We both stop at the threshold.
Seeing what’s in the Holloway vault, I know… Jessa doesn’t need me anymore. She never truly needed me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jessa
From floor to ceiling, the vault is filled with gold bars, platinum bars, precious stones, and jewelry.
I stand in the doorway, unable to move. The gold bars are stacked in neat pyramids on the floor, resting on plush burgundy rugs that look like they were woven centuries ago but haven’t aged a day. Platinum bars sit beside them in the same arrangement. There are hundreds of bars. I don’t know how to count this kind of wealth. I don’t have a frame of reference for it.
The walls are lined with shelves which are filled with glass boxes. Inside the boxes sit precious stones: diamonds, topazes, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. Some of the gems are loose, resting on velvet cushions, others are set in jewelry – necklaces draped across silk, tiaras propped on stands, rings, earrings, and brooches.
Between the shelves, paintings hang in gilded frames. They’re old, the sort that belong in museums behind glass and rope barriers. The canvases have darkened with age, but the colors are still vivid and alive. I don’t recognize any of them. They’ve been locked in this vault for so long that the world forgot they existed or never knew about them. Sculptures are mounted on stone pedestals. A woman’s torso in pale marble, a bronze head with curls carved so finely they look soft enough to touch, a child reaching upward with both hands, fingers spread wide.
Against the far wall, there are cases filled with coins. I can’t see the details from here, but I expect them to be rare and ancient. Wooden crates hold rolled parchments. On a separate shelf, books with cracked leather bindings lean against one another, and I’m certain they’re first editions. Illuminated manuscripts, maybe, texts that scholars would kill to study, and collectors would pay fortunes to own.
I take a few steps inside the room and collapse. I fold forward, pressing my hand over my mouth. The vault is impossibly full, and I sit in the middle of it like a child dropped into someone else’s dream.
This is mine. All of it. By birthright, by blood, and by surviving what no other Holloway could survive. No one will contest it. No one can take it from me.
I am officially one of the richest people in the world.
My brain won’t accept it. I’ve been poor my entire life. I’ve split rent with my mother in a cramped apartment where the heat barely worked, eaten ramen for dinner more nights than I can count, checked my bank account before buying coffee and decided I couldn’t afford it. I’ve worn the same boots for three years because replacing them wasn’t in the budget and lied to my mother about eating lunch out, so she wouldn’t worry about me skipping meals. That was my life an hour ago. That was my life this morning.
Things I never even thought about are possible now. My psychology practice was always the dream, and it still is, but it was enormous when I was broke. It was reaching for the stars. Now it feels small, insignificant. I could open ten practices. I could fund research, hire the best staff, and treat patients who can’t afford to pay because I don’t need their money. I could do everything I ever wanted and barely make a dent in what’s sitting in this room.
“Are you all right?” Castien asks.
I shake my head. I can’t form words just yet.
“I see there’s another door,” he says. “Do you think it leads to the exit?”
His practical thinking snaps me out of my trance. I clear my throat and push myself to my feet.
“Yes,” I say. “I believe it leads to the beach. We’ll need help. Maybe a helicopter.”
“I can contact Yasmin Bayard and ask for one once we’re outside.”
I laugh.
“Can you believe I can afford to pay for a helicopter?” I walk toward the nearest pyramid of gold bars and run my fingers over the top one. “Fuck me, I think I can afford to buy a private plane.”
Castien looks around the room.
“I believe you can buy many things with what’s in here. A castle, an island, a whole country.”
A squeak comes out of my throat, high and involuntary, and then I’m dancing. I spin past the gem cases, jumping up and down. I peer into glass boxes and stare at rubies the size of grapes.
“I’ll have to get all of this appraised,” I say, circling back toward the paintings. “I’ll need experts, accountants, lawyers. I’ll need a whole team just to catalog what I have.”
“Congratulations, Jessa. You did it.”
I turn to face him, and my smile dies.
He’s standing near the entrance, rigid. His wings are pulled tight against his back, his shoulders are locked, and his body looks like it’s bracing for impact. There are tracks on his cheeks, two faint lines of silver. I know they’re the evidence of tears dried into pale streaks. Seeing them siphons all the joy out of me.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I whisper. “Thank you, Castien.”
