Page 38 of Blackmailing Belle (The Lost Girls #4)
Chapter 38
Bringing Back Basil
THE BEAST OF BOSTON
B elle has been in and out of consciousness for the better part of a day. At least she’s at home, tucked into bed in my bedroom. Our bedroom.
A pair of flutterbuns hover near the headboard, their iridescent wings catching the soft light filtering through the curtains. I knew we didn’t get them all contained once she let them out. Though I can’t say I care much about their escape.
One flits closer to her as if curious, while the other bobs lazily in the air as though keeping watch. No matter what I do, they refuse to leave her side.
Whenever she rouses, I’m right there. Mrs. P brings in steaming plates of food, everything from steak with a side of lobster, mashed potatoes, and green beans to a mountain of chocolate chip pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon. The more she eats, the more color comes back to her face. She fusses at me when I keep urging her to eat more, telling me she knows when she’s full and not to push.
“Why don’t you come over here?”
I jerk up from where my chin is settled on my chest. I’d fallen asleep in a chair. Isabelle pats the bed, and I’m there in a heartbeat. Wrapping an arm around her, she snuggles into my chest.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, trying not to be so anxious about the answer.
“Much better but still weak,” she confesses. Then she tenses in my arms. “Is my dad okay, really?”
“Yes,” I assure her, running my claws through her hair. “He’s been here, spoiled by Mrs. P’s baking and back to writing on the walls of his room with permanent marker. Guess I should have noticed all his equations were for making Thorns. Now that I’m listening to him, I’m not sure how I missed it.” And since I’ve been examining those walls and listening to his babbling, I’ve been picking up some interesting ideas.
The way I stroke Isabelle’s hair evokes a happy humming sound from her. This may be my new favorite sound. Though I don’t deserve to hear it or to have her pressed against me like this. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have drank that hex.
“How long have I been out?”
“Just over a day.”
“Ugh.” She wrinkles her nose. “I must smell terrible.”
“You smell like you,” I say, dropping a kiss on her head before inhaling deeply. It’s true, and I’m addicted to her in any and all states. My heart wrenches inside my chest. “I’m sorry this happened. It should have been me.”
She cuddles deeper into me, shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. It’s Roman’s,” she adds darkly. “He and Adrian meant to poison you with that champagne.”
Roman. I swear to all the fae lords I will rip his spine out through his throat.
“He knew,” she says quietly. “He watched me drink it, and he still turned around and walked away, not saying a thing. My cousin truly doesn’t care what happens to me or my father.”
My insides twist with pain. She sounds so dejected.
“I would never hurt you like that.” I need her to know that I am nothing like her old family.
“I know,” she says quietly.
Isabelle drifts off again, her breathing soft and even against my chest. The weight of her in my arms feels grounding, anchoring me in a way I don’t deserve. As much as I want to stay here, to soak in the quiet reassurance of her presence, I can’t shake the gnawing guilt churning in my gut.
The champagne wasn’t meant for her—it was meant for me. And now, because of me, she nearly died. If Roman thinks he’ll walk away from this unscathed, he’s more of a fool than I ever imagined.
But Isabelle is right about one thing: her father deserves more than the scraps of a life he’s been given. She’s sacrificed so much to care for him. Maybe I can finally do something that doesn’t end with me breaking everything I touch. If Basil’s equations hold the key to fixing his mind. . .and if they might help Isabelle one day. . .
I ease out of bed, tucking the blanket around her carefully. Her brow furrows slightly, but she doesn’t wake. One flutterbun lands lightly on the pillow beside her head, while the other circles lazily above, its wings shimmering faintly. They stay behind, a small, silent guard, as I step out of the room, closing the door behind me.
The air in Basil’s room is charged, humming with a manic energy that matches the scrawled equations covering the walls. He doesn’t look up when I enter, his attention locked on a cluster of symbols he’s circling furiously.
“Basil,” I say, keeping my tone low but firm. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve been working on.”
