Chapter 8: An Unlikely Alliance

AVA

This dust is so heavy I can feel it, dry, stale taste on my tongue that does nothing to drive away the greasy, metallic fear Julian left in my mouth; my hands remain trembling, only minimally, a delicate tremble I'm unable to dispel as I reach for another of the large ledgers on the shelf, its spine creaking like bone, and I'm so far down inside my own head I don't catch the squeak of the floorboard until too late, until a voice cuts through the silence and my heart nearly bursts out of my chest.

"Need a quiet place to read?"

I turn around, my back to the bookshelves, and there he is, Caleb, as if the shadows themselves are made of him, leaning against the metal with that infuriating, knowing look in his eyes, his black eyes taking me in, drinking it all in. "What are you doing here, Caleb? Following me?"

My voice is meaner than I mean.

"My family built this place," he states, and he bumps off the shelf, closing the distance between us without seeming to move at all, and the atmosphere is charged, like before a storm." "I don't need to follow anyone to be where I belong. The real question is, what is a brilliant, and currently terrified, analyst doing in a dusty basement after a cozy chat with my father?" His gaze drops to my lips, briefly, and a jolt of raw fire shoots directly through me, incinerating the cold fear, leaving me something far more dangerous.

I lift my chin, trying to be defiant, trying to ignore the way my skin shudders where his eyes rested. "I could say the same thing about you. You always seem to appear wherever there is trouble."

"That's because I'm usually the one looking for it," he says, and he's so close now I can feel the warmth coming off him, a living, warm body in this tomb of paper. "But tonight… I think we're both looking for the same thing. The truth. Julian's ultimatum finally get through to you?"

I just nod, my throat closing up, because he knows me, he's always known me.

"He believes he can threaten me into backing down. Into being… compliant."

A humorless smile touches his lips. "He generally can. It's his first line of negotiation."

"I'm not general," I say to him, and the words are a gentle threat, a vow to both of us as much as to him.

The look he gives me then is sharp, appreciative, tinged with a warmth that brings out the tiny hairs on my arms. "No. You're not." He waves toward the files. "Let's exhume what he's hidden."

We toil in silence screaming with all the unspoken things; I feel him moving behind me, persistent awareness on the edge of my senses, every sound of paper being scraped, every soft footstep, all exaggerated, and my skin creeps under it, his kiss, the brush of his fingers, and I have to focus myself on the questionnaires on my lap. Then he stiffens, stoops beside a frayed file cabinet, and with a vicious snap, yanks it open. "Bingo." His voice is low, full of pride. "The actual core samples." He sets the tubes aside, reaches in a second. "And. what's this?"

I move closer, my head empty, drawn by the difference in his tone, and I bend over his shoulder, my arm colliding with his, and it is as if a spark is lit, a flame that courses right through me; I brush it aside, my eyes on the pale blue document he is pulling out. 'Elena Sterling - Riverside Rejuvenation.' I take a deep breath.

"It's the waterfront project," I hiss, outraged, as he lays it out. "His project." I look from the beautiful, thoughtful blueprints to Caleb's expression, which has turned to stone. "He's copying her project. But. it's wrong. These material specs, structural load points. he's cutting corners that she never would have. He's bastardizing it."

"He's not only cutting corners," Caleb says to me, his voice heavy with a disgust so intense it vibrates between us. "He's warping her memory for a quick profit. Typical." He bangs the file down on the counter, the slamming noise ringing out, and turns to me, his eyes blazing with an anger and a grief that cracks something wide open inside my chest. He's so close I can see the specks of gold in his eyes, and for a moment there's nothing else, just him and this raw, hurtful truth, and the overwhelming need to touch him, to—

The door opens with a deafening crash.

We both spin around, and Marcus is there, silhouetted in the doorway, his usual charm gone, replaced by a grim severity I’ve never seen; his eyes land on me first, a flicker of something possessive, concerned, then on Caleb, then on the file in Caleb’s hand, and his face pales. "I expected I'd find you two down here. You have to leave. Julian is upset. He knows you're down here." His gaze is locked on the file. "Oh, Julian. You great big idiot."

"You knew about this?" I say, my own voice small in the sudden, electric silence.

"I suspected," Marcus says, his eyes focusing on mine, holding me in a fierce, unnerving intensity. "Elena… she was a genius. She was fire. The project Julian is pushing now felt like a cheap, hollow copy of hers. I didn't have proof."

“We need to work together,” he says stepping fully into the room, and suddenly it's too small, too hot, the three of us crowded into this triangle of tension; Caleb lets out a harsh, ugly laugh. "Work together? With you?" He takes a step forward, between me and Marcus, protective, possessive move that startles me again. "Why? So you can come in and play hero for her? Watch out for your new pet project?"

The insult hangs, biting and cold. Marcus doesn't flinch, his cold eyes against Caleb's fire. "Is that what you think this is about? A game?" His voice drops, threatening. "I'm attempting to rescue this family from themselves! Or are you so wrapped up in wallowing in your rage at your father you can't see that we all, for once, want the same thing?"

"And what's that?" I ask, moving forward, tired of being a prize they haggle over my head.

The two men regard me, and the weight of their regard is suffocating, overwhelming; Marcus's look is honest, a promise and a cage. "To protect you. And to eliminate Victoria before she sinks us all in the wreckage of my brother's ambition."

The words linger in the dry air. An offer. An agreement. I look at Caleb, his jaw clenched, anger wrestling with reason, and he nods rigidly, as if not thinking, his eyes continuing to drill into mine, full of a fire that aims to burn me to ashes. And I look at Marcus, my stepfather, who looks at me with a depth of emotion that is simply, horribly wrong. We’re a triangle of secrets and resentment and this unwilling, combustible attraction, and we’re all each other has got.