Page 47

CHAPTER 47

ARIELLA

I sat wedged between Sterling and Mila on the cold metal tailgate, our shoulders touching, but no one speaking. Journey perched on the opposite side of Sterling, her face ghostly in the pulsing blue and red lights.

Dozens of police officers swarmed the front lawn like uniformed ants, their radios crackling with static and clipped codes. Twenty feet away, two officers huddled with Zaiden, heads bent toward his phone, their faces hardening as the recordings played.

It was finally over, though the metallic taste of fear still coated my tongue.

I imagined this was something that would haunt Zaiden for a long time.

Time seemed to slow as Anne emerged from the house. Two officers flanked her, one gripping each elbow, her hands cuffed behind her back. No one spoke. The only sound was the crunch of gravel under their boots as they marched her toward the waiting police car. I held my breath until the car door slammed shut behind her.

My gaze shifted to Zaiden as he approached, each step measured, controlled.

"They're charging her with attempted murder for now." He shoved his hands into his pockets, knuckles visible through the denim. "But they're reopening the investigation of Kacie's death. And the school shooting."

"Are you okay?"

I already knew the answer. His sister was his half-sister. His mother, a killer. His family, a lie. For a year, his life had crumbled piece by piece, and now, this final, devastating collapse.

"I'm fine." His voice hardened as his gaze shifted to Sterling. "Can you make sure Ariella gets home safely?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Wait, you're not coming with me?"

"No." His voice was hollow. Empty.

"I'll be home later." He paused, gaze fixed on some distant point. "I need to be alone."

I slid off Sterling's tailgate, bare feet hitting gravel. "No, you don't." My voice was steel as I stepped into his space. He stared past me, through me, his gaze fixed on nothing. "You need to be with friends. The last thing you need is to be alone with this."

"Take her home." He pivoted away.

I lunged, fingers catching his arm. "Zaiden?—"

He wrenched free. "Go home, Ariella."

"I'll get her home.” Sterling's large hand wrapped around my arm, stopping me from chasing after him.

He stormed off, hopping on his bike and zooming off.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I shoved his hand away, heat rushing to my face. "He doesn't need to be alone."

"He's going to his sister's grave." Sterling's voice remained maddeningly calm.

I glared at him, pulse hammering in my throat. "How can you be so sure he's not going to jump off a bridge?"

"Because I know him." He tossed me the keys to his truck, metal flashing in the air between us. I snatched them mid-arc, fingers closing around cold metal. "Give him a few minutes and go to the grave site. He'll be there." I looked down at the keys in my hand. "I'll get a ride with Journey, and we can meet up later."

"Thanks." I rushed to the driver's side of his truck, pulled open the door, and slid in. Even though Sterling seemed sure that was where Zaiden would go, I needed to know he wasn't going to do something stupid.

The truck roared to life. I jammed it into drive and swerved into traffic, my eyes darting between the road ahead and the rearview mirror where Journey, Sterling, and Mila stood watching. My heart raced with the engine, knowing if they hadn't acted so quickly, I'd be dead.

The cemetery was only a few miles from his mom's house. Dark clouds gathered overhead as I eased through the massive wrought iron gates. In the distance, a solitary figure stood motionless. Zaiden.

I pulled the truck to the side and killed the engine as I watched him.

I couldn't imagine the storm brewing within him. The wind picked up, sending dead leaves skittering between gravestones. For months after Kacie's death, I'd blamed myself, each night reliving the what-ifs until they wore grooves in my mind. Maybe if I'd ridden with her. Maybe if I'd called one minute sooner. Now Zaiden stood at ground zero of his grief, the earth torn open beneath him again.

I sat in the truck for fifteen minutes, hand on the door handle, watching him stand motionless at his sister's grave. What if he pushed me away again? What if this was the moment he decided he couldn't bear any of it, me included? I swallowed hard and pushed the door open. Each step toward him felt like walking through quicksand.

"I told Sterling to take you home." He didn't turn, his words carried on the cemetery breeze.

I stepped up beside him, eyes falling to Kacie's headstone. "I beat him up and stole his keys."

He huffed out a small laugh, a sound so unexpected it made my heart skip. "I'm sure that's what happened." A ghost of a smile touched his lips, the first I'd seen since everything fell apart, before vanishing.

I shrugged, nudging his arm with mine. "It is," I teased. "Mila and Journey are taking him to the hospital now."

"What are you doing here, Ariella?"

"You don't need to be alone right now," I whispered. "We don't have to talk, and I can stand back at the road, but I'm here if you need me."

We both stood silently for what felt like forever before he finally said. "I came out here to apologize to her. To apologize for failing her."

"You didn't fail her," I said. "I know it feels like that, but Anne failed her. Regardless of what happened, she was supposed to protect her, but she didn't. None of this is your fault."

He didn't say anything, but I knew he heard me.

"What happened after we left you and your mom in the house?"

Without taking his eyes off his sister's grave, he drew in a deep breath that expanded his chest, then let it whistle slowly between his teeth. "Nothing."

He lifted his shoulders before dropping them, a puppet with cut strings, and finally turned to meet my gaze. "You were right. She deserves to rot in a jail cell. Death was too easy." His voice hardened with each word. "But I wanted to kill her. For what she did to Kacie. What she almost did to you." His gaze skittered away, dropping to the damp grass between us. "I shouldn't have left you?—"

"None of this is your fault."

