Twisted Empire: Dark Dynasty Book 3

by Hart, Stella

  I wanted to help, but Elias ordered me to stay in the van while he changed the tire, just in case all the passing cars frayed my nerves even more. He wasn’t being a macho asshole—he had a point. I was practically a basket case right now. No matter how much I tried to stay strong and brave, I couldn’t quite manage it. I had a new, pervasive fear that something was bound to go wrong at any minute, because our escape plan had worked so perfectly.

  Nothing stayed perfect forever.

  My gaze snapped to the digital clock on the van’s dashboard. Elias had been outside for fifteen minutes now, and he still wasn’t done yet. If the tire change took much longer, we might not make it to the designated meeting spot on the other side of New Marwick. I had no idea what Henry would do if we were late, because I didn’t know him as well as Elias, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t wait around for long. He’d probably assume we got spooked and decided not to come.

  Five minutes later, Elias finally returned to the van. “Done,” he said, wiping his forehead and glancing at the clock. "We’re going to be a little late.”

  “Do you think Henry will mind?” I said anxiously.

  He smiled. “Doubt he’ll care. I used to be late for everything back in the day, so he’ll probably wait for a few minutes if we don’t show up at the exact right time.”

  “Oh. Good.” I settled back into my seat and watched the world go by outside as we arrived in the city and headed through the central business district. It was a surreal sensation, knowing that my old dorm was just a ten minute drive from our current location, but also knowing I couldn’t return to it. At least not under the current circumstances.

  With a pang of sadness, I thought of my old best friends again. Katie, Willa, Greer. Where were they right now? What were they doing? Did they ever think about me, even though my parents had ensured they couldn’t stand me?

  I was tempted to ask Elias to drop me off at Roden after our meeting with Henry, just so I could track down Greer and Willa and watch them for a while. My disguise would stop anyone from noticing who I was, so as long as I didn’t speak to the girls, it would be okay.

  Right?

  I opened my mouth to ask, but then the rational part of my brain started functioning again, and I firmly clamped it shut. Of course I couldn’t go to my old campus and stalk my old friends around. The risk was too great.

  “Shit,” Elias muttered.

  I turned my head. “What’s wrong?”

  He waved a hand. “Look.”

  I stared through the windscreen, and my heart sank. If I hadn’t been so deep in thought, I would’ve picked up on the rush hour traffic earlier. Ahead of us lay a gridlocked landscape of red taillights and back windows glinting in the late afternoon sun.

  “It’s always bad this time of day,” Elias said. “If that fucking tire hadn’t popped, we would’ve been able to skip most of it.”

  “How late do you think we’ll be?” I asked.

  He rubbed his jaw and shrugged. “At least half an hour. Probably more.”

  “You think he’ll wait that long?”

  Another shrug. “Let’s hope so.”

  We crawled through the traffic at a snail’s pace. By the time we made it to the north side of the city, it was already ten to six. We were twenty minutes late and still miles away from our destination.

  When we got back on an open stretch of road, Elias stepped on the gas. He pulled off onto a coastal route a few minutes later, shooting a nervous glance at the middle of the dashboard as it hit six o’clock.

  The coastline we were driving along was full of pleats and tucks—harbors, inlets, and bays. The lookout spot was around ten miles out of the city along the winding road, overlooking a beach within a secluded cove. We weren’t far off now.

  I looked out the window as we drove, admiring the stunning view of the sun setting over the ocean. The sky was pink and orange, and the water was almost blinding as it reflected the light like a million flashing jewels.

  “We’re here,” Elias announced, swerving off the road into a small parking lot.

  On our right was a large deck with a balustrade, overlooking the shimmering ocean. There was a long wooden table and matching benches on it, but they were unoccupied. To the left of the deck was a wide path, presumably leading down to the beach below.

  I saw a white car parked on the other side of the lot, and I glanced at it with a frown. “Think that’s his car?” I asked, pointing at it.

  “Maybe,” Elias replied. “One way to find out.”

