Authors: Lauren Smith
H
ans parked the vehicle in front of the structure and all three of them climbed out. Fenn’s skin prickled and a breeze tickled the back of his neck like invisible fingertips as he scanned the crumbling edifice.
Twenty-five years ago the structure had been dominated by nature, and barely recognizable. He’d expected it to be more of a skeleton, but the stone and bricks had held their own against the creeping vines and stalwart trees that erupted through the cracked floors. The bright flash of yellow police tape was jarring and unsettling against the wild background.
“The police are keeping an eye on the place because Antonio was killed here,” Emery explained.
“Are we allowed to go inside?” Fenn asked, eyeing the police tape.
“Yeah. Hans called in a favor with the local police. Since the shooting has been labeled self-defense and they’ve collected the evidence and taken photos already, I think we’re safe to go in. The tape is mainly to keep kids out.”
Fenn didn’t wait for his brother to follow as he approached the house. He ducked under the yellow police strips and through the open doorway to the house. The scents of death, decay, and musty earth packed a hell of a punch as he moved farther in to the house. The walls inside had begun to soften and crumble. The doors from other rooms had been torn from their hinges and lay scattered over the floor. Plaster and damp fragments of decaying carpets were open to the elements since most of the roof had collapsed.
A grand staircase rose up on teetering stilt-like wooden beams with no second floor to greet it. Fenn’s blood ran cold as he saw the door that led to the cramped confines of the closet he and Emery had shared beneath those stairs. He walked up to the closet door and gripped the brass handle, surprised vandals hadn’t made off with it yet. The doorknob creaked but finally gave under the pressure and the door eased open. The space was incredibly small—he would have had to stoop and bend himself nearly in half just to get inside.
Something dark and frightening unfurled its black wings inside his chest and howled its rage. Had he and Emery really been small enough to fit inside this closet? How could those men have forced him and Emery to stay in here for nearly three months? This was where they had slept, where they had clung to each other, and fought off rats and insects. A place of darkness and terror in between their brief times outside, when they were only allowed to wash with a bucket of water and go to the bathroom.
Suddenly Fenn couldn’t breathe. The weight of those awful memories pressed down on his chest like an anvil. A hand settled on his shoulder and his eyes blurred. He wiped at his face, shocked to see his hands come back wet with tears. With a violent move, he kicked at the closet door, slamming it shut. His boot crunched right through the rotted wood. Fenn struck out again, a bellow of rage ripping out of his lungs. He screamed and shouted until it felt as if his throat was bleeding and he couldn’t hear anything above the roar of the blood in his ears. The vicious sound reverberated off the walls and the glass from a fallen chandelier tinkled softly, disturbing the veil of cobwebs wrapped around it. He pounded with his bare fists at the crumbling remains of the doorway and then spun, seeing a wide mirror hanging on a tarnished gold frame. He knelt, gripped a rock and hurled it at his reflection, and the tortured boy staring back at him shattered in a deafening crash as glittering shards rained down to the floor. Panting, he turned back to the small dark closet, the space that had locked his innocence away until it had shriveled up and died.
“Fenn?” Emery sounded worried.
“It’s just…so small,” Fenn gasped, trying to catch his breath. “How can it be so goddamned small and still terrify me?” he demanded, finally meeting his brother’s gaze.
Emery was at his side, still touching his shoulder and looking grim.
“Places imprint themselves on you during highly emotional times in a person’s life. Whether you are happy, frightened, or sad, a place leaves its mark. This house marked us because of what those men did to us.”
Fenn sucked in breaths through his mouth as flashes of that final night fluttered through him on dark wings.
“Fenn, how did you get away? After all these years, I still don’t know.”
His brother waited patiently, but the anxiety in his eyes tore out Fenn’s heart.
“You remember Lewis and the other man, Abrams? They fought about killing us. Lewis didn’t want to. I remember convincing you to leave, but you didn’t want to. I had to push you to get you to run.”
Emery glanced away, his eyes swiftly darting across the crumbling ruins of their shared nightmare. “I didn’t want to leave you, but I believed you’d be right behind me. Only you weren’t. I got about a hundred yards away when I heard the gunshot. I thought…” He left the thought unspoken.
