Page 46

CHAPTER 46

ARIELLA

Z aiden and I fell into a routine over the next week. He woke me up every morning and dragged me to his practice whether I wanted to go or not.

Today was different, though. I didn't have classes or practice, so unless he forced me to follow him all day long, he had to leave me here alone.

"Zaiden." I pulled the covers tighter around me like armor. "I'm not going. I want to sleep in and do nothing today."

"Ariella." His voice dropped an octave, that familiar warning growl that made the hair on my arms stand up. He leaned against the doorframe, his posture casual. "I can't miss practice, and I'm not leaving you alone."

"No one knows that I'm here." That wasn't exactly the truth, but he didn't know that. Plus, it was only Journey and Mila that I told. I pushed up to a sitting position, the sheets pooling around my waist. His jaw tightened. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he crossed them. "And I won't go anywhere," I lied. He narrowed his eyes.

The silence stretched between us, taut as a tripwire.

"When you leave, I'm going back to sleep, and when I get up, I'm going to order Door Dash and watch TV."

"Fine," he groaned. "But, Ariella, if you leave this house, I will zip-tie you to the bed for the rest of your life."

"Where would I go?" I lied.

He stood shirtless in a pair of jeans, open at the fly. The beads of water dripping from his damp hair onto his shoulders were slightly distracting.

I pushed off the bed and strolled to him. "I'll be fine, I promise." I flattened my palm on his chest.

"You keep touching me like that—" The alarm on his phone alerted, letting him know he needed to leave now or he'd be late for practice. "Shit."

"Go." I smiled. "I'll be fine."

"If I text you and you don't answer, I will be here in minutes."

"I will answer your texts."

He kissed my forehead. "Go back to bed."

I gave myself a mental high five as I practically jumped back into the bed.

Zaiden had practice until 7:30 and classes until noon. That was plenty of time for me to confront my mom and get back without him ever knowing I left. I curled into bed and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep, until I heard the door click closed. A few minutes later, his motorcycle pulled out of the driveway.

I forced myself to wait, counting out five full minutes after the sound of Zaiden's motorcycle faded completely. Just to be safe. Just to be sure.

The red numbers on the digital clock blinked: 6:15 AM. Finally, when the house settled into true emptiness, I rolled over and snatched my phone off the nightstand, my fingers already finding Mila's contact.

One ring. Two rings. Each one stretched into eternity.

"Hello?" Mila's voice finally came through, thick with sleep and confusion.

"We're a go this morning," I whispered, though there was no one to hear me. Something about speaking at full volume felt dangerous, as if the walls themselves might report back to Zaiden.

"Shit," Mila mumbled, followed by the rustling of sheets. I imagined her sitting up, suddenly alert despite the hour. "How long do we have before he gets back?"

I glanced again at the clock, mentally calculating. "He should be back around 12:30.

The magnitude of what we were about to do settled over me.

"Okay." I could hear her bed rustling on the other end. "My parents are forcing me to have breakfast with them this morning, but I should be there to get you around nine."

"Perfect. I'll get ready now and wait in case you can slip out early."

"I'll text Journey to meet me there," Mila added.

"Journey has an early class this morning," I reminded her. "It's just you and me."

"Ok, I'll be there as soon as I can."

I disconnected, texted her my location with shaking fingers, and set my phone back on the nightstand. It looked so innocent there, a sleek rectangle hiding plans that could get us all in trouble. My gaze shifted to Kacie's phone sitting on the table next to mine. The screen was still dark despite being on the charger for a week, reminding me why I needed to talk to my mom.

We'd been trying to break free for a week. Plotting. Waiting. Watching Zaiden for any opening. And now that I'd finally convinced him, the universe seemed determined to throw obstacles in our path. Mila was trapped at a family breakfast. Journey was locked in early classes.

Nine o'clock. That was our window. If Mila arrived by then, I'd have three hours to confront my mom and return before Zaiden suspected anything. Three hours to uncover a truth that might shatter whatever was growing between us.

