“Can you not even look at me now?”
Charlie shook her head. Maybe Ian wasn’t the only one who needed time. “I’m just sorry, Chelsea.”
“For what?” Her sister got to her knees, obviously unwilling to accept the situation.
“For whatever I did wrong.”
Chelsea reached for her hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I got in really deep, Charlie. I can’t explain it except to say it’s an obsession. But it’s one that’s protected us up until now.”
“I should have forced you to go to school. I should have paid more attention to you. I was obsessed with Ian. I should have put it aside and dealt with you.”
Chelsea squeezed her hand. “Charlotte, we can still make this right. We can get away from here. I’m not going to let them take you. I never once meant to let you take the fall for me. I love you. You’re my only family. You’re the only person I have in the whole world. I’m certainly not going to lose you.”
Her sister was still in way too deep. “Chelsea, listen to yourself. You’ve been playing god for way too long. You won’t be able to stop it. If those men take me there will be absolutely nothing you can do about it. I’ll be gone and you won’t see me again and I don’t even know if you can function in the real world.”
“What are you talking about?” Chelsea asked, sitting back on her heels and dropping her hand.
“You’ve set up your own little kingdom. Your own world and you rule it, and you don’t consider what it means to anyone else.”
“No one else matters.”
“Everyone matters. Didn’t you learn anything?”
A stubborn mask fell over Chelsea’s face. “Yes, I learned that my legs break when someone takes a baseball bat to them. I learned that you either have power or you’re meaningless.”
“You have compassion or you’re soulless, Chelsea. Momma taught us that.”
“Momma let herself be used by a monster. She married him. She had kids by him.”
She wished her sister could really remember. “No, she was brave. She ran. She hid.”
“Not well enough, so she kind of lost that battle. You know I always thought you were the strong one, but I’ve had to be for the last several years. You pretend to be the leader but all your decisions are made between your legs. You forgot about me, so I’ve had to make sure we were safe.”
Charlie turned in her chair, unable to look at Chelsea a moment longer. “What did you expect me to do? Live with you the rest of my life? Don’t you want something more? Don’t you want someone to love?”
A bitter laugh escaped her sister’s lips. “Who’s going to love me? You might have a few scars, but you can still walk properly. You don’t ache every single day. No one’s going to love me, Charlotte. I’m not that girl.” She finally got up and sat back down in her chair, taking a long breath. “I don’t think Ian’s going to love you either. I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m realistic. He’s not a forgiving man. He wants a sub, not a wife. He wants someone who will spend her whole life cooking his dinner and worshiping at his feet.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I’ve spent the last couple of years pretty much doing that for you. At least he worshipped me back, and don’t wrinkle your nose at the idea. Until you’ve had a man who wants to hold you, who wants you more than his next breath, you don’t get a say in the way I feel.”
Ian seemed to be talking to someone on the speaker phone. Charlie stared at the flowers. They were beautiful, just buds now, their graceful curves only starting to reveal the bloom inside. She’d been like that once. She’d been full of possibilities. She hadn’t even known what those possibilities were. Ian had shown her.
She wouldn’t bloom. Maybe Chelsea was right, and they had never really had a chance.
Fourteen flowers. She touched them all, a little worry sparking in the back of her brain. “Chelsea, how many flowers do you count?”
“I don’t care about the flowers.”
“I count fourteen. Fourteen yellow roses and no one knows who sent them.”
Chelsea suddenly seemed to care about the flowers. “It could be a mistake. Maybe whoever sent them meant to send a dozen and they got fourteen by mistake. They send flowers by the dozen here in the States.”
No one in Russia sent an even number of flowers to anything except a funeral. And no one sent yellow flowers except to show their profound sadness or to mark a betrayal.
These were funeral flowers meant for a Russian daughter. For her.
“We have to get out of here.” Chelsea tugged on her arm, pure fear on her face. It seemed she’d gotten the message, too. “They don’t understand how far our uncle will go.”
Liam strode down the hallway, a grim look on his face. He shoved his way into the conference room and immediately started talking. Everyone was facing him and then Grace started to cry.
Oh, god, what was going on? Charlie stepped to the window that separated them.
Charlie watched as the conference room seemed to tense and then Liam and Grace went running out of the room followed by a tense-looking Simon and Jesse, who was checking the clip on his SIG. Jake moved back toward his office while Adam was back at his computer, his fingers flying across the keys.
Something had happened. Something spectacularly bad.
Baz chose that moment to walk down the hallway. He stopped, looking into the conference room before poking his head into the office where Charlie was standing. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” But she needed to find out. Ian had told her to wait, but she couldn’t just sit here when it looked like everything was falling apart. What had caused Grace to cry? To run out of the room like the devil was chasing her?
She looked into the lobby and Grace had her purse. Liam was escorting her out of the office, his eyes moving, searching for a threat.
“Looks serious. I better go get Damon.” Baz’s expression never changed. He looked back, his eyes catching on Phoebe’s desk. “Nice flowers. Someone must be in love.”
But those flowers weren’t about love.
Ian stood up, looking at whatever Adam was doing on the computer. When his face lifted toward the door, there was a weariness to his eyes that she hated. He ran a hand across his brow, his shoulders slumping.