Page 102 of Till Death Do Us Part

“We need to stop being seen together,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”

“Vera…”

Slowly, I took off my wedding ring, and I handed it to her. She refused to take it, so I took her hand and pressed it into her palm. “We don’t have time to waste,” I whispered. “You need to get to safety. I have contacts who can help you.”

She wiped her eyes, and she turned back to the stairs. “Vera…”

I gritted my teeth. “Please.”

“Even now… I just wish you could be happy.”

She left me with that haunting whisper, echoing in my mind, long after she’d left. I was hanging my head over the railing, staring blankly into the distance, and it might have been five seconds or five hours before the heavy, thumping footsteps behind me told me who it was. Only one person who stomped in boots like those.

“You’re a damn fool, Farkas,” Petra said.

“So, you were watching. Feeling lonely or something?”

“Wasn’t watching.” She leaned on the railing, looking at the streaky clouds rolling past, shaking her head. “Just saw Elaine running back to the room with two rings trying not to cry.”

“Love is a person’s biggest weakness. You do stupid things for love. You make stupid mistakes for love. And when you lose someone you love… you never recover.”

Like my father never recovered. Once a strong, silent man who cared for the family, my mother dying turned him into an animal, a savage beast that needed to be put down.

The scar still stung sometimes. A reminder.

A reminder of who I was. Of what I was.

“So what are you planning to do after this, huh?” Petra scoffed. “Burn down the Blackbirds’ HQ, leave a trail of devastation in your wake, you’re a free bird, and then you just… what? Sit around waiting for someone to get revenge on you?”

“Hell if I know, Petra. Horizon will be done. The South Yard will be irrelevant. And Elaine will be safe. If I die, she’ll claim my inheritance. Won’t have to worry about money ever again in her life.” I shrugged. “I guess that means I’ll have done everything I needed to. Can’t betray the family.”

“Think you just did.”

“Thanks for that.”

She scoffed again, turning back to the stairs. “Thought heights were the only things you were scared of. Guess I was wrong.”

I hung my head. “I’ll be up here just a bit longer. I know we’ve got work to do.”

“Fuck off,” she said, and she started back down the stairs, her boot steps receding slowly into the quiet, leaving me alone.

That was how it always ended up.

How it always should have ended up.

And once I died, the story would all have come full circle.

I’d just have to take Quayle with me.

This time, the detonator was going to go off.

Chapter 51

elaine

Caitlyn found me out in the back garden behind the safehouse, overgrown and full of the sounds of crickets and the cool, damp breeze in the leaves and vines around us.

Her wheelchair rolled over the small stones and twigs on the dirt path, stopping next to where I sat on the old stone bench.