I glanced at the clock: 6:23 AM. The minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness, each one a reminder that I was alone in this house with nothing but my thoughts.

As much as I wanted to go back to bed, I knew I was too overwhelmed to go back to sleep, so I took a quick shower instead.

As the hot water pounded against my skin, scenarios played through my mind. What if she admitted everything? The thought alone made my stomach twist. Or worse, what if she lied, and I could see right through it? The steam clouded around me as I spun, letting water saturate my hair.

My thoughts shifted to Zaiden. His face appeared in my mind, not the soft expression he sometimes wore with me, but the cold, calculating one I'd glimpsed when he talked about justice for Kacie. What would he do if we proved my mom was responsible? The words "make her disappear" floated through my mind, and I shivered despite the scalding water. I'd seen enough to know it wasn't an empty phrase in his world.

The pipes gave a sudden groan, making me flinch. Even the house seemed to be warning me.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a big, dark green towel around me before strolling into Zaiden's bare room. The only thing in the room that made it look like someone lived there was the messy bed. His walls were bare, and his dressers were empty. I strolled around the bed and pulled open the closet floor.

The closet, on the other hand, was obviously used as extra storage space. It was filled with empty suitcases and brown moving boxes. My eyes caught Kacie's name scribbled across a few of them, and my heart ached.

This was where everything in Kacie's room had gone—a mausoleum of memories, boxed and sealed away from the world.

Even though I knew I shouldn't, my fingers betrayed me. They hovered over a box labeled "DESK" in thick black marker, my mom's handwriting. I peeled the tape back, the ripping sound unnaturally loud in the empty house. Each movement felt like trespassing, and yet I still couldn't stop myself.

The cardboard flaps surrendered, revealing treasures I'd thought were lost forever. The box was filled with items that had once cluttered her desk and dresser. My breath caught as I lifted out a silver frame. Us, grinning at the 8th-grade dance, captured forever in our ridiculous glittery dresses and too-high heels. We'd spent hours getting ready, convincing ourselves that adulthood was just around the corner.

My chest tightened, remembering our moms together that morning, working together to make sure everything was perfect.

I put the picture back and closed the box. "I can't do this right now," I muttered as my gaze searched the closet for the bag of clothes I'd brought, but I froze when my eyes spotted a heart-shaped floral keepsake box, and I couldn't help but smile. That was the box that Kacie kept everything that ever mattered to her in. I'd given her that box filled with gifts for her eighth birthday.

Grabbing a shirt that still had the tags on it, I pulled it over my head, dropping the towel before ripping the tags off. I reached up, grabbed the box off the top shelf, and carried it out of the closet, setting it on the bed. I strolled to the tall dresser with a flat-screen TV on it, opened the top drawer, grabbed a pair of Zaiden's boxers, and pulled them on.

I strolled back to the bed and sank onto the mattress. Every year, we would put new items inside this box, memories we never wanted to forget, and our secrets.

I knew I shouldn't go down memory lane right now, but I couldn't stop myself from opening the box. I pulled out a picture of her and her ex and smiled. He'd loved her, but she wasn't ready to fall in love.

I set that picture on the bed, pulled out a folded paper, and opened it. My eyes narrowed. I didn't remember this being in there. It was her birth certificate.

I set it to the side and pulled out a handful of pictures. The first three were of her and me, and the next few were a mixture of Mila, Journey, Kacie, and me. I pulled out two friendship bracelets and a white envelope that felt like it had more photos.

I set the bracelets to the side and opened the envelope. As I pulled out the first photo, the floor seemed to tilt beneath me. My fingers went numb, nearly dropping what I held.

"Holy shit," I mumbled, my voice barely audible even to myself.

It was Anne with Coach Palmer. The intimacy in their posture was unmistakable. A chill crawled up my spine as I stared at the image, a sense of dread building like a thundercloud. Something about the house felt different—like the air had grown heavier, watching me.

