“It’s in the master bathroom,” I confirm.
Damian gawks, looking back at me. “For real?”
“Unfortunately.”
His eye catches something over my shoulder and he grins wide as Slade and I turn around to see what he’s found. Damian cuts through between us until he’s standing at the side of the room, staring down at a bowl of the most expensive jewelry he’s ever seen.
His eyes light up like Christmas morning and I let out a low groan. Maria likes to meet with her jewelers in the great hall as it has the best lighting in the house and from the looks of it, she must have met with them today and the staff has neglected to put her priceless things away. I’m sure someone’s going to lose their job over that, but it’s not my problem to think about.
I see the devilish plan inside of Damian’s mind as he picks up a diamond necklace and dangles it between his fingers. “Nessa would really like this,” he says, glancing back at me and Slade, knowing that what he’s thinking is bad and waiting for one of us to tell him that we’re not going to hold it against him.
I roll my eyes. “Just take it. She has at least forty of those. She won’t even notice that one is missing.”
Damian silently fists pumps the sky. “Fuck, yeah,” he says with a wide grin, trying to keep quiet.
The diamond necklace is slipped inside his pocket and I hope to God that Rivers and Noah are also taking advantage of their little roam around this mansion but something tells me that they have a little more self-control than Damian Wilder.
Getting back on track, we sneak up the stairs and along the landing until we get to Blake’s room. I throw open the doors and barge through with the guys on my heels. I start searching through his closet for a bag and the second I find it, I toss it to the boys who start grabbing all of Blake’s shit, beginning with all his signed basketball jerseys and filling it up, knowing that we'll never get a chance to see this stuff again.
Damian goes for Blake’s watches and cufflinks, things that would get us mugged in Aston creek and tosses them in until the bag is full. Once I’ve gone through and found all his sentimental things, Slade and I walk out, leaving Damian behind.
I lead him down to my room and let out a deep breath as I reach the handle. “Is this your room?” he murmurs. “The place where…”
“Yeah,” I say, reading his thoughts. The place where Lucien raped me.
Slade nods and grabs the handle over the top of my hand and helps me push the door open. “You can do this.”
“Yeah,” I agree, stepping into the room. “Let's get this over and done with.”
Slade follows me in and takes a quick look around. “Is there anything you want to keep?”
I shake my head. “None of it.”
He nods and not a second later, he dumps the bag on my bed and starts pulling out one of the many aluminum cans of petrol. He uncaps it and goes to start pouring when I stop him with a hand on his arm. “I want to do it.”
Slade meets my eyes, looking weary. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say, reaching for the jerry can. “I’ve never been so sure.”
Slade passes it over and realizing that we’re quickly running out of time, I start dousing my room in petrol, cringing as the smell burns my nose.
After thoroughly drenching the room, we move onto the bathroom, the media room, and all the living spaces except for Lucien and Maria’s bedroom. After all, we’re not murderers here. Well, at least Damian and Slade aren’t murderers. I don’t know about Noah, but it isn't exactly something that Rivers and I want to do again.
Tonight is about stealing everything from them just as they did to me. They took my parents, my home, and thirteen years of my life. Lucien stole my innocence and Maria took everything else. I know there’s a lot I will never be able to get back, but tonight, I can make a stand. From tonight onwards, they will know to never fuck with me again.
We meet Damian at the bottom of the stairs and together, we race out the front door, meeting Noah and Rivers halfway up the drive. We all stop to look back at the mansion, looking so peaceful and calm in the night.
Rivers pulls out a little device from his pocket and hands it to me. “All you have to do is push the little red button and it’s all over.”
“All over?” I confirm.
“It’ll light up like the fourth of July.”
I let out a breath as Slade’s fingers slip into mine. I hold the button up. “Alright then,” I say, unable to take my eyes off the mansion that holds so many horrendous and toxic memories. “Let’s watch this sucker burn.”
Chapter 18
There’s a loud boom and within seconds, an orange glow begins appearing in every single window of the mansion, rapidly getting more vibrant by the second. Flames begin licking up the walls and soon enough, they spread throughout the whole house.
I can’t tear my eyes away. “Did you get the staff out?” I question Rivers and Noah who stand beside us, looking at their handiwork. Rivers with a satisfied smirk while Noah looks pretty pissed off with himself. He was telling us earlier that he works as a fireman so I bet following through with this wouldn’t have been easy for him, but he wasn’t backing down. I guess we just have to be lucky that we have him on our team to help if things were to go south.
“Yep, they’re all safe and off the property,” Rivers tells us.
“How’d you get them out?” Slade questions. “You didn’t tell them what we were doing?”
“Fuck, no.” Rivers shakes his head. “I may or may not have impersonated a police officer and said there was an explosive found on the second floor. They ran out of there quicker than Noah fell for my sister.”
I raise a brow. With the tone in Rivers’ voice, I feel as though there’s a story to be heard there, but seeing as though the property I grew up in is currently going up in flames, I might wait to hear the story another time.
I hear windows shattering and moments later, thick black smoke starts billowing out of the house. “Come on,” Slade says, tugging on my arm as we see the flames completely taking over the lower level. “It’s time to go.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m not leaving. I want them to see me. They need to know it was me who took it all away from them.”
“Sky,” he begs.
“No. I’m staying. You can go and wait in your Dodge if you want, but I’m not moving until they know what I did.”
Slade watches me for a long moment, his eyes narrowing as he tries to see through me, but I’m a closed book. No one in, no one out. After what feels like a lifetime, he finally nods and steps back beside me. “Okay,” he murmurs. “We wait.”
The five of us stand in silence, listening and watching as the flames grow wildly and out of control, and as I take it all in, I feel as though this fire is a symbol of my life. Ever since I was four years old, my life has been dictated by someone else, it’s been a mess of pain, terror, and sadness and now it’s time to take it all back.
I deserve to find happiness and what’s more, I deserve peace. I’m done fighting. I don’t want to do this anymore so this has to be it. I’m too exhausted to keep going. I’m not saying that I’m giving up. If Lucien were to keep coming for me, then I’d find the strength, I’d borrow it from somewhere until it’s over. I just don’t want to have to keep fighting. I never should have had to in the first place.