath catches in my throat, pulse pounding, and then—Taylor.
She moves like lightning, the fire poker held high in her hands. With a crack that echoes through the cabin, she slams it down, the metal colliding with the top of EJ’s head.
The sound of wind fills my ears, drowning out everything else.
I watch in slow motion as he stumbles backward, dizzy and disoriented. The gun slips from his hand and clatters to the floor. His head slams into the carved stone mantel—right where our name is etched: WILDE.
His blood paints the E.