I scrambled to find my phone on the bed, quickly hitting Mila's name.

"Hello," she whispered. "I'm still at?—"

"I found something."

"Hold on," she said, still whispering.

"I'm going to add Journey to the call." My finger trembled slightly as I hit the plus sign, then Journey's name. My heart pounded against my ribs as the phone rang once, twice?—

"Hey, what's up?" Journey's voice broke through, sunny and oblivious to what I'd discovered.

"Okay, what's going on?" Mila's voice had changed, dropping to a cautious whisper. I could picture her, probably huddled in some corner of her parents’ house, shoulders hunched protectively around the phone.

I swallowed hard, suddenly aware of how empty the house felt around me. How vulnerable. "I was looking for my clothes in Zaiden's closet at his mom's and found Kacie's keepsake box."

"Okay," Mila drew out the word with a hint of impatience. "We all know what's in that box." A dismissive edge colored her tone. We'd all seen the mementos, the friendship bracelets, the notes passed in class.

I glanced down at the evidence in my lap, the photo that changed everything. "Yeah, except there's also pictures of Kacie's mom with Coach Palmer."

The line went so silent I could hear the static of the connection: no breathing, no background noise, nothing. The silence stretched, becoming its own kind of warning. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I added, "They were intimate pictures."

Something creaked in the house behind me. I whipped around, heart in my throat, but saw nothing. Just shadows. Maybe.

"What the fuck?" Journey said.

"Do you think Zaiden is involved?"

I shook my head like they could see me. "No. It's pretty clear he doesn't stay here. I don't even think he realized the stuff from Kacie's room is in his closet."

"Something else weird that she'd never kept in there before is her birth certificate," I paused, twisting to grab the paper and looking it over. There had to be a reason it was in the box.

"Hang up the phone."

The voice sliced through the room like ice. For one heartbeat, I froze, hoping I'd imagined it. Two heartbeats. Three.

Slowly, I raised my eyes to the doorway.

Anne stood perfectly still, her posture almost casual, except for the small black handgun aimed directly at my face. The barrel looked impossibly dark, a perfect circle of nothing, that promised everything would end. My heart slammed against my ribs as though trying to escape what my brain was processing.

With fingers that felt disconnected from my body, I removed the phone from my ear. The screen glowed bright as I pressed "end call" with a trembling thumb. The soft thud of the phone hitting the bedspread seemed deafening in the silence between us.

"Put everything back in the box."

Swallowing hard, I slowly put everything I'd found back. "I was just?—"

"Save it."

"I knew when Zaiden called me to tell me you two were staying here that you wouldn't be able to help yourself. I knew you'd put your nose where it didn't belong, and it looks like I made it back just in time."

"I'm not going to?—"

"Shut up," she mumbled. "You've already told your stupid little friends, and now I'll have to kill them too."

"You killed Kacie." It came out before I could stop it, and when she didn't deny it, I knew I was right. "Why would you kill your own daughter?"

"She was going to ruin everything." She took a step closer. "She was going to give those pictures to her dad, and I would lose everything."

"What the fuck could be more important than your daughter."

"Dennis had it put in the prenup that if I was caught cheating, I would leave with nothing, and I couldn't let that happen."

"What the fuck?" I threw up my hands. "She was your daughter."

She huffed out a humorless laugh. "Let's not pretend like you weren't just looking at her birth certificate." Anne's voice lowered, taking on an almost conversational tone that was more terrifying than her anger.

"Kacie wasn't my daughter. Dennis knocked up one of his whores, and she dropped her on our doorstep."

The words hit me in waves, each one more impossible than the last. My brain rejected them, then scrambled to rearrange everything I thought I knew. The room seemed to pulse around me. Kacie—not her daughter?

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My throat had closed around questions I couldn't even form.