  He got out and strode toward the lookout. I trailed behind him. The wild sea breeze blew my fake hair around my face, dragging a few strands free from the ponytail I’d scraped it into earlier.

  We peered out over the beach from the balustrade. My heart leapt with excitement as I spotted a person sitting against a large rocky outcrop on the beach. “That’s him, right?”

  Elias squinted, one hand on his forehead to block out the blinding light from the water. “Yes.” He glanced around to make sure we were definitely alone out here, and then he grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

  We dashed down the path on the left, footsteps crunching over mounds of sand. Henry was on the far side of the beach, about a hundred yards away, staring out at the liquid gold of the coastal sunset.

  “I’m sorry we’re so late,” Elias called out as we approached. “Thanks for waiting.”

  Henry didn’t reply. He kept staring out at the water instead.

  A cold lick of fear crept up my spine. “Stop,” I said, grabbing Elias by his jacket sleeve.

  “It’s only us here,” he said in a soothing tone. “Don’t worry, he hasn’t sold us out.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” I said, my voice trembling. “It’s just… something seems off about him.”

  Elias frowned and kept walking toward Henry, his movements more careful and measured now. “Hey, man. You okay?” he called out.

  Tension grew in my face and limbs. I caught up to Elias just as he reached his old friend, and a sharp squeal escaped my mouth only seconds later.

  Henry was propped up against the rock at an awkward angle, his face aimed at the lapping water, eyes milky blue and unseeing as his mouth hung open.

  He was dead.

  10

  Tatum

  Elias put a hand over my mouth before I could scream again, and then he pulled me into his arms, trying to shield me from the terrible sight. “No,” he said in a strangled mutter. “No fucking way….”

  Wild thoughts accelerated in my head as I tried to comprehend what had happened here. My breaths came in gasps and I felt like I’d black out. The whole beach seemed to spin around us.

  I finally pulled away from Elias and looked back at Henry, my eyes glazed with a layer of tears. As I blinked, they dripped from my eyelids and slid down my cheeks. I bit my lip tightly in an attempt to muffle the sobs which threatened to escape my mouth.

  “What happened to him?” I asked, the words coming out in a choked murmur.

  Elias crouched near his old friend. “Bullet in the head,” he said, clenching his jaw.

  I moved closer, stomach lurching as I took in every detail of Henry’s stiff form. His dark hair was matted with blood. Some was trickling out of his right ear, too. A black pistol sat on the sand next to him, his hand curled around the grip as if he’d just pulled the trigger only seconds ago.

  A rock weighed down a piece of paper only a couple of feet away. I gingerly picked it up, scanned it, and handed it to Elias. “Is this his handwriting?” I asked, my voice close to cracking again.

  Elias read the note and nodded briefly. “Yes.”

  The note was brief, stating that Henry simply ‘couldn’t do it’ anymore, and that he wanted his family to forgive him for all the trouble he’d caused.

  “Why would he kill himself like this, right here?” I said, shaking my head in bewilderment. “Did he want us to find him?”

  “This wasn’t a suicide, Doll. The society m
urdered him,” Elias replied stiffly.

  “What?” My eyes widened. “You think they figured out he was trying to help us and killed him?”

  “I don’t think. I know. Henry might’ve written that note, but I bet they made him do it. There’s no way he shot himself.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “He was left-handed, but the entry wound is on the right side of his head, and the gun is in his right hand too. I guess it’s possible he used that hand to do it, but really fucking unlikely. Why would he?”

  One hand went over my mouth. “Oh my god,” I murmured.

  “Guess they forgot to account for that,” Elias went on, his voice low and bitter. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? The cops here will speed through the investigation and totally ignore the evidence. Most of them are in the society’s pocket. It’ll be ruled a suicide right away.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, touching my hand to his arm. “He didn’t deserve this.”

  Elias simply stared at the body without replying. I kept my hand on his arm, my heart breaking for him. For Henry, too. He was only trying to help us, and he’d paid the ultimate price.

