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Damian’s eyes found mine. The easy joy from before had been drained away, no longer did they hold the nostalgia from moments prior. They were dark, lifeless almost, and I knew from experience that he was building a wall back up and over the vulnerability he had just shared with me.

“She was screaming,” I urged.

“Yes, I heard it,” Damian responded with a brisk snap.

I sighed in frustration. What the hell was wrong with this family? Why couldn’t Damian and I ever acknowledge how fucked up this situation was?

Maybe he was still afraid of David’s influence. Or maybe the assassination attempt had shaken him so badly that he didn’t know how to react anymore. But something had to give. I couldn’t keep watching our mother suffer at David’s hands, hearing her torment while he took pleasure in it.

And the worst part? I knew that after today, everything would go back to “normal.” My mother would pretend she’d never been injured, paint on that fake smile, and Damian would sit down to share dinner with the same man he’d just threatened on his way out the door.

“I’m going,” I said, turning for the door. Damian followed close behind.

“Are you sure that you’re alright?”

“Yes,” I lied. It didn’t matter, because I’d feel much better as soon as I got to the party. My pills would take care of me. “I just need to get out of here for a while.”

“Are you still going to Delane’s party later?” Damian questioned.

I nodded, stopping before I turned the handle. “Yeah, I’ll just hang out somewhere for a bit until it starts.”

Damian said nothing further, so I stepped out of the door, the keys jingling in my pocket.

“Noah,” Damian called, suddenly.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I am just one phone call away if you need me. Come home safe.”

Chapter twenty-seven

None So Blind

SILAS

Ihad been able to see Serenity off before heading back to meet my cousins in the parking garage. It’s not like I could run and they knew it. They trusted that I would be back to face the music. After Jace had brought Noah’s name into the mix, there would be no way I’d risk running and then their wrath shifting to him. I’d pay my consequences in blood—as promised.

Serenity met me at Pinnacle and I drove her to her friend Alex’s house. I guess she was still calling him her friend, but I was no idiot. She liked him. My brotherly instincts flared at the thought of her with a boy, but I tried to be cool about it. Alex was my insight into Noah if I ever needed a way back in.

Before Serenity left my car, I gave her the golden airplane. I wanted to make sure that Noah had it, especially if I wouldn’t be able to see him again. I might not have been able to tell him how I felt about him, but at least he would have that to remember me by. Hopefully, I’d be able to make sure he got it myself. Either way, I couldn’t take the risk.

“If you happen to see Noah—or even if Alex sees him—can you see that he gets that?” I handed her the plane. “He left it at the office.”

Serenity gave me a look then, the same one she always did when we were growing up, the way younger sisters do when they are trying to figure out secrets they shouldn’t know.

“How come you aren’t texting like you used to?” she asked.

I bit my lip. “He’s…busy. Moved on to other things.”

“Does he know?” she questioned, her head tilting just a bit to the side.

I stared at her blankly. “Know what?”

“Does he know how much you care about him?”

I sat there, letting her words hang between us for a few moments. Serenity was so much more intelligent than others gave her credit for. Most of the Thorne organization viewed her as a princess sitting pretty in her daddy’s tower, when really, she could probably outmaneuver half of them while blindfolded. While we shared the same observant and calculating nature, our methods differed. I solved problems with force and intimidation—I had no problems drawing blood. On the other hand, Serenity held a level of diplomacy I could never even dream of wielding. She was a peacemaker by choice, but that didn’t mean she was ignorant to the brutality of the operation for our family. She understood our system precisely, and she chose not to weaponize it. I always thought that made her strong.

The weight of that power in her observant eyes was on me now. The true danger of a peacemaker—they read people like books. While I had been busy trying to withhold my true self, she’d been busy taking notes. And she saw right through me.