"I was so young and stupid then." Anne's voice shifted, a false nostalgia creeping in that made my skin crawl. "I let him convince me to raise her as my own, and he'd made everything in her past disappear. Including her mother." Her lip curled slightly at the word. "No one would ever know she wasn't mine."

She waved the gun, the metal catching the light. The casual way she handled it—like it was an extension of her hand—told me this wasn't her first time holding one.

"Except he didn't get rid of the original birth certificate, and Kacie found it."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Kacie had discovered this bombshell and kept it from all of us. Even me, or maybe that was what she needed to talk to me about the night of the party. What else had she been carrying alone? How many secrets had died with her?

"So, you killed her." The words fell from my lips, simple and devastating. Not a question.

Anne's eyes met mine, and what I saw there froze the blood in my veins. No remorse. No grief. Just cold calculation, as if she were discussing a business transaction gone slightly awry.

"I didn't have a choice."

Four words. Four simple words to justify destroying a life, her daughter's life, biological or not. The room seemed to shrink around us, the air growing thinner with each breath.

Everything sank in all at once, and everything made sense. "So you and Coach worked together to kill Kacie." It wasn't a question.

She shrugged. "He wanted her dead as much as I did." She rolled her eyes. "Kacie was trying to expose him, and while she was digging into him, she found out about us."

"Did you know what he was doing to us?" Anger colored my tone. "What he did to her?"

"Yes," she shrugged. "Well, I mean, I didn't at first, but it didn't take long to figure out, and let's not play the victim here. You didn't have to do it. He didn't force you."

"Are you serious?" My voice cracked as disbelief collided with rage. "For some of us, that dance team was our only chance at affording college. We didn't have a choice."

She rolled her eyes—actually rolled her eyes like we were discussing a trivial disagreement over lunch plans. "Well, Kacie could. If you didn't notice, her daddy's rich." The word 'daddy' dripped with contempt. She waved the gun in a dismissive gesture that made my stomach lurch. "But I put an end to Ryan anyway."

My brain struggled to process her words, rearranging them, searching for a meaning that wasn't the obvious one.

"You were responsible for the school shooting?" The question emerged as barely more than a whisper. My lungs seemed to have forgotten how to draw breath.

The edges of my vision darkened as the implications cascaded through my mind. This wasn't about Kacie. This wasn't about an affair or a prenup. This was systematic. Calculated.

Anne's smile, small and satisfied, confirmed everything before she spoke another word.

"He was supposed to kill you and Ryan, but that didn't work out." She said it like she was discussing a minor inconvenience, a delayed delivery, or a scheduling conflict. Not the planned execution of people.

The room tilted around me as my brain struggled to process her words.

My mouth went dry. "Why me?" The question scraped against my throat. "I didn't know anything." A humorless laugh bubbled up, edged with hysteria. "In fact, this morning, I thought my mom was responsible."

Something shifted behind Anne's eyes, a flicker of surprise, quickly masked. She tilted her head, studying me with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a specimen. After a moment, she nodded toward the box on the bed.

"And if you hadn't gone snooping through things that didn't belong to you." Her voice dropping to a near whisper that somehow felt more threatening than any shout, "maybe I wouldn't have to kill you now."

The way she said it—'have to'—as if my murder was an unfortunate obligation. As if she were the victim in this scenario, forced into violence by my curiosity. The casual inversion of morality made me dizzy with rage and terror.

The gun in her hand caught the light, the barrel, a perfect black circle, that seemed to grow larger with each passing second—a portal to nothingness.

"The truth will come out."

She shook her head. "No, it won't, thanks to you. Even Zaiden thinks it's your mom. All I have to do is make it look like your mom was here, and he'll take care of the rest."

"Did you run Zaiden and me off the road the other day?"

"Fucking idiot," she growled. "They were supposed to run you off the road, but apparently, my son is always with you."

This woman was insane, and if I didn't get out of here, I was going to die in this house.

"Get up," she shook the gun at me.

"Why?"

"I said get the fuck up."

