“I’m keeping my daughter safe. I will do anything I need to do to keep her safe and you don’t get a say in that!”
“And how will you explain Isabelle to her? How will you explain what you’re planning? Because she understands more than you think. And she sees everything. Do you really want her growing up afraid of her own father?”
That stops me. “Why would she be afraid of me? She has no reason to fear me. I protect her. I will always—”
“Yeah, I got it. You’ll do anything to protect her even if the path you’re choosing will make a monster out of you. No better than our own father. You don’t know the half of what that man was capable of.”
His words hit me harder than his fist would have and I find myself staring at him like he just knocked the wind out of me. Rage and regret and betrayal burn inside me. I do know the brutality of our father. I’ve seen the evidence of it on our mother’s body.
Zeke looks away, shakes his head. He pushes a hand into his hair. “Fuck. I didn’t mean that,” he says.
“No, you did.” I reach down to take the folder. “But you’re not wrong. I do have one thing in common with dad. He never forgot his hatred for his enemies and neither will I.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I walk up to him, look at the man he’s become. See the differences between us. “I’m going to do what I have to do. What I swore to do. If you can’t handle it, stay out of my way.”
I walk past him out the door, through the courtyard and back to the Red Room. I’ve lost my appetite for dinner. For the show I’d make of having Isabelle Bishop, of having initiated The Rite. I look around the room for her. I want to leave. Except that Isabelle isn’t here.
Fuck.
I see her brother in a heated conversation with Councilor Hildebrand at the far corner. Is he already making his case to marry her off right out from under my nose?
Well, he will be too late.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I dig it out, see a text from Dex. One word.
Chapel.
I shake my head and move toward the chapel. She can pray all she wants, my Bishop girl. No god will save her from me.
21
Isabelle
Julia and I slip into the chapel as soon as Jericho is out of sight. She sighs once as the door closes behind us and we’re alone.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I nod. “So far. How are you? How’s Matty?”
“We’re fine. He misses you though.”
“I miss him too.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to see him soon?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“It’s fine. Here, before I forget.” She opens her bag to retrieve my phone and charger. “So I can get hold of you.”
I smile, take both and shove them into my clutch. “Thank you. You’re a savior!” I hug her but quickly remember Julia isn’t a hugger.
“Paul called to say he moved the lesson to his house by the way. I told him you may not be there.”
“I doubt he’ll let me attend.” Paul Hayes has been giving me violin lessons for the last six months. We have a small group of us who can’t afford private lessons and none of us are enrolled in a school so it’s what I’ve been able to do. When I was still in high school my music teacher taught me, but since graduating, Carlton has refused to fund what he calls my little hobby. And since he wouldn’t allow me to get a job considering my station in life as a Bishop—I rolled my eyes when he said those actual words—he thought my allowance should be enough to provide for anything he didn’t. I’ve been using that money to pay for lessons. “I’ll call him.”
“Let me know if you need me to do it.”
“Thanks. Carlton told you what Jericho did? Initiating The Rite?”
“Yeah. I heard the details. At least the parts your brother was willing to share. I’m guessing only those that don’t cast him in a bad light because if Hildebrand went along with it, then whatever Jericho St. James has on Carlton is big.”
“You don’t know what it is?”
She shakes her head.
“There’s shared history, though. It goes back centuries,” I say.
“That I do know. The gruesome story of Nellie Bishop. Her body is buried on stolen land. Bastards.”
“Stolen? I thought it was bought.”
“Not exactly fair and square but I suppose that’s how Jericho St. James would tell it.”
“I guess I’m not surprised.”
“Do you know what he’s planning?”
“To make my life miserable.”
“Well, I know Carlton is trying to get you home. He’s going to talk to Hildebrand tonight. You’ll have to marry though to get you away from St. James.”
“Why? What does that have to do with anything?”
Julia studies me for a minute, uses the pad of her thumb to wipe away what I guess is smeared eyeliner on my temple. “You’re so innocent, Isabelle. I like that about you. Just keep taking your birth control pills. Please tell me you have them?”
I nod but her comment confuses me. Or maybe it’s the way she said it. But before I can ask anything, the chapel door opens and even though I have my back to it, I know it’s him. I feel his presence in the shiver that runs along my spine. In the way my body reacts to him like it’s on fire.
Julia stiffens but schools her features in a matter of moments. She smiles. It’s a smile that shows her to her full advantage. She’s beautiful, my cousin. Sophisticated. Polished in a way people who come from money are. I may be a Bishop now, but I don’t come from money. The opposite. I’m an imposter here and they all know it.
But there’s something in that smile of hers. Something off. There’s a hardness to Julia. Or maybe it’s just that her skin is thicker than mine.
“You know you’re the talk of the town,” she says, stepping around me to walk toward Jericho.
I turn after her and watch. His eyes are on me, and I wish they weren’t. They’re too hard. Too cruel.
“After your big disappearing act to return like you did. I heard you made quite the entrance the other night. Too bad I missed it.”
She stops a few feet from him, and I watch how she does it. How she doesn’t shrink away. And I think about what he said. Well, what his brother said. That I’m no match for him. I’m not. But my cousin, she could take him on. She’d have a fighting chance. Is that why he chose me?
Weirdly the thought of them together bothers me.
He shifts his gaze from me to her as if just realizing she’s standing there. “Excuse us,” he says and steps past her to approach me. Julia turns to watch him, and I see her surprised expression but it’s only a blur because he’s taking up all the space in the small chapel. All the oxygen there is to breathe.
By the time he reaches me she’s gone. I only know from the loud clang of the heavy door closing.
“I told you to stay put.” He takes my arm and I see he’s holding something in the other. “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing. My cousin mostly. I’d like to see him.”