The address took us to an abandoned industrial site on the edge of town, set of rusting metal buildings surrounded by dying weeds and broken chain-link fencing. The type of place where screams wouldn't register.
"This is insane," said Daniel for the tenth time, his hands gripping the steering wheel as we pulled onto it. "We are supposed to wait for the police."
"There's no time." I checked my phone. It was 42 minutes after the call. "She said one hour. And we have eighteen minutes."
"Then let me go in first."
"No." I grabbed his hand. "She wants me. If you go in, she will kill my father at once. This is the only way."
"I can't lose you, Brooklyn. Not now. Not after everything."
"You won't." In an attempt to sound brave, my voice trembled. "The FBI knows where we are. Detective Carter is likely outside beginning the perimeter."
"Probably isn't good enough."
I pressed my head against him, and we kissed hard. It tasted like goodbye. "I love you," I murmured over his lips. "I need you to know that. Whatever takes place in that room, whatever she tells us about us being brainwashed, what I feel for you is real."
His forehead pressed against mine. "I love you too. Which is why I'm not letting you do this alone."
"Daniel,"
"I'm going in."
" But I'm not going to sit here and watch you walking into a death trap. " His voice was steel. "Don't argue. We're wasting time."
He was right. Sixteen minutes left.
We approached from different sides. Daniel went around the back, I went straight up to the front door, a huge sliding door hanging off its hinges.
Inside the building, it was a labyrinth of darkness and rusty equipment. Something dripped in the darkness. I could hear my own stealthy footfall on the concrete.
"Hello?" My voice cracked. "I'm here. Alone, like you asked."
Lights blazed on, blinding me. When my eyes focused, I saw the arrangement.
"Right on time," my stepmother said, checking her watch. "I appreciate punctuality, Brooklyn. Your father could learn from you."
"Let him go." I moved closer. "I came like you asked. Now let him go."
"In a moment. First, we need to have a conversation. A family conversation." She smiled, and it was the most chilling thing I'd ever seen. "Do you know how long I've waited for this? Two years of playing the dutiful wife, the concerned stepmother. Two years of watching you walk around with everything that should be mine."
"I never did anything to you."
My dad was in the back of the room, his hands bound to a chair, duct tape over his mouth. The fact awoke in him, and there it was the blood thick upon his temple, where he had been struck by their wearing evening chilled him to the bone, for patches of ice now dusted his shirt. But his eyes—God, his eyes were so wide awake, so startled, screaming at her.
There was my stepmother next to him, looking chic, even in this hellhole : like she'd come here for some business or something. She wore a designer pantsuit. With cold precision Marcus Webb braced the gun against a support beam.
And Scarlett was in the corner, hands bound, looking smaller and more defeated than I'd ever seen her. Tears streamed down her face.
"You existed!" Her facade broke, anger seeping through. "You were the obstacle. I'm the thirty-million-dollar man and all that stands between me and my fortune. Do you know just how frustrating it has been? Seeing your idiot dad fawn over you, give you everything, and I had to beg for crumbs?"
"So you married him to his money. That's what this is about?"
"Of course it's about money! Did you think it was love?" She laughed, the sound manic.
"Your father is a dull, predictable man. But he's a rich boring man. And when I found out that he'd made you his only heir..." She shook her head. "That simply wouldn't do."
Behind the tape, my father was fizzing and wheezing in his efforts to break free.
"So you set everything up," I said, connecting the dots. "You had Marcus follow me, to jerry me into seeing Daniel."
"That was inspired, wasn't it?" She looked genuinely proud. "I needed you to compromise. Involved in scandal. Something to make you look unbalanced, unworthy of inheriting. A student-teacher affair was perfect."
"But I had randomly gone to that bar."
"No, you didn't. That day I had Scarlett provoke a fight with you, because I knew you would have to let off some kind of steam. Marcus was waiting at every bar in the block. When you walked in The Velvet Room, everything fit." She looked toward Daniel's hiding place, did she know he was there? "Your teacher was a pushover. A drink in place, an innuendo in that one. Men are so predictable."
My stomach churned. "And Scarlett?"
"My beautiful, stupid daughter." She gave Scarlett a disdainful look. "So easy to control. I simply fueled her insecurities about you, steered her to Jayce and enabled her darkest instincts. Most of it she did herself."
"Mom, stop," Scarlett sobbed. "Please, just stop."