I held my hands up as I slowly pushed to my feet. "Okay." My voice trembled with fear.

She shifted out of the path of the doorway. "Walk—" She shoved the gun forward. "To the bathroom."

I slowly eased past her toward the door, close enough to smell her perfume—the same scent Kacie used to wear. The realization turned my stomach. "You don't have to do this." My voice emerged steadier than I felt, a final attempt at reaching whatever humanity might remain in her.

The cold press of metal against my spine was her answer. The barrel of the gun dug between my vertebrae, a precise point of pressure that sent terror shooting down my limbs. A single tear escaped, tracing a hot path down my cheek.

"Shut the fuck up and walk." Her breath hit my ear, warm and mint scented. The mundane detail seemed obscene against the nightmare unfolding.

Swallowing hard against the desert my mouth had become, I stepped into the hallway. Each floorboard creaked beneath my weight, marking what could be my final steps. My eyes locked forward on the path ahead—thirty feet of polished hardwood that seemed like miles.

My mind split in two: one part calculating survival, the other accepting death—two options crystallized from the chaos of my thoughts. I could make a run for it—a desperate sprint toward the front door, gambling that surprise might give me the seconds I needed before she pulled the trigger. Or I could move with excruciating slowness, dragging out each step, buying precious time for someone, anyone, to arrive.

The weight of the silence pressed against my eardrums. No cars on the street. No neighbors mowing lawns. No salvation approaching.

Just me, Anne, and the gun that connected us.

"Don't even think about running," Anne snarled. "There will be a bullet in the back of your head before you make it out of the hallway."

My plans evaporated. She was right. I'd be dead before I managed to turn and run. My chest rose and fell with frantic breaths.

"Walk." She shoved the cold metal barrel against my spine, the pressure just enough to bruise.

I stepped forward, each footfall deliberate and slow. My heartbeat counted down the seconds I had left. One step. Two. The hallway stretched in front of me like a tunnel to my execution, each shadow on the wall a silent witness. My mind churned through scenarios, each one ending the same way—with me dead.

I paused at the threshold, sweat beading along my hairline despite the chill settling into my bones. The bathroom loomed ahead, dark except for a weak rectangle of sunlight struggling through the small window. The light illuminated dust particles floating in the air, making them look like tiny stars in a void. I knew with absolute certainty that if I stepped across that line, it would be the last doorway I'd ever cross.

The irony of the entire situation hit me hard. I'd been punished by Zaiden for the last few months for being responsible for Kacie's death, only to find out it was his mom, and now she was going to kill me, too. The only thing that made this a little easier was that there was no way she was going to get away with this. Zaiden would be back before she could clean everything up.

Sucking in what might be my last deep breath, I hesitated at the edge of darkness. Anne's patience snapped. She shoved me hard, her strength fueled by desperation, and I tumbled forward. The world tilted as I crashed to my knees, the impact shooting pain up my legs. I rolled instinctively, finding myself sitting, vulnerable and exposed.

When I lifted my gaze, time seemed to suspend.

Zaiden stood in the shadows, a statue carved from tension. His finger rested against his lips—the universal signal for silence. But it was his eyes that stopped my breath cold with a fury I'd never seen before, even during his worst moments, blaming me for Kacie's death.

My pulse roared in my ears, nearly drowning out Anne's harsh breathing. I forced my eyes to slide casually back to her, fighting every instinct to keep staring at my unexpected salvation. One wrong look, one flicker of hope on my face, and we'd both be dead.

"Get in the shower," she ordered, sticking her hand holding the gun through the doorway, shaking it loosely from me to the shower. "Hurry up."

I nodded, slowly shifting. Zaiden pointed to the ground, and I assumed he was telling me to stay low.

Everything after that happened so fast. Zaiden threw his hand up underneath the gun, snatching it out of her hand so fast that it took her a minute to realize what happened.

