by Lana Sky
I need to win our dignity back.
“It’s Snowy Hollings,” I say. My voice trembles. Good. I do my best to smooth my dress as I prepare to face my newest mark.
Hunter never gave me an age or even a basic idea of what he might look like, so my brain conjures an image of someone like Daniel. Smug. Arrogant. Perfumed in money and prestige. He’d enjoy a meek tone, I suspect.
“May I have a word?”
Apprehension lances down my spine as a noise cuts the air. Sharp. Clipped. Like teeth clenching, suppressing a harsh sigh. “I said no appointments.”
I blow out a breath, confused. Hunter called him “some German bastard,” but his accent is distinctly American and his voice dangerously low. Were I poetic like Ronan, I’d compare the raspy baritone to a growl.
“P-please.” I force myself to knock again, delicately. “I’m…I’m begging you.”
That usually appeases most men. How they love to lord their power over those perceived as weak. I eye the doorknob, waiting for it to turn.
“No,” comes the gruff reply. “I’ll have security show you out.”
He’s not bluffing. Alarmed, I stagger backward, casting a nervous glance around me. The secretary is staring, her lips pursed. Near the elevators, the security guard touches his radio. Thinking fast, I spot a lounge area and perch myself on a chaise in the farthest corner, hoping to go unnoticed.
Minutes pass without anyone approaching me. For now.
So I watch Blake Lorenz’s door like a hawk and do something no Hollings has ever been forced to do.
I wait.
Oh, Hunter. For the first time, the full weight of our predicament sinks in and doubt eats through my resolve like acid. Perhaps it’s how my vigil on the couch goes unnoticed that draws the most unease? A Hollings is never ignored.
Not for a minute.
Especially not for nearly two hours.
The longer I watch the door to my father’s old office, the more likely it seems that it will never open. He’ll stay locked in there forever out of spite. And, now, for whatever reason, I feel a burning need to see his face—the first man to brush Snowy Hollings aside.
Well, excluding one other. A sudden urge to rummage through my purse sends my hair falling forward to disguise the welling moisture in my eyes. His memory follows me even here: the corporation our fathers built from the ground up.
Until mine stole it.
Hunter may live his life in ignorance, but I refuse to. The morning his old friend found his world torn apart, my father was gloating in the newspapers about his expanded corporate holdings.
The ghost of Harrison Lloyd must be sneering down on our circumstances now, wishing only that my father were still alive to see them.
Enough with the melancholy. I tug at my skirt, bunching the fabric and releasing it as my heels tap out a tune over the floor. It’s getting late. The office will close to the public soon. From beyond the windows, I watch the sky gradually darken, which enhances the flashing chaos of traffic lights and neon signs below.
“Mr. Lorenz?”
My head whips around at the secretary’s voice, and I notice a man marching past her toward the elevators. My prey, finally out in the open?
Whoever he is, he inclines his head to the secretary but doesn’t slow his pace. Apparently, no one is worth his time—and I can see why. He’s a monolith of muscle, built like a bulldozer accustomed to barreling through any obstacle. An unsettling sensation turns my stomach into wobbling jelly. Nerves?
He’s so much bigger than I expected. Even his suit is too small, and his forearms bulge against the black material. Dark hair clashes with our monochromatic surroundings, and he stands out. An ebony stain over lifeless gray.
“Mr. Lorenz?” Stepping from around her desk, the poor secretary hurries after him. “I have the files you requested…”
There’s no time to consider the consequences. I’m on my feet so fast that my hair fans out behind me. In an instant, I’m halfway across the lobby, gaining on the exasperated secretary. She doesn’t expect me to snatch the envelope from her shaking hands, and I race after the receding back of Blake Lorenz before she can even call out.
My brain issues a frantic series of commands. Breathe, Snowy. Shoulders back. Smile wide. No one can resist a Hollings smile. Even in my Humpty Dumpty days, the expression had some effect.
“Mr. Lorenz?”
He stiffens. Suddenly, I’m in danger of running into him, and I scrape my heels against the tile flooring to find enough traction to stop. Panting, I brush my hand along his forearm to steady myself, wrinkling his tailored suit.
