Cruel Legacy

by K. A. Linde

  That was when something clicked into place. Jane had been frantic this morning when I saw her. Talking about money and Court helping her. She’d seemed crazed about it even. She’d never talked like that before. Jane had a ton of money. That didn’t make sense. And yet, somehow, it did.

  “Oh god,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “This morning, Jane was talking about this. She was saying that Court had given her money to help keep the club open. That she’d sold my secret to Katherine for Percy money to make up for it because she was having trouble with her overseas banks.” I blinked. “She doesn’t have any money. They’re closing the club. Court’s involved.”

  Penn’s eyes were stuck on mine. Then he took a step back. “And how long have you known this?”

  “What?” I asked in confusion. “This morning? Well, I just put it all together right now.”

  “And you expect me to believe that you didn’t call the police on Jane? That you didn’t think it would be payback to Jane for betraying you to Katherine?”

  My eyes bugged out. “Are you joking? I would never do that!”

  “Wouldn’t you? How do I know? Look what you did to Katherine and Lewis.”

  “Penn, why would I admit to doing that to them and then lie about this?”

  “I don’t know. Because you’re so far gone that you can’t see out the other side.”

  My jaw dropped. “I was planning to talk to Jane after the party tonight to try to mend our friendship. I wasn’t going to call the police on her!”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know about that, Nat. I just…don’t know what to believe.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want to hurt Jane.”

  “I want to believe you. But…with everything else…” He trailed off, letting me fill in what he was saying.

  But I didn’t know how to change his mind. I didn’t know how to tell him how ludicrous this was. Jane had been party to what had ruined my life. She had put the gun in Katherine’s hand, but it was Katherine who had pulled the trigger. I was mad at Jane. I held grudges. That was for sure. It was part of who I was. But I didn’t want to see her get arrested. That was way too far for me.

  “Penn, please,” I whispered.

  “You’re just like her now,” Penn said sharply. “As bad as Katherine. We said that we’d stay ourselves. That I’d help you, but we’d still be ourselves. Now, I see how wrong I was.”

  “I’m not,” I said with a gasp. “I’m not like her.”

  “I have to figure out what’s going on with Court. I need to call my mother and head to the police station to sort this out,” he said in the cold, detached voice he used for everyone else.

  “I’ll…I’ll come with you,” I whispered.

  “I think you should…stay here. You have to clean up the party and fix the stuff with the charity. It’ll be better for you to stay.”

  “But you shouldn’t deal with the stuff with Court alone,” I pleaded.

  “Actually, I think alone is what I need right now.”

  I stilled as he looked down into my pleading eyes. “What?”

  “I just need some time to think about this.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “Some space.”

  “Space…”

  “Yes. Space. Like I should go to Paris alone tomorrow.”

  My eyes doubled in size. “Penn…”

  “We can figure this out when I get back.”

  I stepped forward, tears welling in my eyes. My voice came out choked. “After your conference or…at the end of the summer?”

  He looked at his brother, standing in handcuffs, and then back to me. “I haven’t decided.”

  I opened my mouth to respond. To say anything. To fix this horrible, horrible mess that was a puddle at my feet. But there was nothing to say. Nothing that could change his mind as he stepped away from me and walked to his brother’s side. As he slipped out of the room to head to the police station.

  And left me standing alone in the ruins of my party.

  And the ruins of my life.

  Chapter 37

  Natalie

  I’d stayed up late into the night, waiting to find out what had happened with Jane and Court.

  I’d texted Penn, but his response had been brief.

  Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

  As if I could make it harder. It was torture. We were in limbo. Possibly ended. He was getting on a plane tomorrow to fly thousands of miles away from me, and I didn’t know where we stood or what would happen.

  The sun had already risen the next morning when the charges hit the news. Jane was being charged with grand larceny. Her name wasn’t even Jane Devney. It was Janine Lehmann. She was a dual German-French citizen who had changed her name and stolen more money than god from banks all over the world. All with the force of her personality and her supposed contacts.

  I’d been deceived by the ultimate deceiver. I couldn’t believe it. I’d witnessed it all. The large amounts of cash. The frantic desperation to get her club off the ground. How she knew basically everyone. The name-drops and excessive spending and the way she had come out of nowhere to belong.

  But it was Court who was paying the price. The news was saying that he was an accessory to the crime and was potentially being charged with aiding and abetting. I wondered how far that would hold up with Kensington money when his mother was the mayor. Wouldn’t be pretty either way.

  I slouched back against my couch and covered my eyes. What a disaster. The party. Jane. Penn. All of it. It had all gone down in flames.

  Still, I waited for Penn to reach out. For something to change. I waited up until the minute we were supposed to leave for Paris. Sitting in a first-class seat and sipping champagne as we soared off into the sunset.

  But it never happened.

  Penn never reached out.

  He’d left. And I was here without him.

