Chapter 19 Nineteen
THANE DEVEREUX
I looked deep into my mother’s eyes and felt my heart skip again. It was worse than I thought.
Her heart was failing. Her life was hanging by a very thin thread. The heavy weight of my family duty pressed down hard on my broad shoulders. I had to keep the peace until the surgery was done. I could not fight a war on two fronts.
I gave a short, tight nod. "I will handle it."
The Devereux penthouse was freezing. The massive glass walls overlooked the bright, sprawling grid of city lights, but the expensive view offered absolutely no warmth. The apartment felt more like a sterile furniture showroom than a home. It lacked life. It lacked a pulse.
I walked through the heavy front door. I was exhausted. My muscles still ached deeply from the heavy iron at the gym. I rolled my shoulders to relieve the physical tension building in my neck.
I found Camilla in the main living room.
She was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window. She held a large crystal glass of red wine in her hand. She wore a white silk dress that draped heavily against the floor.
I felt a sharp, immediate spike of pure anger in my chest. I hated that she went behind my back. I hated that she used my sick mother as a weapon to corner me in a restaurant.
"If you have a problem with me, Camilla," I said, my deep voice cutting sharply through the quiet room. "You come to me. You do not call my mother."
Camilla turned around slowly.
Her dark eyes were already brimming with thick, wet tears. She did not yell. She did not raise her voice. She knew exactly how to play the victim. She used her soft, crying voice like a sharp, curved blade aimed at my ribs.
"I am scared, Thane," Camilla whispered. A single tear rolled down her perfectly powdered cheek. "I look at you, and you look right through me. You do not see me anymore. You are completely obsessed with that horrible woman at the hospital. What did I do wrong?"
Sighing loudly, I kept my heavy hands buried in the pockets of my trousers.
"I am handling a major corporate acquisition, Camilla. And I am handling my mother’s failing health. The world does not revolve around your feelings."
"I stayed," Camilla sobbed. Her voice cracked perfectly. She took a slow step toward me. The dark red wine shook violently in her crystal glass. "When you were in that terrible accident, I stayed. I sat in the dark with you. I sacrificed my youth for you."
She took another step. She was close enough for me to smell her heavy, cloying floral perfume.
"Remember when the terrible migraines hit you?" Camilla cried. "Remember when I sat by your bed and held your hand for hours? Remember when I read to you in the dark until you fell asleep? I nursed you back to health, Thane. And now you treat me like a total stranger."
I looked down at her face. She was beautiful. She was the woman who supposedly saved my life.
But I listened to her voice. I listened to the high, breathy pitch of her crying. I closed my eyes for one second. I tried to match her voice to the specific memory of the woman in the dark.
It did not fit.
The woman in the dark—my North Star—had a voice like smooth, warm velvet. It was a voice that anchored me to the earth when the physical pain tried to rip me away. Camilla’s voice was thin. It lacked depth. It lacked the heavy, grounding weight I remembered.
I opened my eyes. I looked at her hands holding the wine glass. I remembered hands that felt desperate. I remembered hands that rubbed my temples with a fierce, quiet devotion. Camilla’s hands looked too soft.
They looked entirely untouched by sacrifice.
Every single time I looked at her now, I compared her to the memory. And every single time, she failed the test. The woman standing in front of me was a stranger wearing a familiar mask.
I pulled my hands out of my pockets, stepped forward, wrapped my large arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a stiff, rigid embrace.
Camilla buried her face in my chest. She cried softly against my cotton shirt. I rested my chin on the top of her head. I did not feel a single spark of warmth. I did not feel the magnetic, undeniable pull I felt when Dr. Solene stood just inches from my face. I felt a deep, gnawing, absolute wrongness in my bones.
"I am sorry," I said. My voice was a flat, hollow monotone. I said the exact words she wanted to hear to end the argument. "It is just work. I am tired. I have a lot on my mind."
"Please do not push me away," she whimpered against my chest.
I inhaled. The heavy floral scent of her perfume coated the inside of my lungs. I hated it. I wanted the cold, sharp scent of the hospital room. I wanted the clean, professional aura of the arrogant surgeon.
I stared over Camilla’s shoulder and looked out the massive glass window at the dark New York skyline.
The lights of the city flickered against the freezing wind outside the glass.
I had delivered my fake apology. I had bought the hollow peace my mother demanded. But the dark fire in my gut had not gone out. It was burning hotter than ever before.
But the truth was that every single "dead end" Jaxson found was not a failure. Every wiped server, every missing file, and every vanished nurse was a massive, glowing signpost. They all pointed to the exact same conclusion.
Someone went to incredible, expensive lengths to kill Idalia Vance on paper.
They erased her entire existence from the hospital’s history to cover up a crime.
My jaw locked tight. My eyes narrowed at the dark city.
They killed her on paper. I was going to find out if they tried to kill her in real life, too. And when I found the people responsible for wiping my memories away, I was going to bury them in the ground.