The phone rang at four in the morning, London time.
I was tangled in the charcoal silk sheets, the heavy heat of Julian's body draped over mine, when the buzzing on the nightstand pulled me out of a dreamless sleep. I fumbled for the device, the screen light blinding me.
Martha.
"Hello?" I croaked, my heart already hammering against my ribs.
"Alina? Oh, thank God. I didn't know if the number would still work." Martha's voice sounded thin, tired, and miles away. "I'm sorry for the hour, honey. I just... I thought you should hear it from me before it hit the papers."
I sat up, pulling the duvet to my chest. Beside me, Julian shifted, his eyes opening instantly, alert and watchful like the predator he was. "Hear what, Martha?"
"Silas is getting married," she said. It was a blunt instrument of a sentence. "Next weekend. A big, private ceremony at the Mercer estate. He... he sent an invitation to the house for you. He told me he wanted you there. He said he wanted to show you that there were no hard feelings. That he wanted you to be part of the 'new chapter.'"
Rage is a funny thing. It doesn't always feel like a fire; sometimes it feels like a bucket of ice water poured down your spine. No hard feelings. Like he hadn't left me drowning while he built a life with the woman who held his "legacy."
"He wants me to watch?" I whispered, my fingers clenching the phone so hard the plastic creaked. "He wants me to stand there in a pew and watch him give her the life he promised me? The absolute, arrogant prick."
"I know, honey," Martha sighed. "He doesn't know you're in London. He thinks you're just...in the next town over. Brooding. He thinks this is an olive branch."
"It's a spit in the face," I snapped. I hung up without saying goodbye, my breath coming in short bursts.
I threw the phone across the room. It hit the velvet armchair and bounced onto the rug. I felt the spiral starting, that familiar, frantic urge to break something, to scream until my lungs gave out, to run until I hit the ocean.
"Alina."
Julian was behind me in an instant. He didn't grab me; he just placed his hands firmly on my shoulders, his thumbs grounding me. He didn't ask what happened; he'd clearly heard enough.
"He's getting married," I choked out, a hot, angry tear escaping. "He wants me to go. He wants me to witness his 'nobility' in person. I want to burn that ridge to the ground, Julian. I want to go back there and scream until everyone in that town knows exactly what kind of 'gentleman' he really is."
"Then let's go," Julian said.
I turned to look at him. His face wasn't masked in sociopathic glee; he looked remarkably calm, his gaze steady and focused. "What?"
"We're going back," Julian said, his voice low and persuasive. "But you're not going to scream, Alina. You're not going to be the girl who lost. You're going to be the woman who moved on to something much, much bigger."
He brushed a stray hair from my face, his touch uncharacteristically gentle.
"Think about it," he murmured. "He expects you to be broken. He expects you to be the ghost of the ridge. Imagine the look on his face, and on the faces of every gossip in that town, when you walk through those doors on my arm. Not as a waitress, not as a disaster, but as the partner of the man who owns the very air they breathe."
I blinked, the rage cooling into something sharper. Something calculating. "You want us to go... together?"
"I want us to show up in a car that costs more than the church," Julian said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. "I want to see Silas Mercer realize that while he was busy settling for 'peace,' you were busy conquering my very soul. Let him have his wedding. We'll have the room."
The image formed in my head. Me, in that plum-colored dress. Julian, in his custom armor.
The weight in my stomach shifted. It wasn't the numb ache of betrayal anymore, it was the electric hum of a hunt.
"You're a bad influence, Vane," I whispered, my own smile finally tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"I'm the best influence you've ever had," he replied, pulling me back down into the pillows.
"Now, go back to sleep. We have a lot of shopping to do if we're going to give that town a wedding they'll never forget."
I lay there in the dark, my head on Julian's chest. The ridge was calling, but for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the echo. And I was heading home.