"Zaiden," Anne breathed. "Thank God you're here. She was?—"

"Stop," he growled. "I heard everything." He reached for his phone on the bathroom counter. "And it's all recorded."

"What's recorded?"

"Everything." He squared his shoulders. "How you killed Kacie, how you were involved with the school shooting, how you ran Ariella and me off the road."

I shifted to my feet, hiding behind Zaiden.

"Zaiden," she whispered, her voice transforming into something small and placating. The predator trying to sound like prey. "That's not?—"

"Shut up." The two words sliced through the air, delivered with such intensity that even I flinched. This wasn't the Zaiden who'd kissed my forehead this morning. This was someone carved from granite and fury, someone I came to know all too well these last few months.

He raised the gun with a steady hand. "You and I are going to take a walk." The barrel aligned with her chest, unwavering. "Turn around and move."

Anne's face drained of color as she stepped backward, deeper into the shadow-filled hallway. Her eyes darted between Zaiden and me, calculating even now.

Zaiden moved forward with the controlled grace of a hunter, following her retreat. "Ariella," he said without looking back, "stay here and do not open this door no matter what."

The cold certainty in his voice crystallized the moment into terrible clarity. The gun. The walk. The finality in his tone.

He was going to kill her.

The realization landed like a stone in my stomach. This wasn't justice. It was an execution.

I stepped out of the bathroom. "Zaiden," I grabbed his arm before stepping between them. "She's your mom. You don't want to do this." If he killed her, then he was going to jail, too.

"I'm your mo—" Anne started.

"Shut the fuck up," I yelled, my lip curling into a snarl. "There's nothing I’d like more than to end your life." I turned back to Zaiden. "But she's not worth you going to jail, and this isn't what Kacie would have wanted."

"Let me call the police." I place my palm flat on his chest. "Let them deal with her."

His gaze dropped to mine.

"Zaiden," Sterling's voice echoed through the house a minute before appearing in the hallway.

"Sterling," Zaiden called out. "Get Ariella out of here."

"Zaiden, no." I shook my head. "Don't do this."

"Let's go, Ari." Sterling grabbed me around the waist.

"No." I shoved at his arms, trying to fight against his strong grip. "Sterling, don't let him do this."

Sterling ignored me, dragging me down the long hall as my arms flailed, trying to grab anything to stop him. "Don't do this, Zaiden."

It wasn't until we were outside that Sterling released me.

"Oh, thank God," Journey breathed. "You're okay."

"Where's Zaiden?” Mila asked, looking back at the house.

"He's going to kill her." I sidestepped Sterling to get back to the house. "And then he's going to go to jail." But he was too fast and too strong.

The gunshot ripped through the quiet neighborhood, a single, definitive crack that seemed to stop time itself. Birds scattered from a nearby tree, their panicked wings flapping in the sudden silence that followed.

"Fuck," I whispered, the word inadequate against the finality of what happened. My legs threatened to give out beneath me. It was too late. Zaiden had crossed a line he could never come back from.

Sterling's face hardened as he squared his shoulders, a soldier preparing for battle. "No matter what happened," his voice was low and steady as he pointed from the house to each of us, "we have each other's back."

The front door's hinges gave a long, agonizing creak as it opened. My lungs seized, refusing to function, my vision narrowing to the doorway where Zaiden's silhouette appeared.

One second stretched into eternity as my mind cataloged every detail: no blood on his hands, his expression unreadable, his movements measured rather than frantic. As he stepped fully into the light, the breath I'd been holding escaped in a rush that left me dizzy.

"Call the police," Zaiden mumbled, completely void of any emotion.

"Are you sure that's what you want to do, man?" Sterling's gaze flashed from the house back to him. "We can make this disappear."

"She's not dead," Zaiden said. "She's handcuffed and waiting for the police." His gaze shifted, meeting mine. "But if the police fuck this up?—"

I nodded. He didn't need to finish that sentence. I knew what he'd do if she didn't spend the rest of her life in prison.