Chapter 6
Reva's POV
The drive back from the estate was quiet, the city lights sliding past the tinted windows in long gold streaks.
"Thank you," I said. "For tonight. For all of it. I know they had it coming, but you didn't have to make it hurt them that much."
Kael's mouth curved. "I wanted to. There's a difference."
We'd left the party late. He'd spent nearly an hour with the charity people, signing papers for that enormous donation, while I stood by his side and watched my family slip out one by one, none of them brave enough to walk past me on their way to the door.
By the time we finally left, the Brickstone estate had emptied out behind us.
"So where are we going now?" I asked.
"My home."
I turned that over in the quiet of the car. His home. Somewhere I'd never been, with a man I'd known for only a handful of hours who wasn't even a man at all. Every sensible part of me said a girl should never follow a stranger into the dark like this.
But I'd already followed him. I'd accepted his deal and traded away everything for ninety days. There was no undoing that now, no careful line I could draw this late. Wherever he was taking me, I'd already agreed to go.
"Before that," I said, "take me home to my family house. I need to get some of my things first."
His head turned slowly toward me, and something like a warning sat behind his pale eyes. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"I don't care if it's a good idea. Everything I own is in that house. My clothes, my credentials." I lifted my chin. "I'm not walking into your world with nothing."
He studied me for a long moment. "Okay then, I'll wait in the car," he said at last. "Be quick."
The house rose at the end of its long drive the way it always had, tall, proud and trying very hard to look like more than it was. From the road it still had the bones of something grand.
However, up close you could see the truth. Paint peeling at the shutters. The garden gone patchy and wild. The fountain out front that had stopped running years ago and never been fixed. My family ran the whole pack with authority, and yet, they couldn't keep the roof of our house from sagging.
That was the secret behind this fake grandeur. All the power in the pack, and no money to hold it up.
The house was lit up when we pulled into the drive.
I should have known. They'd beaten us home, and they weren't asleep. They were waiting.
I let myself in, and the first thing I saw stopped me cold.
My clothes. All of them, dragged out of my room and thrown across the parlour floor in a torn and soiled heap. Someone had taken a pair of scissors to the dresses I loved most and left the ruined pieces spread out like a message.
Pamela stood in the middle of it, arms crossed, her engagement gown swapped for a silk pink robe, her eyes bright with spite.
"Look who came crawling back," she said. "Come to collect your rags? There they are. That's all you were ever worth anyway."
"You did this?"
"I did you a favor." She kicked a torn sleeve toward me. "You don't belong here anymore. You never really did. You want to know the truth, sister? Nobody in this house ever wanted you. Not Mom, not Dad, not even Derick."
Three months ago, those words would have broken me in half. Tonight they lit a match.
But I didn't go for her first. I turned toward the stairs, toward the dark doorway where I already knew my mother was standing, drawn down by the sound of my voice.
"Mom," I called out. "Come out. Come look at what your daughter did. Come tell me it's my fault, the way you always do."
She stepped into the light slowly, wrapped in an old housecoat, her face tired and closed. She looked at the ruined clothes, then at me, and said nothing.
"That's what I thought," I said. "You never say anything. Are you really my mother? Or you just Ronald's poppet?"
Her mouth trembled. Still, she said nothing.
I turned back to Pamela.
"You're so petty and immature." My voice came out low and steady. "I see your jealousy doesn't end with stealing my mate. You envied my so-called rags too. That's why you tore them up. But guess what," I sneered. "You'll never have my life. You'll always be the stand-in, the second choice, the last name people think of, right after me."
Her face went blotchy red and I saw her hands ball into fists.
Before I could blink she lunged towards me…