Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 28

An orange sky drags the sun out of hiding, early morning light slipping through the curtains. Ophelia snores quietly beside me, fast asleep on her little throne of dribble. I don’t blame her. It was two in the morning by the time we and Vincenzo’s clean-up team went to bed, and three by the time we got to sleep.

I’ve dragged her too far into my world. I shouldn’t have let her see Bancroft die. When she got back to my room last night, she cried in the shower for an hour. I don’t know what he told her, but she’s rattled.

And still, she surprises me. Stronger than I ever expected, and stronger than she herself believes she is. It’s comforting, in a twisted way. Like if I were ever to lose this never-ending battle against myself, she’d be okay.

But I’ll keep fighting for her, for my sisters, for my mother.

My fingers trace her freckles like a dot to dot that forms the prettiest picture. Bancroft’s death is a victory, but it pales in comparison to what is still left to do. I have to get my father out. Have to put an end to what he does, have to get him away from the rest of my family.

I hoped to have him out by the time I was twenty-six and had completed my business degree, but that’s not soon enough anymore. I took a folder from Carmichael’s office to build a case against him, but I didn’t need one. There isn’t a single board member who doesn’t know the full extent of his depravity already. There’s nothing more I can tell them to convince them he’s wrong, it’s about convincing them that I’m right.

I have a solid relationship with most of them now, except Shawn’s greasy father. Most of them have promised me their vote. I can’t stall for much longer.

But God, if I fail, if my father catches wind of something, I don’t think he’d be above killing his own son. Worse than that, he knows the girls are my weakness. He’d hurt them to hurt me, and I can’t let that happen.

Speaking of my sisters, they’ve been suspiciously quiet. Not one request for help choosing a nail color from Fleur, not one raccoon meme from Mia, or a demand for details on Ophelia from Evie. Éléanor and Charlotte haven’t told me how their dance show went, and Josie usually sends me a random emoji from her iPad once in a while.

Shit. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb last night to make out with Ophelia in peace. A nausea-inducing dread washes over me. I pick up the discarded clothes strewn about the rug, finally replaceing my phone beneath my jacket. I swipe up, my stomach swinging up to my throat.

One hundred and thirty missed calls. What the fuck?

I don’t even know where to start. Thirty of them are Fleur, and seven of them are my mother’s psychiatrist, who has never double-called me in five years.

Twelve—twelve—of them are my father.

Bile rising in my throat, I start to read the texts that have come through over the last few hours. From my sisters, from my lawyers, from the Green board members, from my old Yale friends.

As the words swim in front of me, a text pings through from Kenzo, my closest ally on the board. It’s an article on a trashy blog. My mother’s face loads onto the screen. She looks like a ghost, pushing her way through a swarm of paparazzi that swirl outside our Parisian villa.

“I’m sorry,” she wails as the camera is thrust in front of her face. She sways on her feet, a black eye staining her skin. “I knew he had turned bad, and I didn’t do enough. I wasn’t brave enough. Are you going to cover my bruises with editing? I haven’t done my hair.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t even bother packing a bag, pressing my phone to my ear as I grab my laptop from the sitting room. Mike, the director of technology at Green, picks up on the first ring.

“Where the fuck have you been, man?”

“I need a jet from Inverness.”

“All Green jets have been grounded. Get your ass to New York before your father kills you.”

New York. My chance at bringing my father down before he can blackmail his way out of this mess lies in Manhattan. But my terrified sisters? My unraveling mother? They’re all in Paris.

I don’t know what to do.

“Unless you want your plan to go down the drain, don’t even think about Paris. Miller is rubbing his hands together. He wants CEO, and it doesn’t look like Carmichael has your backing. I have a jet landing at Inverness to take you to New York in an hour. Your dad is M.I.A.”

Fuck Carmichael.

My finger hovers over the flight to Paris. Fleur is hurt, I can’t replace Mom. Where the fuck has Cain run off to? “I need security for my sisters.”

“I’ll get on it.”

“Have you traced the leak?”

“Yeah, and I’d bet my ball sack she’s in your bed.”

“What?”

“I’d bury a bullet in her while you have the chance.”

My voice is a hoarse whisper. “Ophelia?”

“Ophelia Winters.”

The thought makes me feel sick. “It wasn’t her. There’s no way it was her.”

“I’ll send you the metadata if you want. It was sent from her email.”

I’m in fight or flight, all emotions on pause while I grab my car keys and passport. “Send it over, but that has to be bullshit.”

“Are you coming to us?”

Guilt makes my throat so tight I can barely choke the words out. Freedom for my sisters can only begin with Cain losing his power. “Yeah. Needs to be done.”

I stare down at Ophelia, fast asleep in my room. The soft rise and fall of her breaths couldn’t be further from mine.

I’m desperate not to believe Mike.

On my desk, I unlock her laptop and search her files, opening up her student email. Nothing.

I pull out her old laptop, the one that hardly works, waiting for her personal email to load.

