by Skye Warren
The delivery man can’t quite meet my eyes as he holds out a shaking envelope. Luca snatches the envelope from his hand and slams the door in his face.
I reach for it while he’s busy with the locks, but he just holds it higher. “Hey,” I say, “That’s mine.”
He doesn’t even acknowledge me while he peers through the peephole, presumably to watch the guy drive away. And he’s still holding the envelope up where I can’t reach it. What an ass.
I lean against the wall and cross my arms. May as well; there’s no way I can get the envelope unless he lets me have it. “You know what we should get? One of those guns that pops out of the wall when someone comes up. Then they’d have ten seconds to make their case before it shoots them.”
Luca glares. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Ugh, it’s ridiculous how good of a guard dog you are. Does Ivan give you treats?”
He ignores that. “All I have to do is tell him that you’re in danger and he’ll pick up this entire house as is and move it to Iceland.”
It’s a pretty funny mental picture, I have to admit. My lips quirk. “Even people in Iceland are entitled to mail. Can I have my letter now?”
“No.” He scowls. “It could be dangerous.”
I eye the letter with more doubt than suspicion. It’s one of those document mailers made of thin cardboard—and definitely flat. “Is there a bomb in there? Ooh, I know. A rocket launcher.”
Luca is over six feet of brawn and tattoos and experienced malevolence. And he sticks his tongue out at me. “I’m calling Ivan. He’ll definitely want to open it first.”
“What. An. Ass.”
He returns to the living room to grab his phone off the floor. The entire time he holds the envelope over his head, knowing I’ll go for it if I get the chance.
“It’s me,” he says, his voice low and serious. “Some kind of letter showed up for Candy. Yeah, she had to sign for it.”
He’s distracted. This is my chance.
I hop onto the sofa arm, and as he’s turning around to spot me, I snatch the envelope from his hand. He swears under his breath as he lunges for me. The lamp crashes to the floor, but I’m already halfway up the stairs. Luca turned into my surrogate big brother for the year that I lived here—which means I’m fast on my feet. I bypass my own room, which does not have a lock on it, and race to the third floor.
The third floor, which I had always avoided before. Now I know exactly which room is Ivan’s, and I know it has a lock. I close myself in and turn the key.
Luca bangs on the door. “Let me in. Now.”
“How about no?” Okay, so maybe I’m taunting a little. It’s not very often I get to best him.
“This isn’t a game. Open the door.”
“Of course it’s not a game,” I call through the door. “I know why you don’t want me to open it. But it’s my letter, and I’m opening it.”
“I will tear down this fucking door,” he yells.
“Good luck with that,” I mutter. I have no doubt the lock is steel enforced or something equally ridiculous. Ivan would have insisted on that. Luca can probably bust inside, but not before I open this letter.
If it’s some creepy note from the person vandalizing the club—or from Leader Allen—I would have shown it to Luca and Ivan. It’s not like I want to protect the bastard sending it. But I want the chance to open it myself. I know they’d never let me. They’d open it for me, dissect every part of it, and only give me the information they want me to see. It’s what they did about the note on my mirror and the one in blood. I’m tired of being in the dark.
Besides, the letter was addressed to me. Candace Rosalie Toussaint. I have lived for years as Candy, just one name, a bastardization of the one my mother gave me. To hear my real name, to see it in typed letters…I can’t ignore the siren call even if it brings me to my death.
There’s a little tab meant to tear open the envelope. I do so and then take a deep breath. Inside is a single type-written sheet of paper and a smaller, regular-sized envelope.
I look at the typed paper first. It’s on some kind of stationery for a lawyer. It looks very official, but I’ve never heard of them. And then I begin to read…
…your mother’s lawyer and the executor of her estate…
…all funds donated to the Church of Harmony Hills…
…she entrusted me with this letter to her only child in the event of her death…
The room had seemed so big before, but it’s closing in on me. I can’t seem to get any air. My hands are trembling as I pick up the envelope.
This one also has the law firm’s name and address in the return label—as if she wrote the note in the office. My full name is scrawled across the front. Candace Rosalia Toussaint. I didn’t see her write that much. There wasn’t exactly a stash of paper and pens in our room. That was reserved for Leader Allen and the elders and the boys in school. I still recognize her handwriting, though. I could never forget. She drew the letters into the dirt when she first taught me to read—or tried. Without any books or practice it never went very far.
Only here, with Ivan, have I learned to understand.
Dear Candace,
If you’re reading this, it means my time as a sinner has come to an end. Don’t be sad for me, because it means I am at peace. I don’t know if this letter will find you or if you will want to read it. Of all the sins I committed in my life, what I did to you is the most unforgivable.
If it is any consolation, I brought you to Harmony Hills believing it was for your own good—that sunshine and grass would do for you what streetlamps and sidewalks had not done for me. I discovered too late that it’s not the bars that make a jail, but the jailor. And wherever the Good Lord sees fit to send me, I will be at peace because I know that you are free.
Her name is signed at the bottom: Rosalie Toussaint.