“P-please. I only need a minute of your—”
He turns, and my body severs all connection to my brain. I’m on my knees before I know it, reduced to staring blankly into my past. Thoughts. Fears. Common sense. They all scatter.
I’m dreaming.
I’m dying.
I’m already in hell.
A vengeful ghost looms before me, his blue eyes narrowed over my face. Pinprick pupils take me in with little interest, raking down my heaving chest and swaying frame. Unlike my dream versions of him, he doesn’t smile. He merely eyes me with a black eyebrow raised, like I’m something caught scurrying beneath his shoe, not worth the afterthought before he squashes it.
I can’t stop myself from breathing his name anyway. “B-Brandt.”
It can’t be. It isn’t.
My brain fights to hammer in the knowledge…
But my body refuses to listen even as I’m struck by subtle differences too glaring to ignore. This man is taller than the lanky Brandt Lloyd. He’s older, his dark hair barely tamed by the fingers he rakes through it. A stern jaw anchors stormy features contorted in a perpetual scowl.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a guttural tone before splitting into two hulking figures. They eye me coldly, flicking their gazes up and down my body. “Do I know you?”
I can’t say anything. All I can do is breathe. And then curl into a ball on the floor as the world starts to spin…
Four
“Goddamn it, you fainted?” Hunter paces the length of my room with clenched fists and flashing eyes. “And the bastard just left you there?”
His anger holds a whip-like sting, but I’m not stupid enough to assume that it all stems from concern for me. A tiny bit is the result of hurt pride. How dare someone spurn a Hollings?
My only injury is symbolic: a throbbing heart. Such a wounded, frantically beating thing. Shock wars with logic, but both fail to soothe the ache. I know that what I saw wasn’t real.
He wasn’t real—Brandt, anyway. Blake Lorenz, however, is very much a terrifying reality.
“We’re going to sue the hell out of that motherfucker,” Hunter swears. “What exactly happened?”
“Nothing,” I hear myself rasp in a stranger’s voice.
“Nothing?”
It’s the truth. I fainted. I woke up in the presence of security, and Blake Lorenz was gone.
“Snowy, say something. What happened?”
“I…”
Hunter grinds his teeth. “Snowy, just spit it out!”
“He looked like Brandt.”
“Snowy…” He eyes me blankly, not that I blame him. It sounds so insane when said out loud: The man who bought the keys to the Hollings kingdom overnight looks like the boy from my nightmares, all grown up.
He’s taller than I pictured. His blue eyes were colder, darker. The stern mouth, however, dashed all resemblance. No matter how brooding or serious he could be, Brandt’s lips always concealed the hint of a smile, just waiting to be teased out by a joke or quip.
Blake Lorenz looked as though he hasn’t smiled in years.
“That’s impossible.” Hunter stands awkwardly, frozen mid-step. His furrowed brow does little to disguise his alarm. I struck a nerve. “Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought?”
He marches to my side and sits beside me. Roughly, his fingers graze my forehead as thoug
h searching for a bruise or bump, but the attempts are halfhearted. He’s stalling, and I can’t understand why.
“I didn’t hallucinate,” I insist, though I sound more doubtful than he did. My gaze fixates on the far wall as my memory taunts me with images. Blue eyes. Black hair. That beautiful, haunted face. “I saw him.”
“You need sleep, Snowy.” Hunter withdraws his hand with a sigh and rises to his feet. “Rest the remainder of the day. I’ll handle this mess myself. I have an appointment with the lawyers.” He heads for my door, puffed up with false confidence. Near the threshold, he looks back, still my Hunter, no hint of Papa in sight—which, ironically, makes this moment all the more painful. Papa was a much better liar. “I’ll make this right, Snowy. You don’t have to worry.”
“I know.” I let him go, closing my eyes obediently, as if I could just do as he says. Sleep. Wait.
But, this time, I see Brandt Lloyd behind my eyelids, watching me from across a crowded courtroom. I hear the judge render his verdict. I watch on as my only friend is led away in cuffs.