I imagine the shitstorm at home. The CEO position I never wanted to have.

I don’t expect I’ll ever come back here.

A text pings through from Vincenzo as her emails load.

I type out a reply.

I doubt it.

Sitting in Ophelia’s Sent inbox is an email to twenty journalists. No caption, no subject line, just a report on my father and all that he does behind closed doors.

“I gotta go, Mike.” My voice sounds hoarse, broken.

I open up her drives, flicking through her university files. Like her phone, her laptop has almost nothing on it, so it doesn’t take me long to replace what I was desperately hoping I wouldn’t. I recover it from the Trash, almost amused that the file is named Untitled Document 2. I flick through forty pages of screenshots, emails, texts, and musings. There’s a transcript of someone’s dying confession, and a tape recording of the same thing. There’s an accusation that my mother was complicit in it all.

My final shred of disbelief makes me open the file data, confirming it was her that created the document almost four years ago.

Betrayal fragments my chest into a hundred pieces. It physically hurts.

I should wake her. Beg her for any kind of explanation or excuse. I want to fight each other until all of this makes sense.

But that’s another hour on my plan. Another hour away from the little ones. And I’m just so exhausted. Not the short term kind, but down to the bone. I’ve got nothing left to give.

The gun in my bedside table gleams at me.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just disappear?

If she tells me all of this—me and her—was some revenge mission, I don’t think my sick brain I could survive it.

My phone buzzes constantly on the desk.

I can’t bring myself to look at her. Can’t say goodbye. I can’t face the fighting, the denial, the apologies, the excuses. I can’t delay my plan to take over Green any longer. I can’t put our relationship ahead of my sisters right now.

I can’t imagine how I’m going to get to midnight without ending my life. I can’t attempt to articulate how I’m feeling, so I slip out of that room and leave without a word.

I call Fleur as I yank my car door open. Vincenzo’s matte black Maserati roars out of the car park at breakneck pace, and beneath the panic and the nausea, gratitude for him seeps in.

When my sister picks up, she’s sobbing. I can hear Josie crying in the background. “Why didn’t you pick up?”

I start the engine, putting my seat belt on while I pull away and hit the gas. “I’m so sorry. I fucked up. Where’s Mom?”

“Hospital. The housekeeper left; Dad pulled a gun on her.” I can picture her glassy eyes, wobbling lower lip. It crushes me. “When does your flight land?”

For the first time since I was a young child, I feel hot tears scorching a path down my cheeks, running over my lips. The road blurs in front of me. “Fleur, I’m…I’m not coming. Not today.”

“What?”

I clasp a hand over my mouth so she can’t hear me cry. “I have to go to New York.”

Her sob makes me want to die. “I need you here.”

“I’m so sorry. I need to get rid of Dad.”

Josie howls somewhere behind her. The gray cloud strips the strength from my limbs. “Please. You’re our dad, Alex. Not him. It’s never been him. We can all run away, he won’t replace us. He’ll go to prison. We can just run away.”

She’s seven years behind me. I’ve had seven more years of believing in the good in the world and being let down. It won’t work out that way. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You’re just like him. Green over family, always,” she spits out, tone acidic.

She hangs up on me, and I don’t blame her.

My fingers itch for someone to call. My mom. I need her. I need the version of her I had six years ago. The one that always knew what to say.

I’ll never get that woman back.

On cue, Harwood’s name appears on the screen in the car. I hit Accept, the sob finally bursting free. “I want to die.”

He’s calm on the other end of the line. “I know. Are you driving? You shouldn’t be driving.”

“Mike said it was Ophelia.”

“It might not have been.”

“It doesn’t matter now. I have to move back to the States. I won’t see her again. I didn’t even wake her.”

“That’s good. I think a fight with her would’ve been one thing too many. Let’s worry about Ophelia tomorrow, okay?”

My fingers shake over my lips. “I missed all of their calls. They needed me and I wasn’t there. I put winning Carmichael’s vote ahead of my sisters.”

“You did it for them. None of this is your fault. Slow down if you’re driving.”

“I want to die,” I repeat, hitting the accelerator harder.

“Are you going to New York or Paris?”

I can’t bear to say it out loud, so disgusted with myself. He must know what that means, because he doesn’t ask again.

“I think it’s the right thing.”

“Thank you,” I repeat, over and over. “I can’t be a CEO, Robert. I can’t raise six girls. I can’t manage her care. I can’t do any of it.” My voice cracks, a hoarse whisper. “I’m twenty-three.”

“Slow down, Alex.”

“I’m twenty three,” I whisper.

“I’ve watched you do most of those things before just fine. You’re the most capable man I know.”

“I’ve never been fine.” Not until her.

I knew she’d poison me in the end. She warned me a hundred times, but I didn’t listen. My lungs are so full of her, there’s no more room to inhale.

My ray of sun has blistered my skin, my orange thread of hope is a noose around my neck.