He doesn’t respond, not at first. But as I move closer, scanning the walls, the pieces start clicking into place. If I look and listen between the nonsense, it’s clear what he’s been trying to do. Basil has been trying to make a Petal for his own condition.
I should be upstairs, next to Isabelle as she heals. She’s my priority. But if I can pull even a thread of Basil’s mind back into place—maybe I can fix one thing to make up for the mess I’ve dragged her into.
The metallic tang of potions brewing fills the basement, sharp and acrid, crawling up the back of my throat. The low hum of the equipment merges with Basil’s muttering as his pencil scratches furiously across the paper. I can almost follow the rhythm of his thoughts now, the way he layers concepts like bricks in a wall, each one tenuously holding the next.
“You’re trying to bind it tighter, aren’t you?” I say, pointing to a cluster of equations on the paper. “If the bond holds, it’ll mimic the structure of a Petal.”
He freezes, his pencil hovering over the paper. Then he looks at me, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You—You see it?” he mutters, almost accusing.
“I see enough,” I say. “Enough to know you’re close.”
His shoulders sag slightly and he exhales, a wheezing sound that feels as much relief as exhaustion. I glance back at the plate and make a mental note to bring more food soon, maybe something easier to eat. He doesn’t notice the way his hands tremble, but I do.
It’s less than thirty minutes later when I’m examining the vial in my hand, its contents glowing faintly, volatile and dangerous. This isn’t just for Basil—I need to understand every part of this. For him. For Isabelle.
“You sure about this?” I murmur to the old man.
Basil’s head bobs up and down enthusiastically without looking up. I hold it out to him, and his wrinkled fingers curl around the glass.
The shuffle of slippers against concrete snaps me out of my focus. My head jerks toward the door just as Isabelle steps into the room.
She looks pale and fragile, her robe clinging to her frame and her hair loose around her face. She shouldn’t be out of bed. She shouldn’t be here.
Her eyes connects with the vial in my hand. Then to the stack of papers on the desk. To the scribbled equations covering the walls, her father’s looping, frenzied script crammed into every inch of space. I see the exact moment it clicks—the way her breathing changes, the tremor in her fingers.
Her gaze snaps back to me, wide and dark with something between disbelief and betrayal.
“Wh—What are you doing?” Her voice breaks the uneasy rhythm of the space, sharp and raw, cutting straight through me.
I set the vial down carefully, turning toward her, hands raised in what I hope is a calming gesture. "Isabelle," I start, my voice steady but soft. "This isn’t what you think."
"This isn’t what I think?" I can hear the chords of her voice strangling the panic rising in her. "It looks like you are experimenting on my father. "
Shit. It’s exactly what she thinks.
"Isabelle," I say her name, trying to keep that calm even keel she does even when I’m raging. "I’m trying to help your father. I think I can heal his mind. I think I can bring him back."
From the wild whites of her eyes, even as she shakes her head, I know I’m fighting a losing battle. "You—You are just like Roman." The airy disbelief drops, and she rushes forward, grabbing the vile out of Basil’s hand. He’s in his own world, not even aware of what’s being said around him. She pulls him to his feet and ushers him across the room.
"Isabelle, please?—"
She rears around to face me, even as Basil meanders up the stairs oblivious to our fight. "What is this? Some sick attempt to make your pack bigger? If you can pull me, then maybe you can pull my father, and then two of us can help you escape your damned situation?"
Her fury crackles through the air like a live wire. Hands tremble—not with fear, but with barely restrained rage—as she clenches the vial against her palm. Fire burns in her eyes, wild and untamed, the same defiance that made me fall for her now turned against me like a blade.
She’s yelling. Completely unleashed, and she’s a force to be reckoned with.
"No, that’s not it at all." I do my best to keep that even tone, but the desire to shout to be heard is strong. Still, I throw a rope over that and yank as hard as I can to keep it controlled. "I’m trying to help him. I’m doing this for you."
