Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

Something to bribe the Horsemen with—didn’t matter I’d already bribed them. They only spoke in one language: cash.

Lottie cut me off in the grand foyer, just before the entrance to my wing.

Our wing.

Fuck.

“Lottie…not now.” I tried to push her aside.

“You look like you haven’t slept in two days. Where have you been?”

Looking for Snitch.

I have everyone I know searching for her, but I can’t just sit back as she fucking disappears. I’ve never felt a fear like this before. Where the hell is she? All her clothes are back at the house. I got word she was at the motel, but when I went, she was fucking gone.

In the wind.

I placed my hand on Lottie’s shoulder to push her aside. I know she’s my wife. I know I should love her and choose her, but Snitch is out there. Alone. I couldn’t fucking stay here.

“Grayson…glad you could find it in your busy schedule to join us.”

I stopped at the voice. In his iconic three-piece suit, my grandfather stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, watching me. Suspicion wove vines in my blood.

“Why are you here?” I finally said.

His brows raised slightly. “Your wife hasn’t told you?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, that familiar pain I was starting to associate with failing Lottie as a husband.

If Snitch ever gave me a second chance…what’s to say I wouldn’t fail her too?

Before I could come up with the right response, I saw Mr. and Mrs. du Lac behind him, speaking with my mother.

“You have so many homes around the world,” my mother said. “I would think you’d be more comfortable there…instead of crammed in here with us.”

“Nothing compares to family,” Mr. du Lac replied.

“And we’d hate to miss Lottie and Gray’s first year,” Mrs. du Lac said.

My mother hesitated, but only for a second. “Well, of course you can stay until you find a new home.”

I glanced sidelong at Lottie. “New home?”

It took a good ten minutes of Lottie tiptoeing around the subject before I got the story out of her. Du Lac Manor was destroyed. It had been flooded, then the wiring had caught fire. Everything was ruined, her personal possessions gone.

It was hard to grasp.

We’d only just been there, and everything was gone. She showed me the pictures. The once proud and historic roof, now charred and caved in. Stones blackened. All that remained were the impeccable grounds.

“Everything is ruined. Gone. Destroyed.”

“Grayson will fix this. Don’t worry, dear,” her mother said.

Even if Lottie wasn’t my wife anymore, I’d known her all my life. Of course she could live here.

But…her mother, who’d all but threatened Story’s life if she were to get pregnant.

Her father, a groping drunk.