The Palace (Chateau 4)

Would he tell him I was there?

When Bethany stepped into the apartment, she had a breakdown. She fell to her knees and sobbed, touching the rug under her fingertips to make sure it was real, her tears making stains on the cream color.

Raven kneeled beside her and rubbed her back. “I know…I know.” She got choked up too.

It was impossible not to.

After Bethany took the day to get back on her feet, we helped her reunite with her mother and daughter. They lived outside Paris, in a little town in a small cottage. Raven used the last bit of her savings to rent a car and take her there.

We walked with her to the door, watched it open, and then saw the way her mother looked at her.

It was the same way my mother used to look at me.

The way Raven had looked at me when she saw me at the top of the stairs.

They hugged, cried, and then the sweetest little girl came down the hallway. “Mommy?”

Bethany fell to her knees and cried harder than she had in our living room. “Oh, baby…”

It’d been days since we burned the camp to the ground.

Raven and I didn’t talk much about it.

Like we were waiting for the repercussions.

We didn’t run because we had no money and nowhere to go.

And Raven was convinced the guards hadn’t seen our faces, that Magnus was the only one who knew. “He wouldn’t say anything.” She sat on the couch, her eyes out the window more than on the TV.

I was in the corner of the other couch, my knees pulled to my chest, watching the rain pelt the windows. “He looked pretty pissed off, Raven.”

“I know…but he wouldn’t.” Her face was permanently somber now, the high of liberation gone the second we’d left Bethany behind. Once the action and excitement were over, she was filled with sadness. Maybe even a little guilt. “He…wouldn’t.”

“Even if you’re right, there’s only one person who could have done it.” Fender would figure it out even if Magnus lied. I was the only other free person who had escaped the camp, and I certainly wouldn’t have done that alone.

She stared at the TV with a blank face. “The camp doesn’t exist. The girls are free. The drug enterprise doesn’t exist. There’s nothing for them anymore. They’ll move on.”

I knew Fender better than anyone. “He’ll want revenge.” And I wouldn’t be able to protect her this time.

“Then he can come and get it,” she whispered. “I have no regrets—and I never will.”

Four

Disloyal to Loyalty

Fender

In the center of the bed, I lay still.

The fire had died out, my bedroom engulfed in shadow.

My eyes were on the ceiling, the chandelier that was twenty feet above me, the crystal having a faint shine from the lights coming in from the property outside. Sleep was a luxury I didn’t enjoy anymore, no matter how hard I worked, how hard I drank.

My phone rang on the nightstand.

I almost didn’t answer it because this cloud of indifference hit me right in the heart. But I reached for it and answered in silence.

Chaos was loud over the line. Screams. Orders being barked out. “Stop them!”

I sat up. “What the fuck is going on?”

It was Karl, not Magnus. “We’ve been hit. Camp is on fire. The girls are loose.” He was out of breath, like he was running from something that very moment. “We can’t save the cabins. They’re all torched.”

I jumped out of bed and grabbed my clothes. “Where’s Magnus?”

“No one’s seen him…”

My heart fell into my stomach, picturing him burned alive in his cabin that he couldn’t escape because he was trapped. “Who…the fuck…did this?” I’d take my men and hit them now. Kill them, their entire family, and destroy any legacy they could have had. My jacket was thrown on, and I was out the door and marching to war.

He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to say. “The girl…”

I halted at the second landing and looked down at the foyer, where she’d stood just weeks ago, twisting an invisible knife into my brother’s back to get what she wanted. Gilbert ran into the foyer because he must have heard me, his hair messy, dressed in his pajamas.

“Sir?” he asked, half asleep. “What’s happening? I’ll get the car…” He sprinted outside and shouted to one of the men.

The blood that pounded in my head began to pound everywhere, a headache for my entire body. My heart pumped as hard as it could, giving me every ounce of blood I would need for what I was about to do. My fingers squeezed so tightly that I nearly crushed the phone. “I’m on my way.”

I got there in record time, but it didn’t make a difference.

Every single cabin had been destroyed.

There was hardly any snow because it had melted from the heat of the fires. The piles of wood still burned gently because there was still more destruction to be had. The drugs had been destroyed. The clearing was unrecognizable. The camp had once been an organized congregation of cabins and civilization.