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The answer hits hard enough to clear every useless thought from my head.
“How did she take it?”
Aura looks toward the third-floor windows. “She told us she was going upstairs to pack.”
“Pack?”
“She’s leaving,” Bliss says, her voice breaking. “She knows what her father did with those photographs. She knows we all kept it from her, and she is fucking furious.”
She should be.
Lance used her body and the worst moment of her life to come after me. The rest of us decided the damage belonged to everyone except the woman he turned into a weapon.
Cade meets my eyes over Bliss’s head. “Go.”
I’m already moving.
I cross the ballroom without stopping for anyone and take the stairs two at a time. I don’t know what I’m going to say when I reach her. I only know I won’t let her believe everyone gets to make choices about her life and then leave her alone with the consequences.
Charm doesn’t answer my first knock. She ignores the second too. On the third, something strikes the floor inside, followed by the angry scrape of a zipper.
I try the handle and find the door unlocked.
“Charm?”
“Go away.”
I open it anyway.
Her suitcase lies across the bed with half her clothes shoved inside and the rest scattered over the comforter. The yellow wedding-party tank has been discarded near the pillows, leaving her in a white camisole and the high-waisted pants she wore downstairs. Her heels are on opposite sides of the room. One studded pin remains in her hair while the other rests near an open journal, and the soft waves she spent time arranging have been destroyed by her fingers. A folded sheet of cream paper with my name written across it disappears beneath the suitcase lid when Charm slams it closed.
“What are you doing?”
She plants both hands on the suitcase and puts her weight behind them. The zipper moves another inch before catching on something. “Packing.”
“I can see that.”
“Then the mezcal didn’t destroy your powers of observation.”
I close the door behind me. “You aren’t leaving.”
Her head snaps up. Tears have cut black tracks through the dramatic makeup she wore downstairs like armor, but fury keeps her expression from becoming fragile.
“Apparently, everyone gets to decide what I know, where I’m allowed to stand, and what I’m strong enough to survive. Why not decide whether I can leave too?”
“I’m not deciding for you.”
“You walked into my room and announced that I’m not leaving!”
“Because you’re crying, furious, and attempting to strangle a suitcase with its own zipper. If you still want to leave after we talk, I’ll drive you to the airport myself.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Being fucking reasonable!”
Charm yanks a dress from beneath the lid and throws it toward the chair. The fabric strikes the back, hangs there for half a second, then slides onto the floor.
