Goldsin (The Chrysophilist Trilogy Book 1)
Goldsin: Chapter 22

Rain drizzles down the windows and traffic clogs the roads, mimicking the chaos inside our house as the maids scurry around completing their tasks. The clacking of their ballerina shoes against the marble floor and the sound of their hushed words echoes down the corridor to where I’m standing in the kitchen.

Tonight’s party is hours away, but the house looks prepared already. Yet knowing my mother, she’s having everyone triple-check every single detail, leaving no chance for Lucian to complain.

But Lucian will find a way to punish her tonight in front of the guests. He always does.

“The vase! Yes, that one.” My mom’s voice carries into the kitchen from where she’s scolding a maid in the corridor. “Can’t you see how it clashes with the tablecloth? Put it next to Pollock’s ‘Number 30’!”

Pouring myself some coffee, I shake my head at her tone. As if the maid would have a clue putting the vase in the wrong position will earn my mother three spanks. Or that adding more than five ashtrays to each table will result in a day without food and water.

The maid might know—if my mother didn’t hire new staff every week. Coincidentally, always before they start linking her increase in makeup to the constant screaming and crying coming from Lucian’s office.

“Julian?” She waves a hand in front of my face, calling my attention away from my running thoughts. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?”

I lean against the cabinet taking a sip of the bitter coffee, the taste guiding me back from the hell that is Lucian. “Sorry, Mom. What is it?”

Her brows move slightly, trying to appear like a frown but failing with the amount of work she’s had done. “Is everything ready for tonight?”

The same blue of my eyes scans down my chest, paying particular attention to the fingernails carved into my skin. Aurelia made her mark on me last night when she was screaming my name.

I don’t usually walk around half-naked, but today caffeine is a necessity, right after my morning workout and before heading for a shower.

Mom’s tired gaze connects with mine. “You know how your father gets when things aren’t perfect.” There’s concern laced in her voice.

I hate seeing her like this, slowly fading.

“Everything’s under control.”

She gives me a soft nod before tracing her fingertips over the scratches on my chest. “Make sure to keep an eye on her tonight, Julian. You know how these parties can turn out to be.”

Her words make me pause. A nod is all I manage.

Mom reaches up and brushes a stray hair away from my face, the action igniting her radiant smile. “She’s so lucky to have you,” she says tenderly.

Her words feel like a stab to the heart. The meaning behind them is crystal-clear. Not only that, but the longing shining in her eyes for something better—something Lucian could never give her—is enough to let me know she wishes she was as lucky as me and Aurelia in her marriage.

She wishes her husband wasn’t the abusive piece of shit he is.

I grab her hand and give it a squeeze, letting her know she has me too.

“Who’s so lucky to have him?” Adrian appears in the kitchen, heading straight for the plate of tuna canapés.

“Don’t.” Mom slaps his hand away. The soft expression that was on her face seconds ago is now replaced by something sterner. “Instead of eating the guests’ food, why don’t you give us a hand? There’s still plenty to do before the party starts.”

She doesn’t wait for him to answer, because she isn’t asking. She’s demanding.

I watch her go, her small figure retreating to scold the maids, leaving behind a silent Adrian, who just stares after her.

My mother has never shared the same warmth with Adrian as she does with me. She never was the same mother to him. And I know it’s because she resents him for all the times he never stepped up to protect her. Instead he let her battle with Lucian’s wrath on her own.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks when he turns back to me, gaze sweeping over the scratches on my chest.

I smirk. “Shouldn’t you recognize the pattern?”

He narrows his eyes, waiting to hear more.

“I would have bet you’d be able to recognize the way she scratches when you make her come . . . or maybe you never got that far.”

“You’re fucking her?” There’s a storm looming in his glacial glare.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I take a sip from the mug.

He groans, elbows resting on the table as he drops his head between his shoulders. “One thing, Julian. Stay away from her. You couldn’t even do that?”

I fucking lose it.

As I slam the mug on the counter, it shatters into millions of pieces.

