by Piper Lawson
Harrison feels for her pulse, then looks around. Because we could be seen together, I realize. He’s risking everything being here.
It’s too late to change it.
We pile her into the back seat to take her to the hospital.
The doctors in Ibiza are used to overdoses, and they smoothly take over the second we bring her inside and establish how we found her. She’s in a coma, but I make them promise to let us know when her condition changes.
We head back out to the car, Harrison hanging his head.
Inside, Toro flicks a gaze back before pulling out onto the street. Despite his quiet presence, in that car, it’s just the two of us and the awful things we’ve seen tonight.
“Why did you call me?” Harrison asks.
I swallow hard. “Because you’re going after Mischa and I figured you would want to know firsthand what was happening.”
But that’s not true. I’d planned to tell the police, not Harrison.
Calling him was instinct. Something terrible happened, and he was the person I wanted at my side.
“Señor? Are you all right?”
I look between Toro and Harrison, who nods tightly. Then Toro buzzes up the partition.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“Overdoses are hard. Since I found my parents dead.”
Shock slams into me, chased by grief.
He found them?
I assumed it had been a neighbor or someone who worked for them.
Now, I picture a college-aged Harrison bursting in the front door, pulling up at the grotesque sight.
“I’m so sorry.”
My eyes burn, my cheeks tingling with wetness.
“Don’t, Raegan. It’s not your fault.”
He’s stoic, controlled. Maybe this is how he became that way. Put in a position that left him feeling utterly helpless.
I touch his hair, smoothing my fingers through it. “This man is out there hurting people, and we have to stop him.”
He pulls me against him, and my face nestles into his suit jacket. The air between us is tight. With grief, with anger. His arms band around me like steel.
We don’t live in a safe world, but his resolve reminds me there are people who care about us. That we live in a world worth fighting for.
When we get to my hotel, I don’t move for a long time.
“You can’t come upstairs,” I whisper, his lapel scratching my lips.
His chest rises and falls rhythmically under my face. “Because of what happened tonight or because you don’t want me there?”
I pull back to look up at him through damp eyes. “Both.”
If we go up to that room together, it won’t only be sex.
It’ll be therapy.
No, church.
We’ll burn one another down to nothing and roll in the ashes before getting up tomorrow and putting clothes on whatever shambles of form remain. And I can’t risk that with him. We both have our own priorities, and they’re already dangerously intertwined.
“You deserve love, Harrison. No matter what your parents did, no matter what you did. I wish I could convince you of that, but you need to convince yourself. You deserve to be happy.”
“Just not with you.”
Fuck, that’s unfair. But he’s trying to push me away. I can see him now. He hides behind his own walls. Mine are high and protective. His are armored with barbs.
“You walked away from me. I loved you. I wanted to spend every day with you. Every damned hour. When you left, it broke me.”
My gaze falls to the crown inked on my wrist. “I wanted to remind myself of your confidence, your belief in me. You taught me that loving is worthwhile, even when you don’t get it back. That you can be the person you want to be, even when no one’s looking. Especially when no one’s looking. I will never forget that.”
His jaw works, his firm mouth parting in frustration. “I want you, Raegan. If I could tell you how many nights I’ve lain awake wanting you…But I don’t want to see you hurt anymore. I’ve caused you enough pain. If you ask me to stop, I’ll do it.”
I stare at him. He doesn’t take no for an answer from anyone, merely finds another way to get what he wants. But the expression on his face is earnest.
Mischa needs to be brought down. Tonight, I understand better than ever why this matters to Harrison, why it’s so personal he can’t let it go.
But letting him break my heart twice would be foolish and might ruin me.
I shift across his lap and grip the door handle. “Yes. Stop.”
I’m out of the car before I can take it back.
11
Harrison
Going through your dead parents’ things is an edifying experience. Strange how processing a person’s belongings is shaped entirely by your memories of them.
Those memories have changed shape and color since last year.
Growing up, I swore my parents had all the answers. Until they started arguing at night in hushed tones. I challenged them to leave the business they were in and start fresh on their own. When they died, the guilt crippled me. It was my fault they’d left.
Finding them dead only made it worse. The people I loved and admired were gone, and Sebastian would grow up without parents, and every time I closed my eyes for years, I saw their still, slumped forms and blamed myself.
Now, learning they hadn’t really been trying to leave, I should feel as if a weight has been lifted. They weren’t innocent. Some people might even go so far as to say they deserved their fate.
Except my need for vengeance on the man who killed them has grown—not because they were saints, but because when Mischa burned Kings to the ground. It wasn’t only about them anymore.
He attacked my business, the one I built from nothing with my own hands.
The Ivanov family molded my past with cruel, greedy hands.
They won’t touch my future.
I’m in the third-bedroom closet, surrounded by boxes, unpacking photos and other items that have sat here since I had them shipped from London.
