Bonnie’s papery hand struck my cheek. Her palm didn’t make a sound on my flesh, merely a swat with no sting. She might have the power of speech and ferocity, but when it came to physical threats—she was brittle and weak.
“My family eclipses yours in every way. It’s a shame you didn’t have such an upbringing. Perhaps you would be more pleasing company if you—”
I couldn’t listen to her cackling drone anymore.
“You’re right. It is a shame I didn’t have someone there to teach me how to do my makeup or bake cakes or learn an instrument. I’m sure I would’ve been happier and more rounded if I grew up with a mother. But she was taken from me by you. Don’t twist my past and make it seem like I’m some underprivileged girl who’s here by the grace of your family because I’m not. I’m your prisoner, and I hate you.” I backed away from the table. “I hate you, and you will pay for what you’ve done.”
Her face twisted with rage. “You ungrateful little—f”
“I agree. I have been ungrateful. I’ve been ungrateful for falling in love with a good man only for it to be too late. I’ve been ungrateful for a brother I adore and a father who’s been lost since his wife was taken. But I’m not ungrateful for this. I’ve found a fucking backbone, and I mean to use it.”
Marquise stomped forward. “Madame. Just give the word.”
I threw a caustic look at both of them. “You’re proving Bonnie’s too weak to discipline me herself.”
“Enough!” Bonnie brought her walking stick down onto the table with a resounding thwack. “Don’t you dare use my name without my permission!”
“Tell me what you want then, so I don’t have to look at you. I don’t want to be here another minute.”
Don’t go too far.
Bonnie convulsed. Her face turned puce, and for a second, I hoped she’d die—just keel over from exploding blood pressure or ruptured ego.
Don’t get yourself killed over pettiness.
I had a lot more to achieve before that day.
Swallowing hard, Bonnie clasped both hands on her cane. Her thick skirts rustled as her ancient carcass bristled. “Fine. I’ll take great pleasure in doing so.”
God, I feel sick. I don’t want to know.
“Just let me leave. I’ve had enough.” Storming to the door, I tried the handle, only to find it locked. The air turned thick, the heating too hot. I’d drenched my system in too much adrenaline and now paid the price.
Pacing in a circle, I ran my hands through my hair. “You hear me? You make me sick, and unless you let me out, I’ll just vomit all over your precious study.”
Vertigo swooped in, throwing me to the side.
Jethro’s alive.
He’s alive.
I need to stay that way, too.
I gulped, needing fresh air. I’d never been claustrophobic, but the walls loomed closer, triggering another vertigo wave, forcing me to bend forward to keep the room steady.
Bonnie limped closer. “You’re not going anywhere. You want to know why I summoned you? Time to find out.”
Every cell urged me to back away, but I held my ground. I refused to be intimidated. Swallowing back nausea and dizziness, I gritted my teeth.
Bonnie pointed at the wall behind me with her walking stick. “Go on. Look over there. You want me to get on with my point? The answers are there.”
Suspicion and rancour ran rampant in my blood, but I found the courage to turn my back on her and face the wall. My skin crawled to have her behind me—like some viper about to strike, but then my eyes fell on a few grainy sepia-toned photographs. The pictures’ time-weathered quality hinted that they were old. Older than Bonnie, by far.
Drifting closer, I inspected the image. In browns and sienna, the fuzzy photograph depicted a man in a fur coat with a pipe furling with smoke. Snow banks hid parts of Hawksridge, making it seem like some fantastical castle.
There’s something about him.
I peered harder at the man’s face and froze.
Oh, my God.
Jethro?
It couldn’t be. The picture was ancient. There was no way it could be him.
Bonnie sidled up beside me, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief. “Notice the resemblance?”
I hated that she’d intrigued me when I wanted nothing more than to act uninterested and aloof. My lips pinched together, refusing to ask what she was obviously dying to say.
“That’s Jethro’s great, great grandfather. They look similar. Don’t you think?”
Similar?
They looked like the same person.
Thick tinsel hair swept back off sculptured cheekbones and highbrows. Lips sensual but masculine, body regal and powerful, even the man’s hands looked like Jethro’s, wrapped around his pipe tenderly as if it were a woman’s breast.
My breast.
My cheeks warmed, thinking what good hands Jethro had. What a good lover he was. How cruel he could be but so utterly tender, too.
My heart raced, falling in love all over again as memories bombarded me.
Jethro, I miss you.
Having a likeness of him only made our separation that much more painful. My fingertips itched to trace the photograph, wanting to transmit a hug to him—let him know I hadn’t forgotten him. That I was fighting for him, fighting for a future together.
Bonnie coughed wetly. “Answer me, child.”
“Yes, they look similar. Eerily so.” My eyes trailed to the following photographs, hidden between cross-stitches. One picture had the entire household staff standing in ranking order on the front steps of Hawksridge. Butlers and housekeepers, maids and footmen. All sombre and fierce, staring into the camera.
“These are the few remaining images after an unfortunate fire a few decades ago.” Bonnie inched with me as I moved from picture to picture. I didn’t know why I cared. This wasn’t my heritage. But something told me I was about to learn something invaluable.
