Page 125 of Double Down

Because I’m hers. I always have been.

The two truths grind against each other, throwing sparks in my chest.

So we need to push. Not to ruin her, but to find the line I’m terrified she’ll draw—the line where I end and she refuses.

And I pray to a god I don’t believe in that the line is farther away than my fear thinks it is.

I push a hand through my hair. My father’s voice—disapproval and disappointment—scrapes the inside of my skull. He’d have called this a weakness. He’d have fired half the staff by lunch and dared the board to blink.

It hasn’t escaped my attention that all of this happened on his watch. He just left before the fallout so everyone else could shovel his shit.

“Conrad,” Atticus says, low. “You good?”

“No,” I say. “But I’ve got a plan, and that’ll have to work.”

I look at Phoenix and say nothing. We’ll handle one crisis at a time. Someone has us on film; someone can put Storm and Maverick in a cell. And she hid it.

The room empties—each of us with a job to do. We’ll deal with the drugs, then the blackmail. My gut says it’s the same root system.

When it’s just the two of us, I cross back to Phoenix. Her tears are gone. She’s calmer. Focused.

“Will we find him?” she asks. “Will we stop them?”

“We will.” I take her wrist, thumb steady over the fast thrum there. “And then we’ll decide what to do with them.”

Her breath hitches. “Conrad?”

“Yes.”

“You meant it. About…” Color floods her cheeks.

“Punishment?” I finish. “Yes. We all meant every word. You lied, you kept us blind. We can’t make the best choices without the whole picture.”

She swallows and nods. “I already sent the number and everything to Atticus.”

“Good.” I lean to her ear. “Go to the bedroom. Strip. Kneel at the foot of the bed. Hands behind your back. Wait.”

Heat flushes her throat and cheeks, but her chin doesn’t tremble. “Yes, sir.”

I straighten and glance once more at the frozen frame—blurred cheek, maybe-tattoo, that gray tote we’ll tear apart by sunset. The plan coils tight in my gut.

Atticus will keep his head long enough to trap our ghost. Storm will keep his blade clean enough to frighten the truth out of liars. Maverick will make the spa smell like expensive remorse.

And me? I’ll keep the house standing. I’ll keep the people I need smiling. I’ll keep Karen pacified with wine and thinly veiled contempt.

And then I’ll take our girl apart and put her back together until the guilt shakes out like dust—and she learns to trust.

Later, we’ll go downstairs and do the work.

But first, we deliver the punishment that I think all of us need.

33

Phoenix

I kneelat the end of the bed, where Conrad told me to, with my hands behind my back, spine long, knees pressed into the rug until the pressure climbs up my thighs like heat.

I don’t move.