Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
I wait for Stella to shriek, to throw something, to run. Instead, she just closes her eyes. “Oh no,” she whispers. “Fuck. Fuck.”
I watch O’Toole’s hands, the way the knuckles have gone bloodless, the skin stretched so tight you can see the pulse. I know that feeling. The need to grip something until it breaks.
I push off from the door, crossing the carpet in three strides. “Look,” I say, “this is a hellscape, no question. But none of this is your fault, Stella. It seems that your dad—my brother—he’s been pulling strings since day one. I guarantee you, Thomas knew who O’Toole was the second he came to Trinity. Hell, he probably made it happen.”
Stella snorts. “Yes, of course! My dad’s always been like that. The fucking Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.”
“He’s good at it,” I say, not unkind. “It’s what made Thomas a billionaire.”
She looks up at me, blue eyes streaked with misery, and for a second she looks about eight years old. “But I’m not a victim,” she says, and the words are a dare.
“I know,” I say. “You’re the farthest thing from it.” I take a knee in front of the couch, elbows on my knees, close enough to smell the champagne and adrenaline sweat off her skin. “You want the truth, sweetheart? Here it is: I adore you, too. Maybe I don’t get a say in what’s right or wrong given the depraved life I’ve lived, but I know what I want, and I want you.” The words come out rough, stripped of everything but fact.
For a second, the room is just us. Three fuck-ups in a church apartment, waiting for lightning to strike.
Stella starts to laugh again, but it’s broken, and then she’s crying—really crying, shoulders shaking, hands over her mouth to keep the sound in. Lachlan stands, comes over, and sits beside her on the couch. He doesn’t touch her, not yet, just sits close enough that she can feel the heat of him.
After a minute, she pulls herself together. “This is so fucking stupid,” she says, voice muffled by her hands. “I always knew I was a slut, but I had no idea just how slutty I am.”
“Don’t say that,” O’Toole says, gentle for the first time.
“Why not?” she snaps. “It’s true. I’m your niece. I’m your sister’s daughter. And I’m his niece too. I let both of you—” She stops, choked off by the depravity of it. “There’s a word for this. Several, actually.”
I reach out, peel her hands from her face, and hold them between my palms. They’re cold as ice. “You’re not a slut,” I say. “You’re a woman who knows what she wants, and you take it. That’s rare. That’s something most people never get. So, yeah, maybe the world wants to shit all over it, but I don’t. Lachlan doesn’t either. You belong to us, Stella, and that’s all that matters.”
She looks at me, searching my face for the lie, and when she doesn’t find it, her shoulders slump.
O’Toole leans in, voice low. “I meant what I said. I adore you, Stella. No matter what, and no matter how fucked up this situation is. You don’t have to say it back, or even feel it at this time, but I want you to know.”
I seize her hands, staring at her golden head, even if she won’t look at me. “Same goes for me, star girl. I’m not going anywhere no matter how fucked up the situation is.”
She wipes at her face, streaking the mascara even worse. “I love you both, too,” she says, so soft I almost don’t catch it. “But I can’t keep going like this. Too many secrets. Too many things I didn’t know.” She draws a shuddering breath. “I’m going to confront my dad. I have to. I have to know what else he’s hiding.”
I nod. “Whatever you need. We’ve got your back.”
O’Toole grins, lopsided. “Guess we’re in this together.”
We sit like that for a while, the three of us, the room gone quiet except for the low whistle of wind through the cracked window. There’s a church bell somewhere, the sound warped and distant. Maybe midnight. Maybe later.
Stella is the first to move. She stretches out on the couch, feet in O’Toole’s lap, head tilted so she’s looking up at the crucifix above us. “Is this what a happy family looks like?” she asks, and for once she’s almost smiling.
“Better than most,” I say, and Lachlan snorts.
The world outside is dark and cold and full of angry history. But in this room, with her between us, it feels—for a second—like the past can’t touch us at all.
And if it does, we’ll burn it down together.
23
THOMAS MORELAND, THE MASTERMIND
Stella
We go to my father’s house at a time when even the city is ready to shut its eyes. The walk up the front steps feels like a re-enactment, all three of us grim, drifting through the kind of chill that makes you want to punch your hands into your pockets and keep your head down. No one says a word. Hunter lets me go first; his hand at my lower back is heavy, like he wants to hold me in place but knows better than to try.