“I did as you said. I stayed away from her for ten years!” I fume.

Ten. Years.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Not hours, days, or months. Years.

A decade of my life spent without her. He can’t ask me for more.

His head snaps at the sound of the ceramic shattering, the warm liquid dripping down the counter to the floor. Its scent wraps around us, a comfort before the chaos.

“Getting involved with her makes everything we did until now meaningless!” His rough voice cuts through the hushed silence the maids are trying to maintain.

“Adrian.” I clench my jaw—something I’ve been doing more frequently when talking with him. “This was your idea. If it doesn’t work, that’s on you.” I look him dead in the eye. “You told me until the end of high school, yet you stayed with her for seven more years!”

All the pain I felt during those years comes crashing back down on me. The resentment that shone in her eyes whenever she looked at me. The way the green of her eyes lost the glint it once had. How slowly, torturously, I became a ghost to her. Nothing but a shadow of the past.

“So if Father hurts her, it’s my fault?” A bitter laugh leaves his lips, tainting the sweet smell of the apricot crumble cooking in the oven. “No. I think that’ll be on you.”

Tension radiates between us.

I am so fed up with him telling me what I can and can’t do. I listened to him back then because he gave me a deadline. I won’t stay away from her forever.

I can’t live a life without her in it.

What if Lucian hurts her? the deep voice in my mind slurs. What if she dies? She’ll be gone forever.

Scoffing, I say, “Lucian doesn’t want to hurt her, and he probably never did back then either.”

Who am I really saying this to? Him or me?

I continue. “You were the only one who noticed his interest in Aurelia and came up with the brilliant plan to fake-date her.”

I still remember the way he appeared in my room, hair disheveled, going on and on about how he’d caught Lucian licking his lips while watching Aurelia’s ass saunter away. I remember how his eyes went round when the idea popped into his head: “If I date her, Father won’t look at her anymore. He’s never shown any interest in the girls I’ve dated. But if you keep showing him she’s your friend—or more—he might do something.”

“You really think that?” He shakes his head, looking almost hurt. “She’s a beautiful girl, Julian, I won’t lie to you. But it was still hard as shit dating someone I didn’t love for ten fucking years.

“I did that for you—and for her. I grew up with Aurelia too, you know. I couldn’t just watch Father put his hands on her. I could do something this time. I could help her.”

I could help her the way I couldn’t help Mom. I can hear him thinking it.

But then he adds, “Maybe you should show me some gratitude for what I did.”

“Gratitude?” I clench my fists. “You think I should be grateful for having to watch you date the woman I love?” I spit. “I should be grateful for watching you take all her firsts—our firsts?” I’m seething by this point. “You think I should be grateful for watching her look at you the way she used to look at me?”

“You weren’t there, Julian!” he shouts. “You didn’t notice the way Father would eye-fuck her. It got progressively worse as she got older. He’d look at her like he was seeing a long-lost prize appearing again.”

Of course he did. She reminded him of her mother. Fuck.

Adrian was just trying to help, and I’m being a dick about it.

But I need him to understand.

“I was young and naïve back then. I can protect her now.”

“Like you’re doing with Mom?” he scoffs.

“Yes.” I grind my teeth.

“Julian.” He takes a step closer. The ocean blue of his eyes ripples with emotion. “You haven’t been protecting Mom. You’ve just been sharing the pain together.”

His hands capture my face, framing it, as he closes the distance between us, pieces of broken ceramic cracking under his foot. Our eyes lock onto one another’s.

I can’t remember the last time he was tender with me.

“You need to stop getting in the way of Father’s anger.” His voice is grave, low. “Compared to Mom and Aurelia, you’re disposable to him. He would never kill Mother, because she brings joy to his sickness, but you? You’re nothing but a thorn in his side. One day, he’ll pluck you out.” He whispers, “And I don’t think I’ll be able to survive seeing you go. Do you understand that?”

Adrian shakes me.

My throat’s dry, a lump forming in the middle of it.