Some items I toss in a pile to get rid of.
I can’t sell their things, so I’ll donate them.
When I spot a slim, black lacquered box, my chest tightens. Inside the lid, there’s a photo of Ash as a baby. Me holding him with a put-upon smile. I would’ve been fourteen, I think, and home from school on a break.
My mother never kept her things in a safe. She wouldn’t let my father convince her, no matter what beautiful trinkets he bought her. She wasn’t a suspicious person. Once she said, “If someone cares enough to take them, they need them more than I do.”
The exception was her wedding ring.
I lift it from the case, the gold band slim and smooth in my fingers. There’s an inscription I never noticed before. Through everything.
I’m surprised it’s here. When they passed, I had the funeral home dress them in clothes as different as possible from what they were wearing when I found them. Anything to clear that awful image from my mind. I told the funeral home to bury them with their rings. Yet this one’s here.
Footsteps in the hall have me glancing up. As they approach the half-open door, I call, “Natalia. Could you—“
“Not Natalia.” Sebastian steps inside. His shorts are forest green, his favorite shade as a child, and his polo shirt is a few shades lighter.
I set the ring back in the box and rise, the box still in my hands. “What are you doing here?”
“Rae told me what happened last night at the bar. The woman who overdosed.” His eyes search my face.
“Don’t do that,” I say, irritated.
“What?”
“Try to see if I’ve lost it. I’m your older brother. I’m supposed to make sure you haven’t lost it.”
His lips curve, the ghost of a smile.
“Did you talk to the police?” I ask.
He crosses to the bed, the only place to sit, and sinks into the bedspread uninvited. “Yes.”
I
clench the box harder. He shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me. I’m his damned brother.
“When did I let you down, Sebastian?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t ask me for anything.”
“I’ve asked you for money. You helped put me through school—“
“I mean anything that’s going on in your life. You call me when you get drafted, but when your season goes off the rails... I didn’t hear from you once.”
He flops back on the bed, insolent as a teenager. “You’re the infallible older brother with all the answers. If anyone had a different approach, they were wrong. Our parents thought the sun rose out of your arse whether you gave a shit or not.”
My chest tightens. “I told them to leave the business, and when they did, it cost them their lives.”
He throws his hands wide. “That’s not why I’m angry! I’m angry because I didn’t lose two pieces of my family that day—I lost three.”
His meaning sinks in, prickles lifting the hairs on my neck.
“I took custody of you, Sebastian. Made sure you had what you needed. Not only food and shelter, but the best schools, the top football coaches.” I refused to let him grow up with less than I had.
“I didn’t need private school or football coaches. I needed my brother. But he was too busy picking up where they left off.”
He shoves himself off the bed and stalks toward the window, avoiding my gaze.
I can feel his anger, but it’s the hurt in his voice that shakes me. “I had to provide what they couldn’t any longer.”
“I grew up without a family, Harry. Being a teenager, figuring out what I wanted to do, who I was… it fucking sucked. Not because they were gone, but because I was alone and I didn’t need to be.”
Fuck. Maybe in trying to protect my brother, I isolated him. I think of Raegan, how her parents made their choices about what was best for her and only hurt her more.
I rub the box between my hands.
I hope to hell I didn’t screw up my brother like that. Or if I did, that he ends up a resilient person like she is.
“I’m glad you kept going,” I say at last.
He cuts a look over his shoulder at me. “The other option is worse.”
Raegan’s words about me thinking I don’t deserve love echo in my head.
When I tried to protect her last year, convincing myself it was for the best to leave, I destroyed what was left of our relationship.
Perhaps she’s not the only one I’ve done that with.
My next breath is shallow.
“I need to tell you something. Last year, in the course of trying to win La Mer from Christian, I learned something about our parents. Information I wish I could forget.”
He’s across to me in a heartbeat. “What?”
The sunlight streaming in the window is at odds with how I’m feeling, but I force out the words that have lain heavy on my shoulders for the past year.
“They were liars.” My voice is tight, and I swallow. “I thought they wanted to get out of Mischa’s family business, and I told you as much. But they had no intention of leaving. Everything I did to build this business was for them. To avenge them, to make them… It’s meaningless. Perhaps I should get rid of the villa too.”
I grab the pile of things, including the velvet box, and toss them in a bag by the door before pacing the room.
“Don’t. You like the villa.”
“I wanted it because it was theirs,” I grind out, rubbing a hand over my face.
He doesn’t answer, and I glance back to see him thumbing through the bag.
“You knew them more than I did. Had more time with them. The thing is, we build people up to be what they’re not. I did the same with you.” He opens the jewelry box and takes out the photo. He smiles, holding it up. “I remember this.”
I snort. “You don’t. You were all of six months old.”
“Yeah, but I remember being safe. Protected. Most of all, loved. By them and by you.”