I slide to the floor, the letter half crumpling in my hand. I can’t take in a full breath, can’t do anything but shake in the middle of the floor, my knees pulled to my chest. Tears make the room blurry, and that’s a relief. I don’t want to see anything. Not even Ivan’s bed and his big sparse room—normally a comfort. Now it just reminds me of how much I’ve lost.
That’s how Luca finds me when he finally busts the door open. I hear wood splinter behind me, but I can’t move. I don’t care. At least he doesn’t try to touch me, either in comfort or anger.
It’s Ivan who does that, when he gets home a few minutes later. Ivan who rips the letter from my hand to read what I could never say aloud. Ivan who drops to his knees next to me to cradle me close.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I think I might black out for a few minutes. Or maybe longer than a few. The sun has set by the time I come awake in Ivan’s arms in the middle of the bed.
“I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Ivan is telling Luca, who goes to make arrangements.
“Where?” I mumble. I shouldn’t need him. I can’t need him. After reading my mother’s letter, I know that I was right to try to leave here, leave him. But the thought of being away from him right now feels like knives in my skin.
Ivan just gives a short shake of his head, eyes strangely dark. They’re usually a pale gray, like an iceberg floating in the middle of the ocean.
Right now they seem dark, like deep waters.
“Don’t leave,” I whisper. If he leaves now, I’ll have to find a way to leave too. I’d never see him again, and I can’t bear that thought. Not when I’m so raw.
“I have to go.” He presses his mouth to my forehead in a soundless kiss. “This letter proves that someone in Harmony Hills does know where you are. Which makes it a lot more likely that this—” He pauses, and my mind fills in the blank with what he’d say. Fuckhead. Religious nut job. “That this person is involved,” he finishes quietly.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Absolutely not. We’ve discussed this.”
“Ivan, I…I need to go. I wasn’t there f
or her when she was alive, and now she’s—” My voice breaks, and I force myself to go on. “This is the least I can do for her.”
His eyes turn to ice. “It won’t bring her back.”
My breath shudders in my chest. “I know that.”
It’s the only kind of closure I’ll be able to find. They would have already had the funeral, if the lawyer is just now sending me a letter. Funerals happen quickly at Harmony Hills. I have no idea how she managed to even see a lawyer and get that letter stowed away for me, but that won’t change anything. I won’t ever see her plain wood casket or her unmarked grave. All I’ll ever see is that house, without her in it.
It’s the only way I can believe that she’s gone. Why doesn’t he understand?
My voice is just a whisper. “I can’t be like you, cutting out the past because it hurts.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” That mocking voice again.
I know it is. “Then why didn’t you ever go back to your grandmother’s house?”
“That was a different life,” he says, sounding more tired than anything. “Made for a little boy. Not a shell of a man. I’ll never go back there. I can’t.”
I stare at him, realizing he means it.
He picks up the letter and reads it again, his expression severe.
From here I can see something scribbled on the back, something I didn’t see before. I take the sheet from his hands gently and tilt it, reading aloud.
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32.
Ivan’s eyebrows rise. “Even I’ve heard of that one.”
“Why is it on the back like this? It’s in her handwriting.”
Ivan just strokes my hair, content to let me fall apart in his arms. I push myself up so I’m sitting on my own. “I’m serious,” I tell him. “I need to go there and see for myself. That’s what she’s telling me. The truth will set me free.”
He looks dubious, and okay, I admit the logic is fuzzy. But the pieces are there. I can’t ignore them. Her writing that Bible verse, scribbled on the back—like an afterthought. But why did she have it? And how did she die? The letter from the lawyer didn’t say. She wouldn’t be the first person to go missing from Harmony Hills under mysterious circumstances. Of course I won’t find out the truth just from looking at an empty room, but I can’t ignore her. I can’t ignore her final plea.
I clasp Ivan’s hands in mine. “Please, take me with you. I need to go.”
He frowns. “Why do I get the impression that if I say no, you’ll find some other way to go.”
My head lowers, eyes closed. This is the closest I can come to prayer anymore. “I left her in that place, in that hell, for years. I thought she wanted to be there. I thought she chose to stay.”
I always thought she picked Leader Allen over me. After all, she could have gone with me. Or she could have made plans to meet up with me later. She hadn’t.
Leave, Candace. Leave and don’t ever look back.
Ivan’s voice is softer than before, his voice almost gentle. “She’s gone, Candace.”
“I know that,” I say, broken but determined. “But I have to go there, to see for myself. I have to…pay my respects.”
She told me never to look back, but this letter is a window to a past I never saw clearly. I could only see her actions as a scared, hurt sixteen-year-old girl. Now I have to wonder what else was happening…
I lean down over Ivan’s hands and kiss his knuckles. It’s a sign of devotion, a sign of his dominance. His hands tighten around mine briefly before he releases me.
“We leave early in the morning,” he says.
Relief fills me. It’s clear he isn’t happy with me, but he’s letting me come.
Ivan closes his eyes and swears under his breath. “One condition. You will not interfere while we’re there. It will be dangerous, even with protection. You will not speak. Understand?”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He moves to stand. “I have a lot to prepare before then. You should rest. Not here.”