I see my world crumble—repeatedly.
Before I know it, I’m on my feet, treading the same path Hunter did. This room, with its navy walls and spacious layout, isn’t the same one Brandt used to sneak into. My old poems don’t cover the walls. Brandt’s secrets aren’t hidden in the floorboards. No, that room is on the other side of the manor, untouched for ten years. It would be so easy to creep over there now, disturb the tomb-like space. Maybe chasing traces of him could help it sink in.
Brandt Lloyd is dead and gone.
As for Blake Lorenz…
I rack my memory for any hint of that name but come up with nothing. Businessmen have been a staple of my entire life, and I’ve learned to catalog them as one does a list of poisonous creatures that may lurk in their environment. Lorenz is a name I would remember.
Unless Hunter “didn’t think” to mention more than he’s let on. I wish I could trust him, but a gnawing sense of dread warns me to find my own answers.
Luckily, he isn’t the only Hollings with connections.
The thought repels me, but I have no choice. To buy more time, I change into a pair of jeans and a plain gray sweater before entering Mama’s study. The strangest thought comes to me now, of all times: how she hated Brandt. Beautiful and cunning, my mother could charm the venom from a snake. She lavished false affection on everyone—from her husband, to his brooding business partner, to the lowest gardener.
Everyone but Brandt Lloyd.
Her nose would wrinkle in his presence and her eyes would take on a glossy glaze as though he wasn’t worth her time. Not that he ever said a disparaging word about her. In a weird way, he seemed to pity her, the belle of every Hollings ball and the star of high society.
“Your mother is lost, Snow,” he told me once, almost without meaning to. “Lost people seek out company in strange places. Don’t forget that.”
I never knew what he meant until now. I’m more than lost. I’m rudderless amid an ocean of turmoil. In the tempest, my mind turns to foolish attempts to save myself. With the phone, I dial a number ingrained into my soul, and I pray that word of my family’s ruin hasn’t spread yet.
“’Lo?” a gruff voice demands.
My throat goes dry as old memories threaten to descend. After ten years of familiarity with this figure, the sound of his voice alone is enough to make me feel fourteen years old again, listening beyond my father’s study as they plotted and schemed, using the lives of others like tokens on a game board.
“Hello?”
“This is Snowy Hollings.” My voice shakes. I force a cough to disguise the unease. “I need a favor. I’ll pay you handsomely.”
More silence. For the first time, I wonder if my game is over before it’s even begun. Finally, a sigh comes from the other end. “How handsomely, little Hollings?”
His mocking pet name churns my stomach.
“Name a sum,” I croak, “and it’s yours. But, first, I need you to find someone for me. A Mr. Blake Lorenz.”
“Find? Or find,” the man wonders, stressing the second iteration of the word.
I shiver at the implied meaning. “I just want information. Who he is. Where he’s from. Where I can find him. That’s all.”
“Fine. Fine.” He huffs into the phone. The subtle clinking of glass and muttered conversation give clues as to his surroundings. A bar somewhere? Apparently, he hasn’t changed much. Still a lowlife, it seems, lurking on the fringes of society. “When do you want it?”
“Now, preferably.” I lick my lips and weigh the pros and cons of upping the ante. Damn it to hell. I’ll take the risk. “If you can get me his location within the hour, I’ll pay double.”
“Done.”
I hear another forced exhale. He’s smoking, I presume. One of those smelly, old-fashioned cigars, most likely. That scent haunts my nightmares. I remember it tinging the halls at night when Father was up to his worst plans. This man participated in the most heinous. With Brandt on my mind, there’s a macabre irony in asking him for any help at all—but I’m desperate.
“Nice doing business with ya, little lady,” he drawls, returning my attention to the task at hand. “Reminds me of the good times with your old man.”
I hang up, wrenching my fingers from the phone as though burned. Apparently, Hunter isn’t the only one in danger of morphing into Papa. Then again, he said as much. Our father made him do terrible things in the name of the family, but he never had him lie. Hunter, for all of his faults, never drove someone to his death. Hunter still has his soul intact.
