Estate will never be discussed. This place is one where many things happen. Some you will learn as soon as day one. Others you’ll learn the hard way, mostly things you’ll hope to never experience, but the choice is yours, Colton. You can behave and make it out to where you’ll be the woman you were meant to be once Cassidy died, or you can be six feet under, wishing you never learned that lesson.”
“Do I have a choice?” I dare ask, knowing the answer before the words slip free from his mouth.
“You never did.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jordan
Watching Colt leave with my father has my stomach feeling anything but calm. He’s never had good intentions with anyone, and the fact that he went out of his way to take her out of the room without eyes says way too much.
The other scary and infuriating part is Lux’s father, Midas. The way he stared at Lux with a vehemence I recognize festers inside me. He’s going to hurt Lux when this dinner is over, and improvising to save him may not work since my father has kept me on a leash since he arrived.
Lux and I should’ve erased all of the Arcadia tapes. Between him and me fucking and all the footage of Colt, I’m terrified.
While everyone’s distracted by the idle chatter involving Christmas and New Year’s, I’m sneaking toward Lux, hoping his father doesn’t shoo me away.
He hates me, Midas, I think. He hasn't ever been vocal about it, but my father tells me he's disappointed in me too. I’m not sure why he says that, but he makes sure to let me know every chance he gets.
I sidle up to Lux. He doesn’t flinch, and by the stiffness in his shoulders, I know he’s hanging onto his sanity by a thread. Leaning into him, I whisper slightly, “Talk.”
He doesn’t nod, but he rises, excusing himself, and after a second, I follow. Outside the main door, he’s waiting, and he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs.
Opal Tower is the biggest enigma of this campus. Between the ten unfinished floors and the secrets held within them, it’s basically a museum of bad decisions waiting to happen.
When I was younger and dad wasn’t a sycophant, he would bring me and Maxim here. We would play in the upper floors, exploring, thinking we were ghost hunters and detectives. Father wasn't always insane and deadly, but that changed when he sentenced Maxim to death.
Lux doesn't speak as we head up the floors. Did he explore up here too? It's not news that most kids in the Vestige were born when their parents weren't graduated or soon after. Our parents are young, and somehow, they're still as deadly as their parents once were.
It's insane to think that just within a few years, they drastically change, greed getting the better of them and love never existing.
Once we round the first of the unfinished floors, I think he'll stop. This floor is the messiest, or it was the one I'd always found myself and Maxim in. The last time I'd been here had to be a decade ago.
"Not here," he says, and we head up farther.
Yes, there are more floors, but, crazy tidbit, the elevators don't go this high, and the stairs are the only way to get there. Once we hit the next floor, the only way up is by entering the floor, going to the middle, and entering the secret staircase.
This building used to feel endless when I was younger. Sometimes, Maxim would play hide and seek with me, and he would lose me or vice versa, and we would have to find our way back.
Stopping at the next floor, he opens the door. From this viewpoint, it's the top of the building. To an unknown person, they would believe there isn't another floor, but there are eight more. It's the maze to find the stairs that's always funnest.
We enter together, and he quickens his walk to a slow jog. My eyes scan the darkened area, not remembering it being this clean either. The floors used to be ramshackle, dirty, destroyed, and dilapidated to the point of dangerous.
"Which floor?" I ask as my breathing seems to increase.
"Fourth from the top."
My mind travels to what I remember of that one, and I can't recall it. "Which one is that?"
"The stacks."
I nod, thinking of it now. That's where they hid the important shit.
We wind up the middle stairs to the next floor, hitting the door once