Chapter 246
Serena
"Here."
Vincent reached into his jacket with one hand, pulled out a pristine white handkerchief, and offered it to me. The gesture was so incongruously old-fashioned, so gentle, that it nearly broke me.
"Please," he said quietly. "Wipe your face. Try to forget, just for a little while."
I took the handkerchief, pressed it to my forehead. It came away damp with sweat I hadn't realized I was producing.
"We're heading to a property Lance acquired a few years ago," Vincent continued, his voice taking on a deliberately lighter tone.
"A small estate in the Hudson Valley. Quiet. Private. The kind of place where you can actually see stars at night, if you can believe that still exists this close to the city." He glanced at me again, and there was something almost pleading in his expression. "It's the kind of pastoral life you've never experienced, Miss Vance. I promise you—Lance will be there tomorrow morning. And he'll have Wesley with him, whole and unharmed. All you need to do is wait."
I stared down at the handkerchief clutched in my hands. "If anything happens to them, Vincent..." My voice dropped to something cold and flat. "I won't just stop being your friend. I'll make sure you remember, every single day, that you took me away when I could have helped."
He flinched slightly but nodded. "Understood."
"Now." He reached for the dashboard, fingers hovering over the controls. "Let's get your mind off this. Music?"
Before I could answer, he'd already turned on the radio. Some vintage jazz poured through the speakers—Ella Fitzgerald, I thought, though I couldn't be sure. The kind of smooth, elegant sound that belonged to a different era entirely, when problems were solved with wit and charm instead of guns and betrayal.
I let my head fall back against the seat, watching the landscape shift outside the window. Vincent had been right about one thing—the scenery was changing. The hard edges of the city had given way to rolling hills, dense clusters of trees that looked almost aggressively peaceful. Sunlight filtered through leaves in that particular golden way that only happened far from urban pollution.
Despite everything, despite the terror gnawing at my insides, I felt my shoulders start to unknot. Just slightly. Just enough to remember how to breathe without it hurting.
Then the music cut off mid-note.
"We interrupt this broadcast for breaking news."
My entire body went rigid.
The announcer's voice was crisp, professional, the kind of studied neutrality that always preceded something catastrophic. "New York's most prominent family is tonight embroiled in unprecedented scandal. Wesley Lawson, heir to the Lawson fortune, is now the subject of an active manhunt following charges of kidnapping and assault. Meanwhile, his uncle, Lance Lawson—CEO of Lawson Capital and de facto head of the family—is under investigation for alleged ties to organized crime and suspicion of orchestrating multiple felonies."
"No," I whispered.
"Stock prices for Lawson Capital have plummeted seventeen percent in after-hours trading, with analysts predicting further decline when markets open tomorrow. Several prominent New York families have issued statements distancing themselves from the Lawsons, citing concerns about—"
"Fuck!" The word tore out of me, raw and jagged. "Vincent, are you hearing this? Their stock is bleeding out. The whole goddamn empire is collapsing in real time."
Vincent's jaw clenched, and I watched him catch his lower lip between his teeth—a crack in that perpetual composure, something almost like dread flickering across his features. "I'm sure once the family excises the cancer, once they finally cut out Felix and Thomas, the markets will stabilize. The fundamentals are still solid, the company's core assets—"
"We interrupt with an urgent update."
The announcer's voice sliced through Vincent's words like a blade through silk, suddenly breathless, pitched with that particular frequency of barely-contained excitement that only came from breaking genuinely catastrophic news.
I felt Vincent's entire body go rigid. Watched his hands spasm on the wheel, knuckles bleaching white as bone.
"Lance Lawson has just surrendered himself to the NYPD. He is currently in custody at the 19th Precinct, where he is expected to face intensive questioning regarding allegations of—"
The world didn't just tilt.
It fractured.
I heard Vincent swear, heard the screech of brakes, but it all seemed to be happening very far away, on the other side of some vast and unbridgeable distance. There was a rushing sound in my ears, like standing too close to a waterfall, and the golden afternoon light suddenly felt too bright, too sharp, like it was cutting into my eyes.
Lance. In custody. Surrendered.
Which meant he'd given up. Which meant he thought it was over.
Which meant—
"Miss Vance? Serena?"
Vincent's voice was urgent now, alarmed, but I couldn't seem to make my mouth work to respond. The handkerchief slipped from my nerveless fingers. My vision was narrowing, darkness creeping in from the edges like a curtain being drawn.
The last thing I registered before everything went black was Vincent's hand on my shoulder, shaking me, and his voice—tight with something that might have been fear—calling my name over and over into the void.