Page 25 of The Tower

And as another small voice tells me I’d be an idiot to get into that elevator.

Screw that. I step forward, then press the button to call the car. I glance at the monitor—it’s ten floors away.

I can do this. I can do this.

I can do this.

I even know a hostel where I can crash for a night or two. A model I’d worked with for a Reed Cosmetics campaign had stayed there. The Twenty-Seventh Street Hostel. I’ll go there. Then I’ll make a plan. I’ll get out of New York. Pay cash. Take the train.

And then what?

I turn just enough to look over my shoulder. Grimm is standing in the middle of the room, his back to me as he faces the opaque windows.

I shiver.

Four floors away.

My father will look for me. Grimm will tell him I’m gone. And Father will release his dogs, real and metaphorical. They always find what they’re looking for.

They’ll find me, too.

I close my eyes, hating the bitter truth—with Grimm, I have a chance. By myself, I’ll be locked in my suite by sunrise. I’m a fairy tale princess who escaped her tower. And the evil king will put me there again. But this time, there will be no visits from Ruby. No computer. No phone. No canvases and jars of paint. No sketchbook. No Elysium.

Because real fairy tales have dark and scary endings.

Ding.

The elevator doors slide open, and I use the back of my hand to wipe away the tears that have streaked down my cheeks. Then I turn and walk back to the chair I’d vacated. I sit, looking down at my hands, folded primly in my lap.

As if no time has passed at all, I say, “I saw Elias Grimm push her. I saw my father try to save her. But he was too late. She slipped from his fingers.”

I shiver, the memory like ice. “She plummeted into the dark,” I whisper. “And the void consumed her.”

“Is that what you remember? Or is that what your father told you?”

“I remember,” I say. “Of course, I remember.”

“Do you remember what my father was doing on the roof of Reed Tower?”

“No, but I was only seven. It was probably a business thing.”

“Because our fathers did so much business together. On roofs. Without their lawyers present.”

I shake my head, ignoring his dripping sarcasm. “I don’t know. I just know he was there.”

“But how?” Grimm’s voice is surprisingly gentle. He comes to crouch in front of me. “Victor Reed wouldn’t have invited my father to a hanging, much less his rooftop. So how did my dear father get past Reed Tower’s security? Think about it. He couldn’t have made it into the lobby, much less to the roof. We both know that.”

“I told you. I don’t know. I was just a kid.” I want to scream the words. Because why the hell is he interrogating me about something that happened almost twenty years ago? And why does the how matter, anyway? He was there. I saw him. And that was the end of the story.

Wasn’t it?

“For that matter,” Grimm continues, making me want to throw something. “You know there’s no love lost between me and my father.”

I hug myself tighter. I do know that. Gossip runs wild in my father’s circle, and it’s common knowledge that Liam Grimm is the black sheep of the family. He’s the child of Elias Grimm and a secret lover. She died, though, and although Marge Grimm let her husband raise the literal bastard, the whole world knows that Liam Grimm is very firmly stuck on the bottom rung of the family ladder.

“My father thinks you’re going to be the next CEO of Lucent. Why else would they have sent you to the shoot?”

“Your father is a fool. A dangerous fool. And my father is a dangerous son-of-a-bitch. That is something I have never denied. So why would I defend him now?” He rises, then paces the room before dragging an ottoman in front of me.