“It was Lewis. He shot Abrams, and he died at the foot of the stairs. He’d gotten his arms around me and was going to finish me off, but Lewis put a bullet in him. I fell and hit my head.” He ran his hand over the back of his head where the scar was concealed. It twinged at the mere memory of that old pain. “Lewis picked me up and we ran. Everything was so fuzzy after that and I was so young…I just couldn’t remember.” In that moment Fenn truly hated himself. He
loved
his family. Why hadn’t that love been enough to help him remember all those years ago?
“Lewis raised you?” Emery sounded surprised.
“He wasn’t all bad. I believe he really didn’t know the plan was to kill us. And maybe he was too scared to turn me over to the police. He would have been arrested for having played a part in our kidnapping.” He couldn’t stop shaking. His hands trembled and his legs felt a little weak as adrenaline ran its course through his body.
“I wish you’d made it outside with me,” Emery said quietly.
All around them the house settled into the shadows, and the sunset’s red glow washed the pale walls like blood.
“Who owns this place?” Fenn asked.
“I don’t know,” Emery admitted.
“I want you to buy this place and level it,” Fenn said. He didn’t want to ask Emery for any money. “I’ll repay you.”
His brother stared at him as if he’d gone crazy. “Fenn, you understand that now that you’re back, you’re entitled to your share of Dad’s company. You’re rich now.”
Rich? The word held so little meaning to him that he laughed darkly.
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
“You could easily save the Taylor ranch. Wes told me it needed financial assistance.” Emery met his gaze. “We can start the paperwork tomorrow and get the ranch taken care of immediately. Wes said it was one of the conditions of your return. It’s easy enough to pay off the mortgage.”
Fenn wanted to laugh at it all. A mountainous debt on the Broken Spur was an easy matter to settle here. He didn’t immediately speak. Instead, he knelt and picked up a piece of the shattered mirror. The reflective glass crunched beneath his boots as he crouched. His face danced from splinter to splinter—a hundred angles, a hundred reflections. In that moment he felt just as shattered and confused. He’d thought—hoped—feeling this way would vanish once he’d come home, but it hadn’t. He was still as disoriented as when he’d first arrived. Only this time he was not alone; his brother was here. He rose, still clutching a shard of the mirror. He would keep it, a reminder of what he’d survived. It was time he accepted his role in all of this. If he had money, then why not use it for what mattered to him?
“Can you have Wes work on that first thing tomorrow? I want the mortgage fully paid off. If I have enough money for that, then that’s what I want to do.”
Emery patted his back once. “You have more than enough for that. Trust me.”
“Good.” He took one more sweeping glance at the crumbling, decaying structure that had lurked at the edges of his nightmares for so many years and shook his head.
“Let’s go.” He was done with being afraid, done with letting the past control him. He wasn’t a frightened little boy anymore.
No
.
He was a very angry man. Whoever was responsible for stealing his life, for destroying his brother’s life and his parents’ peace, they would pay. That was a promise.
* * *
Hayden clenched her fists as her brother pulled his sleek Hennessey Venom GT through the entranceway to the Thorne family estate. The five-hundred acre property held two houses: her parents’ French chateau and Hayden’s small cottage a quarter of a mile away. The main drive was bordered by red cedars, lending the passageway to the house an almost fairytale feel, as if one was traversing through an enchanted forest’s forgotten path. The trees parted and tapered to open onto a huge cobblestoned courtyard. Wes’s car rumbled over the road as he pulled up in front of the main house.
With a sigh, Hayden turned her gaze away from the chateau’s peaked rooftops and stared out across the gardens, wishing she could escape into them. The last place she wanted to be was near her parents.
The setting sun reflected off the two large pools dotted with lily pads. She loved this place, but being here when her parents were home was a reminder of how gilded her cage was. Why couldn’t they go away to Europe? Spend half a year in that Italian villa they’d bought and leave her alone?
Wes turned off the Venom and covered her left hand with his.
