Chapter 10

Richard collapsed that night. Julian shut the party down and moved everyone back to the estate. A scandal of catastrophic size.

Within an hour, clips were all over Twitter and TikTok. Public fury was immediate.

"Oh my God. That's Seraphina Ashford's daughter. Seraphina would be destroyed watching this."

"I called her a cold-blooded monster. I'm sorry. It was all a setup."

"I get stepmothers and illegitimate kids. I don't get your biological father and biological brother treating you like this."

"Didn't Richard Ashford worship Seraphina? And then he and his son ganged up to bully her daughter?"

"I can't imagine what Vivienne went through."

Killian and Julian read every thread. Their chests were lead. Worse than lead—fear. Because after Celeste's birthday, when they had gotten back to the estate, Vivienne was gone.

Not gone as in out for a walk. Everything she owned was gone. Her wedding dress was still in the corner of her old closet, an inch of dust on the plastic covering. Killian's eyes went bloodshot.

Julian swung at him. Landed a clean hit to the jaw.

"It's you. If you hadn't been sleeping with Celeste, Vivi wouldn't have left."

Killian hurled a dusty pendant in Julian's face. "You want to talk? If you'd warned me, if you'd thought about her at all, we wouldn't be here."

"It's you. All of it, you."

Julian's face crumpled. He charged. They went to the floor together.

"You were the one who kept defending Celeste. You helped her humiliate Vivi over and over. You don't get to stand there—"

Killian's eyes were wet with rage. "Celeste was a game to me. I love Vivi. I'm going to marry Vivi. When she comes back—"

Julian laughed, black. "You'll marry my sister? Over my dead body."

Killian cracked his knuckles and swung again. "Shut. Up."

They beat each other bloody. Ten days hospitalized. When they got out, they hired every firm in the city.

Richard locked himself in his study. The next morning he pressed charges against Delphine and Celeste. Both were taken into custody. They begged him. He aged overnight.

"Get out. I am sorry. I am so sorry, Seraphina. I am so sorry, Vivi. All of this is my fault."

He didn't come out of the study again. He drank himself to sleep every night.

Julian and Killian went to Celeste in holding. Her eyes were red from crying.

"Killian. Julian. Make him see me. Please. My mother and I—we just made mistakes. We loved you too much."

Killian looked at her the way he would look at a corpse. "Don't use the word love."

Julian's laugh was quiet. "Scheming isn't love, Celeste. Our father will never want to see you again."

"I don't understand. The Ashfords gave you everything. Why go at Vivienne?"

Celeste laughed out loud.

"Your mother went at us first."

Julian stared.

"Don't look at me like that," she said, smiling. "My mother and your father were in love. If Seraphina hadn't thrown herself at him, we wouldn't have been stuck in Europe for a decade."

Their father had pursued their mother for years. Celeste was calling that seduction.

Julian's jaw flexed. "Your mother was his mistress. You are a mistress's daughter. That's all you'll ever be."

The word hit something. Celeste's expression twisted, then brightened into something wrong.

"Killian. Julian. You don't actually think everything that happened to Vivienne was my doing, do you?"

She leaned forward. "Julian. Without you I couldn't have gotten people inside Blackwell. Those guards were your people. You recruited them. You hurt her more than anyone. You don't get to look at me like that."

Julian's pupils shrank. "No. I didn't know. I thought—"

He couldn't finish. Celeste finished for him.

"You thought I was just going to teach her a little lesson. Except, big brother, you're an accomplice. Don't play innocent with me."

Julian stepped back. His face was ashen. "I was manipulated. Vivi. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know—"

Killian had no patience for the theater. "Tell us where she is."

Celeste smiled at him—just smiled.

Killian slapped her.

"Where is she."

Her face dropped the smile. "Killian. If I could have gotten to her, I would have. She left on her own. Face it."

His chest tightened.

It had been gnawing at him. There were no ransom notes. No leads. No trace. Somebody intelligent had wiped every breadcrumb.

Because Vivienne had wiped it. She had wanted to leave. From him.

Celeste watched him. And then smiled again.

"Killian. You know we were sleeping together in her bedroom? She was watching us the whole time."

He went still.

"You seduced me on purpose. So she would see."

Celeste's contempt was open now. "If you hadn't wanted it, it wouldn't have worked. Tell me. How do you think it felt for her, watching that?"

So that was why. Why she had burned her life to the ground and gone. Why she had blocked his every number.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them his voice was ice.

"You and your mother. You won't come out. I'll make sure you live through what she lived through."

Celeste's face twitched. "No. You can't. My father won't let you—"

"Your father doesn't want to see you alive."

Richard drank himself into a stupor every night after that, calling Seraphina's name, weeping. "I failed you. I failed our daughter."

Julian worked. Julian went to therapy. Julian and Killian, privately at war with each other, jointly searched for Vivienne. At night Julian couldn't sleep. He saw his sister's face in the ceiling.

He would find her. He would kneel in front of her and tell her she had been right and he had been wrong and he had been weak, and he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her.