  Suddenly my throat felt like it was closing up. “Oh, shit,” I managed to choke out, my eyes snapping around in every direction. “What if the guys who killed him are still here?”

  Elias looked at me, eyes flat and miserable. “Don’t worry. It’s only us.”

  “But if they figured out Henry was coming here to help us, wouldn’t they wait for us to arrive so they could get us too?”

  He nodded. “They probably did, but we were almost an hour late. I’ll bet they eventually figured we got spooked and decided not to show up. Guess we should thank our lucky stars for the flat tire and all that fucking traffic.”

  My knees went weak, and I swayed and almost collapsed on the sand as I realized what a narrow escape we’d had. If we hadn’t encountered all that so-called bad luck and arrived here on time, we could be dead right now, just like Henry.

  “We should probably get out of here just in case they decide to come back and double-check,” Elias went on, holding me steady with one strong arm.

  “What about Henry?” I asked, my eyes welling with tears again. “We can’t just leave his body here.”

  “We have to,” he said quietly. “But we’ll use one of the burners to call 911 and report this anonymously. That way he won’t be sitting out here too much longer.”

  I wiped my cheeks as tears slid down them. “Okay,” I whispered, barely able to get the word out. I crouched down by Henry and tried to close his eyes, figuring it was the least I could do before we left him here, but his face was cold and his eyelids wouldn’t budge.

  “It won’t work, Doll,” Elias muttered, pulling on my jacket hood. “Come on, we have to go.”

  “Wait,” I said, catching a glimpse of something on Henry’s right arm. Black ink. “Look.”

  “What?”

  “He’s written something on his arm. What if it’s a note for us?”

  Elias crouched down next to me and gingerly peeled back Henry’s gray shirt sleeve. “Tea, hummus, eggs, avocado, rhubarb, kale,” he read out. He sighed heavily. “It’s just a grocery list. He was probably planning on stopping by the store at some point today.”

  My shoulders slumped with defeat. “Oh.”

  “Come on. We gotta go.”

  We headed back up to the van. Elias made the 911 call and ditched the phone on the edge of the road. We drove away in a morose silence, heading north along the coastal drive, and I sat as still as a statue, staring out the window.

  “He didn’t even know me,” I finally said in a broken whisper. “But he still tried to help. I got him killed.”

  Elias stopped on the edge of the road, tires squealing in the dust at the abrupt maneuver. Then he reached over and grabbed my shoulders. “Look at me.”

  I refused to meet his eyes. Guilt and shame were shredding me from the inside out, pain flowing from my every pore.

  “Come on, look at me.” Elias gently shook me. “You didn’t do this, baby girl. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” I insisted, meeting his hard gaze for a split-second. “All of this is my fault. You’ve lost everything trying to save me, and you even had to kill a guy in the woods for me. Now this. Henry is dead, and it’s all because of me.”

  “You have to stop blaming yourself for everything. We both do,” Elias said, fingers interlacing with mine as he grabbed my hands and squeezed them tight. “This is the society’s fault. They did this. Not us. And if you think for one second that I would’ve left you behind to die, just so I could keep living my usual life, then you don’t know how much I fucking care about you. I told you, I’d do anything for you.”

  “I know. I just… I feel so fucking horrible. So guilty,” I choked out, eyes brimming over. “I even feel bad for crying, because Henry was your friend.”

  “Don’t feel bad for being emotional, Doll,” Elias said, gently rubbing one thumb across my cheek to wipe away the tears. “Like you said, he was trying to help us, and he died because of it. Of course you’re gonna feel like shit. We both will for a long time.”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t even know anything about him, apart from what happened when he left the society. I don’t know his birthday. His favorite color. His favorite food. I don’t even know how old he was.”

  “He was twenty-seven, and his birthday was February the fourteenth,” Elias said softly. “We used to give him a ton of shit for it, because that’s Valentine’s Day. I’m pretty sure his favorite color was dark blue, considering what he wore most often, and his favorite food was cheese and bacon pizza. He practically lived off that shit.”