“You can’t tell anyone about Fenn.”
“Why not?”
“Emery wants to release the news in a few days, when he’s had time to plan everything. If word gets out before he’s ready it could put all of us, but especially him and Fenn, in danger. Do you understand?”
Hayden swallowed the irritated retort on her lips. Wes sometimes treated her like she was an idiot. She could easily keep silent if she knew it was for a valid reason. This wasn’t the hard part of the concept to grasp. What concerned her was dealing with their parents.
“Yes, I understand.” She sighed and stepped out of the car. Her arm twinged sharply and she winced, touching the injured spot where her stitches were concealed by her blouse.
“We’ll have to think of some excuse to explain your injuries,” Wes observed.
“They’ll know we took the jet to Colorado.” She leaned over toward her brother in the car window, resting her elbows on the open frame.
He frowned, silent for a moment before he climbed out of the car and retrieved her bag from the trunk.
“Tell them you met someone and flew there to have a weekend fling. You went rock climbing and fell. It would explain the bruises and stitches.”
“Seriously? If I told them that you know how they’d react.”
His sad smile confirmed her fears. “It’s just for a day or two. Then we’ll be able to tell them everything. Do you want me to go in with you?” He rolled her suitcase to the front door and waited for her to join him.
“No, it’s fine. You can go home. But call me tomorrow. Give Fenn my cell number. Actually, give him a cell phone. I don’t think he even has one. Tell him to call me.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Wes asked.
She was tempted to lie, but with Wes she never succeeded. Siblings were like that sometimes; they could read into every little nuance, every look and gesture. She was an open book to her older brother.
“I do. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s a bad idea…but there’s something about him. I don’t believe in love at first sight. Really.” She paused a brief second to shake her head in disbelief. “But I can’t deny that from the first moment, when he looked at me after I’d saved him in the arena, it’s like something inside me clicked into place. I don’t know if that makes any sense.” She laughed at herself. It sounded crazy trying to explain something that had changed her on a fundamental level, but it was the truth. Fenn had changed her. She couldn’t go back to who she’d been before, not after knowing him and being with him.
Her brother’s expression was impossible to read. “I think I get it,” he replied. “You can’t get him out of your head, you want to know every thought in his head, want to be close to him even if you can’t be with him.” He pulled her into a hug. “Be careful with him and yourself. I don’t want to see either of you get hurt. Call me if you need anything.”
He left her alone at the door and she pressed the doorbell, waiting to fight the coming storm she knew would be her parents.
One of the maids answered—a young woman she knew, one close to her own age.
“Hey Jordan,” she greeted in a low whisper. Her parents didn’t like it when she befriended the help.
“Hayden!” Jordan grinned. She wore the obligatory black dress and her dark hair was pulled up into a bun, but she still managed to look attractive. Hayden always admired that about her.
“Your parents are really upset,” she warned as Hayden came into the house with her suitcase.
“I figured they’d be mad.” Hayden’s belly flipped a few times with nerves. Dealing with her parents always put her on edge. It was a little like a recurring nightmare where she was in school and unprepared for a test. Only this wasn’t a dream.
“Jordan? Who is it?” Her mother’s cultured voice echoed from the rafters of the main entryway just before she appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Hayden. You’re back.” Her mother’s disapproval made her name sound heavy on the older woman’s lips.
Hayden’s mother Silvia was beautiful. Poised and polished, she never had a hair out of place or a button undone. The cold clinical way she surveyed Hayden made her repress a shudder. They were so alike, with their red hair and full figures, but on the inside they couldn’t have been more different.
“Hello, Mother,” she said in greeting.
Jordan beat a hasty retreat, likely expecting a display of verbal fireworks.
“Your father and I are very disappointed. You took the jet and told no one where you went.”
“I had my cell; you didn’t call me.” Hayden was sick of cowering, sick of being bullied by her mother. Why were they so impossible to please? More than once she’d gotten on her knees and prayed the Lockwoods would be her parents. They were so natural, so kind, so real. They had fought to earn their wealth and valued everything it had given them. The Thornes were old money and it had gone to their heads.