I eye him for just a moment longer, but Saint goes back to doing his work as if our conversation never happened. I don’t have the energy to push him on it right now, so I take a big breath in and trudge toward the office. Without bothering to knock this time, I push the door ajar, seeing both my brother and Rowan through the crack. They both turn their heads to look at me.
Rowan’s hair is disheveled, jaw clenched and nostrils flared, the way he always looks when he’s raging inside. Cole is sitting with his head in his palms, his eyes strained at an invisible threat that haunts the four walls surrounding us. It’s a strange sight considering the fact that Cole has always been a rock for me and our family. No matter how bad things got when our father was still living at home, he never broke. Not once. But now… sitting there with his broad shoulders hunched and his brawnyforearms supporting the weight of his troubled mind sends a sharp pain through my heart.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Rowan pushes his arms off the desk he was leaning against and saunters over to me. I follow him with my eyes, afraid he’s going to tell me to go back to bed so that I don’t hear what they’re talking about. I want to be here; I want to help them in whichever way I can. But when he comes near me, he wraps one arm around the small of my back and the other behind my knees, lifting me up.
“You should’ve called out for me to bring you here, angel,” he murmurs.
I smile, grateful that he isn’t shutting me out. That he trusts me to be here with the two of them. “I can walk just fine,” I say, but let him hold me anyway.
“How are you feeling, Dove?” my brother asks.
The sound of his voice still feels foreign to my ears. I still can’t believe he’s here, back in our lives. Rowan carries me to the armchair opposite from him, then lowers me back down and places a taut kiss on top of my head. The press of his warm lips lingers.
“Fine,” I lie, not wanting to talk about my current state. “So? What’s going on?”
Neither of them says anything, and that’s how I know that whatever it is, it’s bad.
“This is about what they did to me, isn’t it?”
My question seems to take Rowan by surprise, but not Cole. Although he hasn’t said it explicitly, I think my brother knows exactly what happened to me. He leans back in his seat, watching Rowan, letting him speak first. A shared bond of pain seems to pulse between the two of them.
Rowan’s voice is raw as he says, “Salister called.”
Nausea swamps me, and if I were standing, I know I’d take a step back. That name… that face… Salister’s eyes gleam in the darkness of my mind, promising nothing but horrors and destruction and the death of everything I’ve ever loved in this world.
“A-And?” I ask.
Rowan meets my gaze. “We know why he took you. And what he wants from us.”
Before I get to ask more, the sound of cars approaching the house steals our attention. I brace myself on the armrests and try to stand up, but Rowan calmly tells me there’s no need for that. Minutes later, when the president and the First Lady walk into the room, I jolt upright anyway.
“Mr. President,” I gasp, still not used to seeing him, to seeingbothof them so casually, like we’re old friends getting together for a glass of wine. My face burns as I look down at my pink pajama pants and Rowan’s T-shirt I put on. But before I have time to feel the depth of my shame, sweet, sophisticated perfume enters my nostrils as I feel Cam’s arms snake around me.
She pulls me close into a warm embrace, muttering, “Oh my God, Dove! You’re okay. Oh, my God…”
I hug her back, my nerves dissipating when I’m hit with the informality of her demeanor. She might be the First Lady, but she’s every bit human and shows it every chance she gets.
“I didn’t know you were coming.” I smile, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I would’ve… changed.”
She laughs softly, but a sob interrupts that laugh. “You’ve just been through hell and back, and you’re worried about changing your clothes for us?” She pulls back, taking my hands in hers as she stares me down with tears in her eyes. “Dove, I am so,sosorry. You have no idea—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, sniffling. “This isn’t your fault, Cam. None of it. We don’t get to choose our parents.”
Based on our previous conversations, I now know how hard this must be for her. Salister is her father. And everyone she’s ever loved has been under his thumb her entire life. Cam falls silent, her ashy green eyes looking vacant for just a second before she blinks and life returns to them. Her lips press together in a faint smile, as if to please me, as if to make me believe she agrees with what I said.Pretending is part of what we do, she once told me. I make a mental note to call her out for it later, if or when we have time to talk more. She has nothing to feel guilty about.
Next to us, the president—Maddox—and my brother greet each other again for the first time in years. Rowan steps in, and the energy in the room shifts completely. They stand tall and in control, all three of them, their bond and their power pulsing around us like the steady drumbeat of war. Cam and I watch as they smile faintly at each other, the first sign of hope either of us has seen in a long, long time.
“Please,” Rowan says, breaking the silence. “Have a seat. It’s gonna be a long night.”
nineteen
Dove
“Two things,” Rowan announces, interlacing his fingers and placing them on the table in front of him.
He’s calm now, unlike earlier when I walked into the office. The news must’ve been really fresh. But now that it’s settled in, he can think clearly. They all can.