Shock registers on her expression as violently as if she’d been slapped across the face, and I know I’ve made a grievous mistake. Perhaps even a fatal one.
"You didn’t do this for me." The words come out in a harsh whisper as her chest heaves like she’d been running for miles. Worst of all is the betrayal burning in her expression. "If you had, you would have asked me. You would have told me what you planned to do."
"You would have said no," I say calmly. As soon as it’s out, I realize I’ve made another misstep. Each thing I say is yanking me down further into the quicksand pit of my own making.
"You’re fae fucking right I would have said no. Treating him like an experiment is what hurt him in the first place.
“Isabelle,” I start, my voice strained but steady. “You have to understand—I’m trying to help him, not hurt him. I’ve seen what Roman did, and this isn’t that.”
Her eyes blaze with betrayal, but I force myself to hold her gaze. “Roman weaponized Thorns. He created monsters. I’m trying to do the opposite. Your father. . .He’s already been affected by them. The damage is done. But I think I can reverse it. I think I can bring him back.”
Her voice cracks as she shouts, “By making him a lab rat? By doing the very thing that ruined him in the first place? How is that helping him, Dominic? How is that different?”
I take a step closer, forcing my claws to retract before I hurt something—someone. “Because I’m not doing this for power, Isabelle. I’m doing it for him. For you. To make sure no one can ever use something like this against you again.”
Her lips tremble, but she shakes her head violently. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t even ask. You decided this was your choice to make.”
Her words slice deep, but I can’t let them stop me. “You’re right. I made a choice because I couldn’t risk wasting time. I watched you nearly die, Isabelle. If it happens again—if someone uses something like that hex— I need to be ready. For you. For him. The only way he can get better is if we do something about this."
"He doesn’t need to get better. He needs to be taken care of. To be loved. He doesn’t need more poison shoved down his throat." She’s crying now. My wife is gripped by pure, unadulterated terror. I want to go to her, pull her into my arms, and tell her everything’s okay.
"That’s not what this is," I insist, my voice desperate. "This isn’t poison—it’s a way to reverse the damage. To heal. If there’s even a chance that it could bring him back for you, how could I not try?"
I step toward her, my hands instinctively reaching out, but she recoils, flinching as if I might strike her.
Cold floods through me, sharp and suffocating. Isabelle is afraid of me.
The realization hits like a blade, sinking deep, twisting. Despite all the times I’ve tried to intimidate her, to push her away, to keep her at arm’s length with growls and threats—this is different. This isn’t the fear of a powerful man she refuses to back down from. It’s the fear of someone betrayed, someone who doesn’t know if they can trust me anymore.
I wanted her to be afraid of me once. Didn’t I? I thought fear would keep her safe, make her stay out of my war, my world. But now, seeing her look at me like this—with pure, unadulterated terror—it’s not triumph I feel. It’s devastation.
My chest tightens, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. I thought I could protect her. I thought I could keep her safe by being the Beast she needed, by making decisions for her when she wouldn’t make them for herself. But now, I see how wrong I was.
I’ve succeeded in the one thing I only hours ago swore I’d never do: I’ve hurt her. And worse, I’ve proven her right. I’ve become exactly what she feared all along.
The weight of it crashes over me, a cannonball through my center, leaving me hollow and raw. I want to pull her into my arms, to tell her it’s okay, to fix everything I’ve just broken. But the space between us feels insurmountable, and for the first time, I’m terrified she won’t let me cross it.
"Uh, boss?" Lucien interrupts. Tock is next to him at the top of the stairs. Their faces are as set as stones.
"Not now," I snap.
"You’ll both want to see this," Tock continues despite my feral warning. There’s something in his tone that pulls not only my attention but Isabelle’s. When she meets his gaze, his large brown eyes are filled with sympathy as he fiddles with his buttons. "It’s Chapter Three. There—There’s been a fire."