“You don’t care that they weren’t who we thought?”
He turns over the picture. “I never saw that. I’d rather remember that they loved us.”
My chest tightens unbearably. Holding my brother at a distance has been harder than I thought, but safer.
Sebastian straightens, lifts the ring out of the box like I did. “‘Through everything’.” He arches a brow. “Guess they knew life wasn’t perfect either.” Sebastian shuts the box and sets it on the bedspread. “You won’t save this, I will.”
I nod. “Sebastian?”
He glances up.
“When did you become an adult?”
“Legally, on my eighteenth birthday. Sexually… far sooner. Though, honestly, I’d take it back if I could.”
My chuckle rumbles through my chest, dislodging some of the pain. “Do you want to go through the rest together?”
“Let’s get lunch first.”
We head back out to the hall.
“You know,” he tosses over his shoulder as we head down the hall to the stairs, “I told Rae you didn’t deserve her.”
I pull up, incredulous. “What? When?”
“Yesterday.” He pauses at the top of the steps. “But I was wrong.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “I asked if she wanted me to stop pursuing her.”
“Why the fuck did you ask that?”
“Because I didn’t think she would say yes!”
He rubs a hand over his face, and for a second, I feel like the little brother.
“It was a bluff.”
“No, it wasn’t. You meant it, and that’s why you’re freaking out, because now you have to honor it.”
He’s right, damn him.
“She’s the only woman I can see in my life. The only one I want by my side. She’s infuriating and argumentative and sullen and beautiful. I don’t know how not to go after what I want, Sebastian.”
I get that she’s angry, but I never expected the feelings beneath to erode.
Now, the prospect of life without Rae makes me howl.
My brother’s mouth twists. “Take it from someone who’s been there. Loving something you can’t have is better than not loving at all.”
12
Rae
Last night, I took a sleeping pill.
It’s been three days since the night Harrison and I took the woman to the hospital. I haven’t heard anything about her condition. Nor have I heard from Mischa since the meeting when I arrived about my La Mer proposal.
Everything seems to be locked into a holding pattern—save my agitation, which seems to grow.
Since the night at Bliss, I replay finding that woman over and over, when I should be working or sleeping. I can’t unsee what I’ve seen, can’t help but wonder how many people have been hurt by Mischa Ivanov.
Today, I’m scheduled to do an interview. There’s a multicamera setup on this patio in Ibiza Town, and a few fans have clustered around to watch.
The last interview I did in Ibiza was the start of a rough period of my life—the reporter called me out on being with Harrison.
I’ve done dozens since then. I’m never quite comfortable.
“I’m here with Little Queen, who’s playing a residency at Bliss in Ibiza this summer.”
Cheers go up from the street, and I turn to grin at the fans gathered, which only makes them cheer more.
“You’ve built quite the following,” the interviewer says.
“I’m grateful to every person who listens.”
“Why is it important to you?”
“Because we’re all individuals going through our own shit.”
Her eyebrows lift, and I wonder belatedly if I can swear on this channel.
“What shit”—she sneaks an apologetic look at the camera guy, and I laugh—“are you going through?”
I uncross and recross my legs on the high stool, glad I wore ripped denim and sandals rather than a dress. “The usual. Worki
ng on some new songs. Soaking up the sun.”
The man I loved is trying to bring down a drug dealer while I’m trying to get said drug dealer to hire me.
I haven’t seen Harrison since the night of my show, and that’s eating at me too.
But after our call, Annie sent me a picture of Harrison holding her baby. It hit me hard. Not because I’ve ever thought of having kids with him. The idea of Harrison as a father seems completely at odds with his mission, his entire ethos.
But is it? Everything he did has been driven by love for the people he cares about. Even if he chose that love over our love.
Before the sleeping pill kicked in last night, I couldn’t resist typing out a text that I sent along with the image.
Rae: You better hope this doesn’t get leaked publicly. Ovaries will explode.
Harrison replied instantly.
Harrison: Even yours?
I stared at the message for too long. Was he up because he was thinking of me? Thinking of Mischa? Or something entirely unrelated—the direction of interest rates or the last season of the Great British Bake Off?
Rae: I’m not maternal.
Harrison: I doubt that very much. But there is a precedent.
Then he sent me a picture of a teenaged Harrison holding a blond baby wrapped in a blanket.
Rae: Wow. Ash looks… innocent. You look as if you’d fight the world for him.
Harrison: I learned early to take no prisoners. Hesitation leads to weakness. Compassion precedes defeat.
I debated before responding.
Rae: That’s a good way to make enemies. You’ll always be fighting.
Harrison: It’s the only way I know how to live.
That was the tragedy.
He taught me how to fight—for myself, for my dreams, for the love I deserve.
But I want him to lay down his weapons.
Another text appeared before I could respond.
Harrison: I never stopped caring.