"Shut up!" My stepmother's mask slipped completely. "You failed me. All that plotting, all that maneuvering and you couldn't even do one goddamned thing— make Brooklyn look completely fucked. Instead, you got sloppy. Got caught. Ruined everything!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Sorry, don't fix this!" She extracted her own gun, aiming it at Scarlett. "You're just another stray thread now."
"No!" I leaped but Marcus caught me, hooking his arm around my throat.
"Uh-uh," he said calmly. "Stay put."
My stepmother brought the gun down from Scarlett, pointing it at my father now. "Here's what's going to happen. " "Brooklyn, you're going to have to agree to sign these papers." She motioned to papers on a nearby table. "A confession. Just that you and your teacher set up poor Scarlett. That you cheated, fixated and when your father tried to intervene, murdered..." She smiled. "Well, you killed him."
"No one will believe that."
They will when they see your bodies here. Murder-suicide. So tragic. A mentally-ill young woman, as a result of her illicit love affair with the local minister, kills her father and herself." She looked at Marcus. "And then, when Professor Anderson naturally comes to search for his missing girlfriend, why... he'll be added on to the tragedy.
Daniel. She knew he was here.
"Marcus has done such a fabulous job," she added. "Evidence planted, witness statements prepared. By the time anyone starts to question the narrative, I'll be the grieving widow who has everything." "Scarlett will be in the nuthouse." She looked at her daughter with revulsion, "—where she belongs. And you'll all be dead."
"You're insane," I breathed.
"I'm practical." She cocked the gun. "Now sign the papers, or I blow your father's brains out right now."
My father's eyes locked with mine. "Don't do it, don't give her what she desires." the kind of look.
But I couldn't watch him die.
"Fine," I said. "I'll sign."
"Brooklyn, no!" Scarlett screamed. "Don't she's gonna kill you, anyway! She told me! She's going to murder every single one of us!"
"I said shut up!" My stepmother aimed the gun at Scarlett and pulled the trigger.
The noise was almost deafening in the confined compartment. Scarlett screamed and clutched at her shoulder where the bullet had lacerated it.
Daniel sprang out from his hull, at the charge of Marcus. My father flopped a hip into the chair, trying to trip my stepmother. I jerked my head back into Marcus's face and his nose crunched.
He cursed as he let me go and I ran to my father.
Another gunshot.
There was an explosion of pain in my side, white-hot and crippling. I tripped and dropped to my knees.
"Brooklyn!" Daniel's voice, anguished.
Through blur and haze I saw him tackle my stepmother and the gun go skittering across the floor. Blood from his nose, Marcus tried to grab his weapon.
And then—sirens. Red and blue lights streamed through the shattered windows.
"FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"
The building was surrounded by agents with guns drawn. Marcus dropped his weapon, hands in the air. It took an agent dragging her off before my stepmother would stop fighting Daniel down on the floor".
"We need a medic!" Daniel screamed, dropping beside me. His hands were on my side, trying to stem the bleeding. "Stay with me, Brooklyn. Stay with me."
"Daddy," I breathed, overtaken with pain. "Is he?"
"He's fine. Everyone's fine. Just hold on." Tears streamed down his face. "Don't you dare die on me. Don't you dare."
Paramedics charged in. Voices were calling out medical jargon I couldn't make sense of. A stretcher was placed under me by someone.
"Daniel," I put a hand towards him, but the world was disappearing, growing gray at the borders.
"I'm here. I'm right here." His hand gripped mine. "I love you. Do you hear me? I love you."
But his voice was fading, as though he were underwater.
The last thing I remember before darkness overwhelmed me was seeing my stepmother being hauled off in handcuffs, cursing and bellowing profanities.
And my father, in the end freed, weeping as they carried me into the ambulance.
Then nothing.
I awoke to the constant beep of hospital monitors and the antiseptic stench of sanitized air.
My side throbbed, but it was bearable drugs, most likely. My mouth was parched; my head felt fuzzy.
"Brooklyn?"
I turned my head slowly. Daniel was sitting in the chair next to my bed, appearing as if he had been up for days. He wore stubble on his jaw, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
But when he saw me awake, such a wave of relief swept over his face that, before I knew it, he was crying.
"Hey," I croaked. "Don't cry."
He laughed, the tears trickling down his face as he took my hand and pressed it to his lips. You've been comatose for forty-eight hours. Two days. I thought." His voice broke. "I thought I'd lost you."