  “When did you last see him?” My eyes snapped up to look at Elias properly for the first time since we left the beach.

  “About two years ago. I’d just finished my undergrad course at Roden. Henry was starting to act weird, and he basically stopped talking to anyone. We all thought he was just being a dick, but then we found out he’d left Crown and Dagger after making it to the third level. We thought he left because he didn’t want anything to do with our world anymore. It felt like…” He paused midsentence and frowned.

  “A betrayal?”

  He nodded curtly. “Yeah. That’s it. Like he thought he was above us, or something. So we didn’t bother trying with him anymore.” He sighed deeply. “He must’ve been so fucking lonely, going through all that by himself.”

  “He was obviously a good friend, though,” I said, wiping my cheeks again. “After all that time, he was still going to help you. Help us.”

  “I know.” Elias steeled his jaw. “From now on, this isn’t just about us. When we take down the society, it’ll be for him, too.”

  I nodded. “We’ll make sure everyone knows what really happened to him. He deserves that much,” I added.

  For a while, we sat in silence again, lost in our thoughts.

  Elias finally started the van again. “There’s a town about five miles from here,” he said. “They have a drive-through café that’s open twenty-four hours. I think we both need a hot drink.”

  “Is that safe?”

  He nodded. “We’re both disguised. Besides, I doubt some random café waitress would be secretly working for the society.”

  Ten minutes later, we pulled up to the colorful café’s drive-through window. Elias glanced at me. “Coffee?”

  I shook my head. “I probably shouldn’t drink that right now. I’ll just get a peppermint tea.”

  He nodded and placed our order, and the girl working at the window returned with our drinks a moment later. “One large Americano and one large peppermint tea,” she said with a bright smile as she handed them to Elias.

  He froze for a moment, his brows furrowed, and the girl tilted her head with an expectant look on her face.

  “I think she’s waiting for the money,” I said, leaning over and nudging Elias. />
  He shook his head and hurriedly handed some cash to the girl. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  He found a spot to park the van a moment later, and I sipped my drink as he stared straight ahead at a brick wall, ignoring his coffee. I didn’t ask him if he was okay. I already knew he wasn’t.

  He finally turned to me a moment later. “Henry knew.”

  I raised my brows. “Knew what?”

  “He knew they were onto him. He knew they would probably kill him. But he sacrificed himself anyway,” he said. “He must’ve figured out where we could go to be safe after we got off the phone earlier, and he wanted to make sure we figured it out too, even if the society got to him first.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He left us a message. One that only a friend would pick up on,” Elias said. He motioned to my takeout cup. “Your tea made me think of it.”

  My pulse began to race. “What message?”

  “The writing on his arm. Anyone else would look at it and see a grocery list, but not me.” He shook his head. “I should’ve known the second I saw it. Henry fucking hated healthy stuff. He practically lived on pizza and burgers, and he used to give the gym nuts in our group hell for all the protein powder shakes and acai berries they used to eat. He wouldn’t be caught dead buying kale and hummus or any of the other stuff on the list.”

  “How is that a message?” I cocked my head to the side.

  “Tea, hummus, eggs, avocado, rhubarb, kale.” Elias slowly listed off the things in order. “First letter of each one.”

  I wrinkled my brows. “The… ark?”

  He nodded as a grim smile turned up the corners of his lips. “Yeah. I know exactly where we need to go.”

  11

  Elias

  Tatum stared at me, her eyes wide and luminous. “Where are we going?”

  “The safest place in the world.” My shoulders sagged with relief, and despite the enormity of my sorrow and guilt over what happened to my old friend, I let a ghost of a smile tug my lips up. Henry came through for us when we needed it the most, even though it cost him his life in the end. I wasn’t really a spiritual person, but I hoped he was at peace now. No more stress and strain from the society following him everywhere and penetrating every aspect of his life. No more repression. No more fear.