I was right.
Two more photographs before I discovered what Bonnie alluded to.
My eyes fell on a woman surrounded by dark fabric as if she swam in an ocean of it. Her tied-up hair cascaded from the top of her head thanks to a piece of white ribbon, and her eyes were alight with her craft. Her hands held a needle and thread, lace scattered like snow around her.
It was like staring into a mirror.
No…
My heart bucked, rejecting the image, unable to make sense of how it was possible. Unable to stop myself, one hand went to the photo, tracing the brow and lips of the mystery woman, while my other sketched my own forehead and mouth.
I was the perfect replica of this stranger. A mirror image.
She’s me…I’m her…it doesn’t make any sense.
“Know who that is?” Bonnie asked smugly.
I shook my head. There was no date or name. Only a woman caught in her element, sewing peacefully.
“That was your great, great grandmother, Elisa.” Bonnie stroked the photo with swollen fingers. I wanted to snatch her hand away. She was my family, not hers.
Don’t touch her.
Why didn’t our family albums contain images of Elisa? Why had we kept no records or comprehensive history of what happened to our ancestors? Were we so weak a lineage that we preferred to bury our heads in the sand rather than learn from past mistakes and fight?
Who are we?
Dropping my hands, I breathed deeply. “What is her image doing on your wall?”
“To remind me that history isn’t in the past.”
I turned to face her. “What do you mean?”
Bonnie’s hazel gaze was sharp and cruel. “I mean history repeats itself. You only have to look through generations of photographs to see the same person over and over again. It skips a few bloodlines; cheekbones are different, eye colours change, bodies evolve. But then along comes an offspring who defies logic. Neither looking like their current parents, or taking on the traits of evolution. Oh, no. Out pops an exact imposter of someo
ne who lived over a century ago.”
She looked me up and down, her nose wrinkling. “I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe in anomalies, and you, my child are the exact image of Elisa, and I fear the exact temperament, too.”
A chill darted down my spine. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” My eyes returned to the image. She looked fierce but content—resigned but strong.
She chuckled. “It is if you know the history.”
Wrapping her seized fingers around my elbow, she pushed me onward, following a timeline of photos of Elisa and Jethro’s great, great grandfather.
Seeing Jethro’s doppelganger in images side by side with Elisa sent goosebumps scattering over my skin. “What was his name?”
“Owen.” She paused by a particular one of Elisa and Owen staring sternly into the camera, spring buds on rose bushes and apple blossoms in the orchard behind them. They both looked distraught, trapped, afraid. “Owen ‘Harrier’ Hawk.”
Did you have the same condition Jethro has, Owen? Were you the first to hate your family? Why didn’t you do anything to change your future?
Bonnie let me go. “I could rattle off tales and incidents of what befell those two, but I’ll let the images speak for themselves. After all, what is the common phrase? A picture tells a thousand words?” She laughed softly as I repelled away from her, drinking in image after image.
The copper and coffee tones led me from one end of the room to the other, following a wretched timeline of truth.
Bonnie was right. A picture did say a thousand words, and seeing it captured forever, imprisoned and immortalized, sank my heart further into despair.
Elisa slowly changed in each one.
I gasped as I stumbled onto the First Debt. An ochre image where blood wasn’t red but burnt bronze, trickling from lash marks on Elisa’s creamy back.
It was as if time played a horrible joke, slapping me with the knowledge that my life was on repeat—my very existence following in the footsteps of another, no matter how unique I felt.
Just like when Jethro came to collect me.
That night in Milan when I’d found out my life was never mine. That Jethro was just as indebted as me. That we were both prisoners of a tangled predetermined fate.
My limbs quaked as I moved to the next.
The tarnished image showed Owen, standing with the First Debt whip in his hand, a tortured expression on his face. He was more than just Jethro's ancestor—he could’ve been his identical twin. Seeing another man look so conflicted brought tears to my eyes. He tried to hide it, but regret and connection blazed through the grainy picture.
We weren’t the only ones to fall in love.
Owen and Elisa had defied the Weaver-Hawk boundary and fallen hard.
Photo after photo.
Trial after trial.
Their love deepened and blossomed, only to be slowly hacked away as time went on.
The Second Debt and the ducking stool. Elisa dangled on the same chair I’d been strapped to, the black lake glittering below her.
The Third Debt in the gaming den. Owen fisted crumpled playing cards, his mouth tight and unyielding, eyes begging for a reprieve.
Amongst the extracted debts were personal images. Photos of Elisa sewing, sitting in the gardens, trailing her fingers in the fountain, looking up at the cloud congested sky as if she could fly away. There were also secret images taken of Owen watching her, his fists in his pockets, his face transmitting apology, sorrow, anguish.
We’re living their history.
An exact replica of two people’s lifetimes that’d taken place decades ago.
Yet another example that I was no different from my ancestors. That I had no hope of changing my fate.