A blue-eyed boy stole mine, however, and I doubt I’ll ever get it back. My only hope is to forget its existence and focus on the here and now. I’m here, in Hollings Manor, the home I’ve lived in since birth. Now, it’s in danger, and I’ll be damned if anyone will take it away from me.
Perhaps luck is on our side for once; an hour on the dot, the phone rings. When I answer, I’m given an address before the speaker hangs up, but not without first uttering one last warning.
“Leave the money at the usual place, little Snowy. I’m sure you remember where?”
I swallow hard. I remember, all right: a narrow alley near a bar on the outskirts of the city. “Yes.”
Back in my bedroom, I stand before my full-length mirror and pick apart the appearance of the creature watching me from the glass. She’s so damn pale. Her eyes are hollow. Her face has lost all color. I don’t even recognize her anymore. She’s a ghost.
I banish her with a blouse, a skirt, and a diamond necklace. Running a brush through my hair smooths most of my curls. There. I’m myself again, poised and confident. My engagement ring sparkles on my finger, and I stare at it as guilt pangs in my stomach. I haven’t even called Daniel. I can’t—not yet. I’ll do my wifely duty and save us from ruin first.
A sudden realization pinches my heart. Instead of Papa, perhaps I’m following in Mama’s footsteps?
Obedient to the end.
The thought haunts me as I slip into the hall and approach the staircase. Hunter must be gone. I don’t find him in the foyer or hear him rustling in Mama’s study. Still, I enter the back stairway and take the keys to one of the cars rather than call for a driver. Sure enough, I find the garage devoid of Hunter’s preferred sports car. Ronan’s motorcycle is gone as well—has he even come home yet? I can’t recall.
There are more pressing matters now, apart from my wayward brother’s downward spiral.
Blake Lorenz.
According to my informant, he’s staying at a property just beyond the boundaries of Mayfield. It takes me nearly an hour to find it, nestled among the hills.
A gate bars the entrance, but the wrought iron doors part on cue before I even turn onto the driveway.
The gothic structure beyond them towers nearly four stories, with turrets stabbing at the sky and carefully manicured lawns devoid of any decorative landscaping. There aren’t even bushes to add definition to the stark
plots of grass, just a stone path stretching toward the massive front door.
I park as close to the house as a can, at the end of a circular driveway. God, it’s huge. I’m forced to crane my neck to fully take the structure in. The ornate façade makes it look larger than our expansive Victorian-style dwelling. Utilitarian, almost. There are no lush gardens. No tennis courts or pool. Just trees and silence and this inescapable feeling of someone watching every step I take.
My suspicion is proven correct when I mount the three stone steps leading to the entrance, and the door opens from the inside before I can knock.
“May I help you?”
A man dressed in a black suit bars my entrance. Gray streaks his dark, neatly combed hair, adding a wizened quality to his stern features. From his sharp gaze, I sense he’s the type of man who takes his duties as gatekeeper seriously.
I clear my throat, hoping to seem unimposing enough to slip beneath his radar. “Is Mr. Lorenz available?”
“He’s out,” the man says, angling the door to close it. “If I may have your name, I’ll tell him you called.”
Behind him, I make out a spacious foyer bathed in shadow. It’s nearing sundown, but none of the lamps are lit. Any butler I know would have already had the entrance illuminated by now—unless, of course, the place was kept dark by request. Memory, the pitiful thing it is, gnaws away at my resolve.
I once knew a boy who loved the dark. It helps me think, he used to claim. He rarely lit the lamps in his room, even after nightfall.
“Wait!” My hand is sliding between the door before I know it, preventing it from closing fully. The man frowns at the slim digits, but he pauses.
“Please,” I croak, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice. “My name is Snowy Hollings. Tell him…”
What? I only have seconds to make my case. Brandt Lloyd was a dreamer. But Blake Lorenz is a businessman. He may claim not to know me—and I’ll probably never understand the darkness in his eyes—but I know the business. And I remember my father’s old warnings about little girls at the mercy of ruthless men.