He reluctantly nodded, but it was obvious he didn't believe that.

"Did she say anything to you?"

Zaiden's jaw tightened. "She reminded me that she was still my mother." His laugh was bitter, barely a sound at all. "That I didn't truly understand what my father did to her." He kicked at a rock, sending it skittering across the cemetery path. "That he never wanted to marry her. That he was forced to because—" He stopped, swallowed. "Because they got pregnant with me."

"There are always three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, my voice gentle. "Your dad may have seen things completely differently. You should talk to him."

"I'm done talking about this." He glanced back at Kacie's grave, shoulders hunched against an invisible weight. "My dad seems happy with your mom, and my mom is going where she belongs."

Zaiden's gaze shifted, something dangerous flickering behind his eyes as he stepped forward, erasing the space between us. "And I'm obsessed with you." His hands found my hips, fingers pressing into the fabric as he pulled me against him.

My lip curled into a grin, heart racing beneath my ribs. "Like how obsessed?" I tilted my head, voice light.

"Like insanely obsessed," he breathed, forehead touching mine. His words ghosted against my lips. "Like I'd kill for you."

"How did you get to me so quickly?"

"I knew you were going to confront your mom."

My brows shot up. "You did?" Heat crawled up my neck as my eyes narrowed. "How?"

He shrugged, too casual, too rehearsed. "It's what I would have done." His gaze held mine, unflinching. "And I let you because I knew it was the only way we might get a confession from her."

"But you left."

He shook his head. "No." A muscle twitched in his jaw. "I drove the bike out of the driveway and parked just down the road. Waited." His voice dropped. "I was going to follow you to the house."

"So, you saw your mom come home?"

His eyes darkened. He looked away, then back at me.

"No." The word hung between us. "She was already in the house." The implication settled over me like a shadow. She'd been waiting. Planning. All along. "I don't know when she got in the house or how long she'd been there, but she'd been waiting for the perfect opportunity to go after you. She thought you knew more than you did, and it somehow got back to her that you were digging around into Kacie's accident."

"How?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, and I doubt we'll ever know because after we appear to testify against her in court, I don't ever want to see her again."

"How did you find out she was in the house?"

"You didn't hang up the phone, so they knew you were in trouble, but the call was muffled when you put the phone on the bed. So, they didn't know exactly what was going on. Journey didn't have my number, so she called Sterling, and he called me. I didn't know until I was in the house that it was my mom, but I was inside long enough to record most of her confessions."

"I thought I was going to die." My voice cracked. My hands still trembled with the memory of cold metal against my temple.

"She was never going to shoot you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Too messy."

My throat went dry. "Then how?—?"

"A needle." His fingers trembled slightly as he mimed the motion. "Filled with something. If I had to guess—" He met my eyes, his dark with anger. "The same thing that killed Officer Tanner."

"She'd been working her way through killing off any loose ends," I muttered, the reality of it washing over me in cold waves. "And I was a loose end."

He nodded, expression grim.

"Mila and Journey would have been next." My voice quickened with the terrible logic of it.

"Yeah." The single word carried the weight of how close we'd all come.

Silence stretched between us, filled with all the terrible what-ifs. Finally, I forced myself to ask, "So what happens now?"

Zaiden looked up at the darkening sky, a few stars beginning to appear between the clouds. His posture shifted, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. "Now, we go home."

He reached for my hand, his palm warm against mine. "And we live our lives knowing Kacie got the justice she deserved."

I smiled, feeling a tiny spark of hope ignite somewhere deep in my chest.

Zaiden's thumb traced circles on my wrist. "And you move out of Kacie's room."

My brows pulled together, the spark dimming as I thought we were taking steps backward. Before I could speak, he continued.

"And move in with me."

"Where?" My face twisted with confusion as I pulled back slightly to study his expression. "Your bedroom? The frat house?"

The corner of his mouth curled upward, and he huffed out a laugh. "No." His eyes held a gleam I hadn't seen in months. "I just inherited a house."

I narrowed my eyes, scanning his face for signs he was joking. "Your mom's house?"

"Technically, it's not my mom's." His voice took on a strange formality as if reciting something he'd only just learned himself. "My dad was letting her live in the house. It's mine now."

"Your dad!" The realization that he had no idea about what was going on. "Are you going to tell him?"

"I called him already." He swallowed hard. "He's going to help make sure Anne never sees the outside of a prison again." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"Do you want me to give you some time alone?" I gestured toward Kacie's grave, the flowers someone had left already beginning to wilt.

"No." Zaiden shook his head, fatigue etching lines around his eyes that hadn't been there months ago. He reached for me, fingers twining with mine. "I want to crawl into bed with you and sleep for three days."

"How about one day?” I chuckled, the sound strange but welcome in this place of silence. My thumb brushed across the dark circles under his eyes. "You have a game."

"Sounds good."

He leaned down, his lips soft against my forehead. I closed my eyes, breathing in the familiar scent of him.

I smiled as we walked hand-in-hand back toward our vehicles, the gravel path crunching beneath our feet. The cemetery's iron gates creaked as we passed through them, like a final chapter closing.

It was hard to believe that after all that had happened over the last few months between us, this was where we were, but everything about it felt right. The weight on my shoulders seemed lighter with each step we took. Kacie's real killer was getting the justice she deserved, and Zaiden and I were exactly where we were always meant to be—even if we took a really weird way of getting there.