I jumped as Bonnie brushed aside my hair, her swollen knuckles hot against my throat. “See, child. You think you’re different. You think you’d won by claiming the heart of my grandson, but I had forewarning.” She waved at the timeline boldly placed on her walls like jewels. “I saw what happened with my ancestors before you even arrived. The day I saw the resemblance between Jethro and Owen, I studied the records. I armed myself years before you came to us. I knew you wouldn’t behave. I knew this generation wouldn’t be straightforward and I planned accordingly.” Her smile was priggish. “There is no winning, Nila. Both of our families are cursed to bear such a trial, and only the worthy are permitted to inherit.”
I couldn’t reply.
Taking my wrist, she guided me toward the last seven images all framed in one intricate gilded frame. “Study this well, child. This is what happened to Elisa once Owen was dealt with for his infractions. And this is what will happen to you.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
Owen was dealt with? He was killed, too?
My eyes burned as the sepia photos engraved themselves on my brain.
Torture after torture.
Misery after misery.
Methods I never knew existed.
Barbarous items I couldn’t even name.
Elisa faded in each image from a fierce, heartbroken woman into a ghost already departing the world.
She suffered horrendously, subjected to methods of persecution no one could endure for long.
My soul wept for her. My temper broiled for her.
Poor woman. Poor girl.
Was this my fate? Would I become her?
Will I break eventually?
Bonnie stabbed the bottom picture where the only visible part of Elisa was her head. A large barrel with spikes driven through the sides encased her body. “Each of those is…what shall we call it…an extra toll you must pay. Disobedience is never tolerated—from a Weaver or a Hawk. Elisa watched Owen die and tried to return the favour by killing his father.” She tapped my nose. “Just like I suspect you think you’ll do, too.”
I choked.
No…how could they…
“Are you planning on killing my remaining family, Nila?” Bonnie’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Because let me tell you, you’ll never achieve that. Not over my dead body.”
My pulse exploded into supersonic beats, gushing blood, preparing to bolt.
Run!
I needed to be far away. Far, far away where they could never touch me again.
Slapping my cheek, her strike brought heat and clarity. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, child.” Standing to her full height, she glared into my eyes. “I have news for you. Whatever plans you think you have, whatever backbone you think you’ve grown, and whatever revenge you think you’ll deliver—forget all of it. You’re done, you hear me? Jethro is dead. Kestrel is dead. There is no one here who will save you—including yourself. Starting tomorrow, you will pay for your sins. You will repent so your soul is pure enough to pay the Final Debt. You will lose, Ms. Weaver. Just like Elisa lost all those years ago.
“You’re already a corpse, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do about it.”
FOUR DAYS.
A full ninety-six hours since I’d awoken from surgery.
An eternity of staring at the powder blue ceiling with a cheerful puppy poster going out of my fucking mind with worry for Nila.
What were they doing to her?
How was she coping?
Jasmine had said she’d do everything in her power to keep her safe, but as much as I trusted and loved my sister, I knew what my brother and father were capable of.
She’s not safe there.
I have to get her out.
I also knew what Bonnie was capable of and that scared me to fucking death.
Sighing heavily in the stagnant room, I gritted my teeth and pushed upright. I was sick of lying horizontally. I was pissed at being told what I could and couldn’t do. And I’d had enough of trading one imprisonment for another.
Louille had threatened me on a daily basis with restraining me. Especially, when he’d found me on the floor the day after my surgery, bleeding from launching myself out of bed, believing I was cured enou
gh to fight.
I was stupid to try—but I had to. I had no choice.
I couldn’t just lie there. That wasn’t an option. Nila needed me. And I wouldn’t let her down again.
It’s time to do things my fucking way. Otherwise, it will be too late.
The first three days, Louille had been a damn Nazi on my attempts to walk. I got that he was responsible for my welfare. That he’d done his job and patched me up to ensure I lived another day. But what he didn’t get was I didn’t want to live another fucking day if Nila wasn’t there with me.
It’s my responsibility, goddammit.
I wouldn’t fail her. Ever again.
Yesterday, I’d won one battle. I positively despised my demotion to a lump of decomposing meat, lying in bed with drains in my side and a catheter in my fucking cock.
I’d shown just how healthy I was with a shouting match, ensuring the removal of the catheter and the drains. Time was an enemy but also a friend. Every tick left Nila out of my protection, but every tock healed me so I could finally set right my wrongs.
I just wished I had a magical device that paused time at Hawksridge and sped up my existence so I could be strong once again.
Wait for me, Nila.
Stay alive for me, Nila.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I looked at the sterilized linoleum floor. At least I felt more like a man rather than a healing vegetable. The past few days had been awful, but I was getting better—no matter how weak I was.
I hated being so fucking feeble. Too feeble to be of any use.
But no matter my frustration, I couldn’t battle through the tiredness or soreness of my body knitting back together. It healed as fast as it could. I just had to learn patience.
I snorted. Yeah, right. Patience when my deranged family has my woman. Like that would ever fucking happen.
You have no choice.
If only I could heal faster.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed off the bed. My bare feet slapped against cool flooring. The room swam, reminding me all too much of Nila and her imbalance. We’re perfect for each other. Both slightly broken. Both slightly flawed. But perfectly whole once we let our hearts become one.