The mention of Caroline, the woman now living in our mother’s house, makes his jaw clench.
“So you’re just going to let him win?” Leo’s voice is thick with desperation. “He takes Mom, and now he takes this from you too? He breaks you? We have to fight back, Cass. We can’t just roll over.”
“This isn’t fighting back, it’s playing Russian Roulette!” I yell, slamming the wrench down on the steel table. “Growing up, building my company, staying away from his dirty money, that’s how I fight back. Protecting you is how I fight back. This,” I say, gesturing to the car, “this was a kid’s rebellion, and we are not kids anymore. He took that from us.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from my foreman. A problem at a job site. I glance at it, my rage and grief churning into a nauseating cocktail.
“I have to go,” I say, my voice ragged. I walk past him, grabbing my jacket. “We’re done talking about this. I’m not racing. It’s over.”
I leave him there, standing in the middle of the garage, staring at the car that had once been our symbol of defiance, and I don’t look back. I drive to the site, my mind a storm, and spend an hour tearing into my crew over a mistake that doesn’t matter.
When I get back to the garage, it is quiet. Too quiet. The big bay door is open to the night air and the space in the center, the altar, is empty.
My GT-R is gone.
The keys—the spare set I kept on the magnetic board—are gone too.
A cold dread, so absolute and immediate it steals the breath from my lungs, washes over me. I sprint out into the driveway. Nothing. Just the distant sound of an engine, screaming as it hits the main road, a sound I know better than my own heartbeat.
He took it. The stupid, brave, reckless idiot. He took it to race for me. He wasn’t trying to be me, he was trying to fight for us. He was trying to show his father, and the world, that they weren't broken.
I never saw him alive again.
The plastic of the water bottle crinkles in my hand, the sound pulling me violently back to the present. Back to the cold, silent loft, my knuckles aching from a phantom grip. The memory leaves a raw, gaping wound, as fresh today as it was the night I got the call from a state trooper.My car. My race. My failure.
I failed. I was supposed to be his shield. I was supposed to protect him from the world, from our father, from himself. Instead, I built the weapon that killed him.
My gaze lands on Aria again. She has finally moved. She’s curled into herself, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head bowed. She’s trembling, a leaf in a storm I created.
The grief from the memory transmutes into something else, something hard and resolute. My failure with Leo will not be repeated. Aria is the last piece of that night. The only other person who was there, who felt the impact, who lost everything. She is the bill for my sins, the living consequence of my actions. In a twisted way, she’s the only one in the world who couldpossibly understand the wreckage, and I will keep her safe. I will lock her away from the poison that took him. My father, his rivals, the whole damn city. They will not touch her. I am trying to save her to atone for getting my brother killed. I am transferring my failed responsibility for Leo onto her.
I push off the counter and walk slowly toward the sofa. Her head snaps up when she hears my footsteps, her eyes wide with that new, hollow terror. She flinches as I get closer, pressing herself into the cushions as if she could melt through them.
I crouch down in front of her, bringing my eyes level with hers. She shrinks back, a choked sob catching in her throat.
“You’re safe here,” I say, my voice low and steady. It is a promise to her, but it is a vow to him. To Leo.I will not fail again.
She just stares at me, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated horror. She isn’t seeing a savior or a protector. She’s seeing the man who destroyed her life, the monster who dragged her into this nightmare. And as I look into the depths of her terror, a cold realization washes over me. For the first time, I wonder if she’s not just seeing a monster, but the truth.
Twenty Nine
Aria
Hiswordshanginthe air, obscene and suffocating.
“You’re safe here.”
He is crouched in front of me, his eyes level with mine. The scent of his sweat, of his exertion fills my senses. Just moments ago I watched him, this machine of muscle and violence, and I saw a monster. Now, I look at him and I see a tombstone. I see the smiling face from the obituary, Leo, and I see this man’s face, and the two blur together into a nightmarish composite.Brother.The word is a silent scream in my mind, a gong that vibrates through every bone in my body.
He is waiting for a reaction. My throat is a knot of terror. My lungs have forgotten how to draw breath. I can’t speak. I can’t think. All I can do is feel the truth of it, a truth that rewrites every moment of my captivity. The map wasn't just a blueprint; it was a memorial. His obsession wasn't random, it was a targeted fixation.
My body reacts before my mind can form a plan. A choked, guttural sob escapes my lips and I flinch away from him, scrambling backward into the sofa cushions as if I can physically push the truth away. My fear is real, so profound it’s a physical sickness, but he can’t see the shape of it. He can’t know that I’m not just recoiling from the man who kidnapped me, but from the ghost of the boy who died with my sister.
My reaction seems to be the one he expected. A flicker of something—frustration? regret?—crosses his face. He doesn’t see a woman who has uncovered his secret, he sees a broken toy he has pushed too far. He rises slowly, putting distance between us.
“Aria,” he says, his voice low but I shake my head violently, burying my face in my hands. I can’t look at him. I can’t let him see my eyes. He will see the knowledge there, he will see that everything has changed.
He stays there for another long moment before I hear his footsteps retreat. A door closes with a soft click—the bathroom. The sound of the shower starting is a distant roar.