  I bought the first ticket to Charleston without a second thought. Grabbed the bag I’d packed for Paris and took a cab to LaGuardia. I touched down back home in a matter of hours. I hadn’t called or texted Amy or my family. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t trust myself not to break down. I held back the panic with sheer will. Someone else needed to tell me that this would be all right before I unraveled completely.

  I landed on Amy’s doorstep and banged on the door. But when it swung inward, I took a step back in shock. “Enzo?”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise, and his thick French accent rang out. “Natalie, what a surprise.” He called out into the apartment, “Amy, darling, Natalie is here.”

  “Natalie?” Amy yelled back. “Natalie who?”

  I laughed, but it sounded strained and choked, even to me. “Me, silly.”

  Amy appeared then in nothing but a paint-splattered white button-up that must belong to Enzo. “Holy shit! Look at you. What are you doing here?” She wrapped me in a hug. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I…Penn…” And then I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I was here with my best friend. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could hide from her. The tears hit like a tidal wave.

  Amy shushed me and drew me into her apartment. Enzo reached for my suitcase, depositing it inside, as Amy sat me down on the couch. A half-finished pizza sat on the coffee table. A Marvel movie was on in the background. It was all so nice and normal, and it made it hurt so much worse. So, so much worse because I hadn’t even known that Enzo had moved in.

  “Nat,” Amy said, brushing my hair back, “tell me what happened. Are you okay?”

  “Penn went to Paris without me. And Enzo moved in?” I gasped out.

  “Yeah…that’s, uh, why I renovated the guest bedroom.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “You’ve been kind of busy,” Amy said with a shrug.

  I stared at her in horror. All of this shit in my life, and I’d even neglected the one person who was always there for me. Fuck. Maybe Penn was right. Maybe I’d really fuck
ed this up.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t apologize. I don’t care. It’s me. We’ll always be friends.”

  Enzo appeared a minute later and held out a container of chocolate icing. It was like he really understood us.

  “Now, tell me about Penn. He’s in Paris?”

  I downed a giant dollop of frosting, and then it all spilled out. Every excruciating detail from the very beginning. Every horrible thing I’d done from convincing Penn to teach me how to belong to taking down Katherine and everything in between. Even Jane and Court even though I’d had nothing to do with that nightmare.

  Spilling it to Amy was a balm. It was finally getting it off of my chest to someone who had seen me at my lowest at Christmas and knew why I’d decided to do it. And now, how it had all worked and then backfired completely.

  “Well, sounds like you got what you wanted,” Amy said, rubbing my back as the tears finally dried up.

  “Careful what you wish for,” I murmured.

  “Yes. Sounds like you were a real bitch,” she said with a laugh.

  “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  “I guess I was. But they were horrible to me, Ames. They ruined everything.”

  “I know,” Amy said. “But everything you just told me, that doesn’t even sound like you. It sounds like a stranger. The person who could kick Michael down to his size without blinking. And he deserved it, but that doesn’t mean you had to do it. Any of it.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to lose Penn over it.”

  “Good news: you haven’t lost him yet.”

  “Yet.” The word sounded horrible on my tongue.

  “You know what you need?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “A cleansing.”

  I choked on a chuckle. “Seriously?”

  “Let’s end this cycle the way you started it. Close the circle, as your mom would say.”

  “You’re right. You’re so right.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks. Leave it to Amy to have the answer. “Let’s do it.”

  Amy grinned. “What do we need?”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Amy parked her Tahoe just off of Folly Beach. We’d called in Melanie since I knew that Michael’s family had a beach house. I might not like him, but I would use his resources for something this important.

  “You are so like Mom right now,” Melanie said, popping open the back door.

  “Yep,” I agreed easily.

  I walked around to the trunk, and Amy appeared at my side. I hefted the shovel over my shoulder.

  “Kick-ass if you ask me,” Amy said. She grabbed the two bags and passed one of them to Melanie. “Here you go.”

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” Melanie asked.

  “Stay here if you want,” I said and then started walking toward the beach.

  “Like I’m going to do that,” she muttered, chasing after us. “But, like…how is this going to help you get Penn back?”

  I stopped just before the sand. My heart contracted painfully at her words. Get him back. Like he was already gone. Out of reach. Never to return. I closed my eyes. He couldn’t be. That wasn’t possible. He’d handed me my crown and said he’d never let me go. We could…we could fix this.

  “It’s not about getting Penn back,” I said finally.

  “Because he isn’t gone,” Amy interjected with a pointed look at Melanie.

  “This is about me. It’s about coming back to myself. Being who I’m meant to be, not who I became. Releasing it all and starting over.”

  “But you were so cool. Why would you want to change that?” Melanie asked.

  My eyes caught hers. “Sometimes, it’s not worth it.”

  Melanie dipped her head in understanding. “I’m on board. I just wanted to make sure you were doing it for the right reasons.” She smirked at me. “Plus, who am I to say no to a bonfire on the beach?”

  Amy and I shook our heads at her. My little sister was so innocent and naive, and sometimes, she really surprised me.