"More than a bullet to kill me," I attempted to joke, but my voice was feeble.
"The bullet nicked your liver. You had surgery, you needed transfusions." He shook his head. "But you're okay. You're going to be okay."
"My dad?"
"Fine. Bruised, traumatized, but fine. He's been here constantly. Only an hour gone before I shower and eat. He'll regret not saying good morning to you.
"And... everyone else?"
Daniel's expression hardened. "Your stepmother and Marcus are now in federal custody. A string of charges attempted murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, fraud. They'll never see daylight again." He paused. "Scarlett's in the hospital too. Psych ward. It was just a little bullet graze, but she fell apart. She's fully cooperating, going on to testify against her mom. And it's just that she didn't know about most of the plan until the last minute."
"She tried to tell me," I recalled. "At the end."
"She did. Most likely saved your life by engaging your stepmother just long enough for the F.B.I. to gain access." He squeezed my hand. "Had they been 30 seconds later," Detective Carter said. "I just." He could not complete the sentence.
"But they didn't. We're okay." I dragged his hand closer, despite the pain in my side. "We're all okay."
"Are we?" His voice was quiet, uncertain. "Brooklyn, we need to talk. About everything your stepmother said. About how we'd been tricked, about how this was all fake."
"Stop." I interrupted, my voice strong even in my frailty. "Never let that witch come between us."
"But she orchestrated everything. I mean the bar."
"So what?" Tears pricked my eyes. "Maybe we were forced together by some other sick game. Maybe Marcus was the one serving us those drinks, maybe the timing was calculated. But what happened after? The choices we made? Those were ours."
Daniel was silent, tracing circles with his thumb on my hand.
"We could have left at any time," I continued. "After I learned you were my teacher. After Scarlett's blackmail. After every obstacle and threat. But we didn't. We chose each other. Again and again. That's real, Daniel. What I feel for you is real."
His eyes met mine, full of cracks and longing. "Even when you know it was a manipulation?"
"Especially knowing that. Because we took something ugly and nasty and made it beautiful. We took their game and turned it into our reality." I dragged him down so that his face was pressed up close. "I love you. Not because somebody cajoled me into it. But because of who you are. How you make me feel. How you've fought for me, loved me, protected me, believed in me.
"I love you too," he said in a cracking voice. "Brooklyn, I love you so much the thought of it scares me."
He bent her head down and kissed me lightly, gingerly, considering my pain. It was soft and sweet and full of possibility.
And when we stepped back, he leaned his forehead against mine. "No more secrets. No more manipulation. Just us, building something real."
"Just us," I agreed.
The door opened. My father burst in, his face lighting up as he saw me awake.
"Brooklyn! Oh thank God."
He pulled me into a cautious hug, and at last I let myself cry. Relief, gratitude, love — it just all came out.
"I'm so sorry," he cried into my hair. "I brought her into our lives. I didn't see what she was,"
"It's not your fault, Dad. She fooled everyone."
We clung to each other for a long moment, with Daniel off to the side for privacy. When my father finally turned away, he was red-eyed but grateful.
"I'm going to fix this," he said. New security, new therapy, whatever you need. And I'm divorcing her, obviously. Just getting back every goddamn cent she tried to steal."
"I just want you to be safe," I told them. "That's all that matters."
He smiled, squeezing my hand. "We're going to be okay."
Three days later I was released from hospital on strict bed rest. Ella had gathered me in, mothering the oh dear little thing I was far too gently that she wouldn't let me leave her until I was completely recovered.
"Your dorm has too many stairs," she said. "You're staying in my single. No arguments."
I was too tired to fight her.
I couldn't sleep the first night back. Each time I closed my eyes, all I could see was my stepmother, who had nothing but a cold smile on her face after she pulled the trigger and shot me." After midnight, I broke down and turned on my phone.
A notification caught my eye. An email from the university.
My heart sank as I read it.
Dear Miss Miller,
In light of recent developments in the investigation of your affair with Professor Anderson, the university has determined that it will conduct a full review of you and Anderson. There are no official allegations yet, but the ethics board must conduct a full investigation to determine how long you have been involved with this person and under what kind of arrangement.
You have to be present next week at the hearing. The professor, Anderson was placed on administrative leave as the investigation continues.
We realize that these are hard times but we need to adhere to university policy.
Dean Morrison
My hands shook. After all the shooting, the kidnapping, nearly dying and they were still punishing us.