Several people stand so they can get a better view.
I spare a glance and then look quickly away. It’s a photo of Carrson, grainy and from a distance. Like a picture the paparazzi might take. I know that photo. Carrson walking out of this house with his face stern. I used to stare at it, tracing the contours of his features in ink, before I ever got to touch him in the flesh.
I dart a glance his way, but Carrson hasn’t looked up.
Not once. He’s still reading whatever’s in his hands.
“It’s—it’s not what you think,” I whisper to him under my breath, mentally begging that he looks at me, listens to me. “That’s all from before, Carrson. I swear it. Before I met you I—”
He doesn’t look up or answer.
All he does is hold out a single damning sheet of paper.
Twelve bottles of rum, twenty cartons of champagne, two adult elephants, three bicycles.
The list he read to me in his father’s study. The one I took and shoved into my bag that night after he fell asleep.
“This wasn’t before we met,” he says in a low voice, too quiet for anyone but me to hear. He finally looks at me, and what I see, it guts me, strips me down to my core.
Hurt. Anger. Betrayal.
The same emotions he had when he found me hiding in the basement at his father’s house but multiplied by a thousand. A million.
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes as despair threatens to overwhelm me. “I—I took that to remember those days with you. Because they mattered to me,” I whisper, telling him the truth. “Not to use against you.”
He shoots a glare at me, full of disdain, then wipes his expression clean.
I swallow against the boulder in my throat, lift my head, and search the room. Everyone stares. Not curious anymore. No, their expressions have hardened into hate, suspicion, judgment. The only sympathy I find is in Lou, but even she doesn’t step forwardto defend me.
Jackson’s not done. He pivots to his real target. “Well, Carrson,” he booms theatrically, “what do you have to say? First you kill your own father. Then you bring in thisoutsider.” Jackson sneers, his lip curling. “Thistraitor.”
Traitor. I bristle. That word makes anger ripple up my spine and how dare he bring up Carrson’s father here in front of everyone. I open my mouth to defend myself, to defend Carrson, but Lou catches my eye. She gives a subtle shake of her head, urging me to stay out of it. It takes everything in me to listen and swallow the words clawing up my throat. But I do. Because she understands the rules of this place, and I’m learning them. But still, it burns, sitting there under my skin. Because stepping aside, letting Carrson handle this, feels a little too much like surrender.
Carrson turns to face Jackson head on, effectively blocking me out.
I see it happen, how quickly he processes the situation, how he grinds his jaw as he weighs his options. I’ve spent the past year, hell years, studying Carrson Ashford, so I know the moment he reaches a solution.
“Traitor?” he answers Jackson, his voice cold.
“I don’t see a traitor.” He points a finger at me. “I see a woman smart enough to find The Order.” He takes a step closer to me. “Bold enough to track us down and strong enough to belong.”
His voice doesn’t waver, and I understand why it can’t. He’s not just fighting for me at this moment but for himself, for the future of the Ashford name.
“I’ve not brought weakness into this house. I’ve brought strength. The kind we’ve been raised to admire, to recognize.” He takes a step toward me, sets his hand on my shoulder, and I draw comfort from his touch.
“I removed a threat when I took out my father.” His gaze sweeps the room, daring them to challenge him. No one does. “We all know he wasn’t fit to lead.”
“NowI’ve foundandrecruited a new member. An asset.” He lets those words hang as he surveys the crowd.
I see it then.
Not just who he is but who he’s becoming.
The change is obvious. It's in the way the room rearranges itself around him. Chairs angle toward him. Bodies too. No one interrupts. Even Jackson goes quiet, like he recognizes it.
Carrson has that air of power to him, as if his very DNA demands obedience.
My chest swells with pride as I picture it. How he’ll be a force, a true leader.