Then he’s lifting me, carrying me over the carnage of the broken door and down the stairs. He lays me in the middle of my old bed. My eyes are half-closed as I sink into the pillow. He pulls the sheet up and tucks it around me. I’m already drifting as he flicks off the light and closes the door behind him.
Exhaustion has its claws in me, making it hard to keep my eyes open—and ironically, making it hard to sleep. My thoughts are stuck on a wheel, spinning endlessly.
My mother sacrificed everything so that I could live a normal life. And what do I do with it?
Ivan. The Grand. A life of sin.
I didn’t have much choice as a naive sixteen-year-old with twenty dollars to my name. It was inevitable that I would have had to sell myself in some form or another to survive. Ivan spared me from the worst of it, feeding and clothing me first, and then giving me safe haven at the Grand.
Now I’m grown and under his roof once again. He puts me on my knees and spanks me. Even when I lived alone, he watched me constantly.
I discovered too late that it’s not the bars that make a jail, but the jailor.
My mother sacrificed everything so I could be free.
The only way to do that is to leave Ivan for good.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We take Ivan’s private jet, which is good since I still don’t have any identification. Ivan and I don’t speak much, but then we’re surrounded by his entourage. And by entourage, I mean small army. A set of three black cars are waiting for us. Ivan opens the door to the middle car and waits for me to get in. Surrounded at the front and the back. Protected.
We’re as safe as we ever can be, but I can’t shake the feeling of dread as we leave the small airport and head toward Harmony Hills. I’m going to see Leader Allen again.
He should be nothing to me, but I’m afraid of him nonetheless.
I always knew my mother sent me away to protect me, but I never really knew why she stayed behind. Because she thought it would buy me time? She must have known how unprepared I was, how little I had with me. She must have known what I would have to do to survive.
Or maybe she did love Leader Allen, even knowing what he was. It’s a strange feeling, to love your jailor. One I couldn’t have understood if I’d never met Ivan.
His expression gives nothing away, focused and completely remote. The man who held me as I cried for the loss of my mother is nowhere to be seen. This is the Ivan who commands respect in all of Tanglewood, the one who made a group of men back off with just a look all those years ago.
“How are you going to get in?” There are gates and locks and guards. We won’t be able to waltz in.
Ivan doesn’t look at me. “I have an engraved invitation.”
Then again, maybe we will. Nervous energy pushes me to keep going. “He won’t like you coming here. Even protected, he might fuck with you just because.”
“A lot of people have messed with me just because, Candy.”
“And what? You kill them? Well, you can’t.”
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill him.”
“Because you’re coming here in a…in a goddamn parade! They’ll know it was you.”
The expression on his face tells me he isn’t impressed with my reason. “He’s a prick.”
Prick is an understatement. He’s a genuinely horrible human being. I can’t really argue with the fact that he deserves to be dead. After the way he treated my mother, and me, and countless other people at Harmony Hills… he’s like a dictator. And not the benevolent kind.
Except the thought of seeing him hurt sends ice through my veins. Before I would have said it’s because my mother cares about him, but now that can’t be my reason. So I have to concede that…I care about him. Not really. Not where it counts. My brain knows I don’t care about him, that he’s nothing. Less than nothing. But there’s a muscle memory in my heart, an old lesson drilled into me, never to be
forgotten.
And I hate that. I hate the way he managed to condition me. I hate the way Ivan conditions me. “You just can’t, okay? You can’t kill someone because they’re a prick. What kind of logic is that?”
He gives me a warning look.
Which naturally I ignore. “And you can’t just…you can’t just keep people because you want to. We aren’t animals.”
“Do you really want to do this now?” he asks, even though he clearly thinks he knows the answer. Of course he thinks that.
And fuck, he’s right. I don’t want to do this now, but I want to think about where we’re going even less. I want to think about my mother and what she sacrificed, what she lost, even less. “You don’t control me,” I tell him.
Then the worst thing happens. He smiles, a little wry. Definitely amused. “Believe me, Candy, I know that. I think everyone who’s ever met you knows that.”
Now he’s just patronizing me. Everyone who’s ever met me knows exactly the opposite. Even Lola assumed I was fucking the boss until I told her otherwise. “You know what, Ivan? You can kiss my ass.”
“Maybe I will.”
God. Everything is so fucking easy for him.
Except one thing. “Excuse me if I’m a little stressed out,” I tell him, using the words like venom. “I’m going back to where I grew up, to the place I never thought I’d see again. But then maybe you don’t know what that’s like.”
He goes deathly still.
Like I’m on a suicide mission, I finish roughly, “You’re the one too afraid to go home.”
His amusement evaporates. “Is that so?”
I’m practically shaking. It’s too much. My mother’s death. Seeing Leader Allen again. Coming back to the place of my birth, my home for the first sixteen years of my life. “Enough with the fucking rhetorical questions. Yes, that is so. You act all tough and fearless, but inside you’re just as scared as me. And if you think I’m going to let you spank me because I’m telling you the truth, then I suggest you go ahead and try!”
Immediately I realize that the divider separating the front and back is down. Which means Luca and the other guard in front can hear what we’re saying. Shit.