  “You know, Michael ended up telling me what happened with you guys at the party,” Melanie said as I kicked my sandals off and walked out onto the open beach.

  I chewed on my lip. “Uh, he did?”

  “Yeah, it explains why you were asking me those weird questions the next morning.”

  “Mel, I’m sorry. It’s part of the reason I really need this cleansing.”

  “Well, I just…wanted to say thanks,” she muttered, grabbing my hand. “I didn’t realize how bad it had been before. You know with him…after Kennedy. But it’s been so much better since the party. I think that has something to do with what you said.”

  “Using my superpower for good,” I said. The memory of Penn saying that while we were sailing flashing through my mind.

  “You might have done some bad in this new Natalie form,” Melanie said. “But you did some good too. I think we should find a balance.”

  I reached out and took Amy’s hand in mine too. Balance. Yes, that was what we needed.

  Then, we traipsed together out to the shoreline.

  We’d waited until it was well past dark so that no one would be out on the beach. School wasn’t out yet, so it wasn’t as packed as it would be come June, but I didn’t want to take any chances. When I’d done this in the Hamptons, I’d known it would be an empty beach. Or I’d thought so until Penn Kensington walked out and changed my life.

  I smiled at the memory. I’d hated him so much that day. For leaving me behind in Paris. For being the son of the owner of the home I planned to stay in. For not remembering me…and then for his memories when he did. So much had changed since then. And I couldn’t go back.

  We walked until our feet hit the wet sand, and Amy dropped her bag. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  I plunged the shovel into the sand, felt it give under my weight, and then moved it out of the way. My shoulders loosened with the first move. It was intoxicating, this movement. The physical exertion of actually doing something yourself. Something with a real end result. It steadied my mind. Kept me in the present. The burn in my back, the chafe of my hands, the weight of the sand. It was rhythmic and really did bring me full circle to that last time I’d done just this.

  When the hole was deep enough, I dropped the shovel into the sand with a sigh and held my hand out to Melanie. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “Are you really sure you want to burn this? It gave you so much.”

  I nodded and took my book out of her hands. It had given me so much. It was the beginning, and this was the end. No more deception and manipulation. No more games. No more Olivia Davies or the fake person I’d let myself become out of her. Just me.

  “I’m sure.”

  The first rip of the pages coming out of Bet On It made me cringe. But once I started tearing them out page by page, it became easier. All three hundred eighty-seven pages in a heap in the middle of the sand. The shredded remnants of what my life had once been. The closure to that fateful night when I’d asked the moon to take the dozens of rejection letters and make it something else. It had. It had made me something else.

  Amy pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I hadn’t gone out of my way to get the good stuff. I wasn’t staying in Kensingtons’ Hamptons mansion. This was just me.

  I took the first swig straight from the bottle. I managed to swallow without sputtering but coughed on the second gulp. I passed the bottle down. Amy didn’t wait before tipping it back like a pro. She daintily wiped her lips and then handed it to Melanie. I thought she might hesitate or get out of it. But it must be attributed to her college party life that she took the bottle without complaint and drank deep. She did sputter at the taste, but it was with a smile. She was here. She was in. We were all too deep to stop now.

  One more pull from the bottle, and then I set it aside. I was smarter this time and actually brought lighter fuel with us, so we wouldn’t have to waste the
whiskey. I splashed it all over the pages, moved it out of the way of the pit, and reached for the matches.

  I raised my hands in the air, smiling at how right this felt. How right I felt with the universe. “I give this to you, moon. Another ritual burning. The end of it all. Close the circle. Cleanse me completely and let me start anew.”

  I struck the match and dropped it into the pit. It ignited, the flames growing as the pages burned, the edges curling and turning to ash. I laughed. It’d escaped me without warning. Then, I laughed again.

  Amy joined in, and soon, Melanie followed. We danced around our little bonfire as my book literally went up in flames. As we enjoyed this moment together on the beach outside of Charleston and gave my troubles to the universe. Let it burn right out of me.

  As the flames began to die down, I reached for my T-shirt and shorts. I let them drop into the sand and then dashed to the oceanfront. I heard my best friend and my sister racing behind me in the sand. The first splash was freezing. The ocean hadn’t heated enough for this, but I didn’t even care. I dived under, tasting the salt and sandy grime of the ocean, and reappeared to see Amy and Mel jumping in, too.

  They swam out to me, joking and reveling in the moment. They weren’t immune to the cleansing. To the power that we possessed that night. To the ways we communed and burned and washed it all away.

  I already felt lighter, floating on my back until my teeth chattered. So much lighter. In that moment, I let it all go. The Upper East Side. My revenge. My grudges. I let it all wash away from me.

  And when it was gone, it was just me again. Just Natalie.

  Chapter 38

  Natalie

  The next morning, my mom woke me up at the crack of dawn with the vacuum cleaner.

  I covered my ears and groaned. “Mom, what are you doing?”

  “Oh, Natalie!” she said as if she hadn’t known I was lying there.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You knew I was sleeping.”