I’ve never seen Adrian stripped raw before now. But I can’t. I can’t do what he’s asking me to do. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe I’m the shittiest brother in the whole world.

But I’d prefer for Lucian to kill me with his bare hands than to face a life without the girl I’ve loved for my entire life, or one where my mother continues to slowly die with each finger he lays on her.

Last time he played smart. He brought someone else in to do the touching while he focused solely on me. But next time . . . Well, there won’t be a next time, but if there is, it might be the day I finally let Emeric join in and punch the man to death.

I nod as I watch the faintest smile curve Adrian’s lips.

It’s a lie. A white lie that will let him sleep at night.

It’s the least I can do.

He takes a step away from me, and just as he’s about to leave, he places a folder on the table, tapping it with his index finger. “The information you asked me for on the owner of Lavish Eden.”

With a heavy sigh, I open the folder and skim through it.

There’s no real reason why I asked Adrian for information on the new member of the Inferno Consortium. I don’t know the guy, but I loved using his club. Without it, I wouldn’t have felt Aurelia’s body writhing beneath mine.

I flip over the pages.

Lorenzo Mancini.

There’s a full biography on the guy, but no picture. Nothing interesting. He’s lived a pretty normal life—if you consider being a billionaire normal.

He’s the son of the Mancini family. I’ve heard of them before. They’re the richest family in Italy, owners of various hotel chains, some of which the Inferno Consortium uses for business events.

Lorenzo, on the other hand, seems to own a series of strip clubs and restaurants across Italy, France, Spain, and Norway. And since he just opened one here in Seattle, I guess he’s expanding his empire in the United States too.

And he’s achieved that by joining the Inferno Consortium.

They offered to make him a member for free in exchange for the use of his estates for meetings or dealings, and he got the green light to open his business in our territory.

I close the folder.

Reading about every single meeting he had with the Inferno Consortium and my father is making me nauseated.

Heading back to my room, I close the door behind me and throw the folder onto my bed, moving to the bathroom to take a shower. I’m stripping off my pants when I catch sight of the art piece Aurelia left on my chest last night.

So much has changed. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact she kills people. I always knew she was special, a missing piece of my soul. And if my soul is dark and depraved, then she can’t be sunshine and rainbows.

But the truth is, we made her the way she is today. My family did.

Lucian did.

The thought jolts me to realize, through the havoc of these past few days, I forgot to ask her how it went with Marcus Whitman. Not how she killed him or if she did, because I heard every symphony she sucked out of him, but how it all turned out afterward.

Grabbing my phone, I send a quick message to Valentine.

He responds immediately.

Valentine: They don’t know about her.

I turn on the shower while I type out, “What does Lucian know about the kill?” and click send.

Valentine: They think the guy that killed DeMarco killed Whitman too.

Another text arrives quickly.

Valentine: Since he was at the restaurant that night.

What the fuck?

Blood rushes away from my face, my heart pounding in the backs of my ears.

I don’t waste another second; I hit Valentine’s number and wait for his voice to break the irritating ringing tone.

When he finally picks up, making a scene of letting it ring for a while like he wasn’t holding his phone when I called, I impatiently ask, “What was he doing there?”

“Hello to you too, Julian,” he drawls in mockery.

Funny. Did he grow a sense of humor in the past few hours?

“Cut the shit and tell me what you know about the guy.”

Who is he really? What does he want from Aurelia? Does he know about her?

A sigh greets me from the other end of the line. “Adrian spotted him through the restaurant’s CCTV cameras. Before you ask, I edited the videos, cutting Aurelia entering and leaving the bathroom, before I gave the recordings to Adrian.”

The bastard is good at what he does, I’ll give him that.

He continues. “He was easy to notice, because he was the only one dining alone, wearing nothing but a black hoodie.”

How did Aurelia not see him?

“Were you able to capture his face?”

“No.” Valentine is quiet for a beat, then I hear shuffling on the other end of the line before he adds in a low voice, “He walked into the bathroom right after Aurelia left⁠—”

Loud talking echoes through the line, cutting off Valentine. He speaks to someone else, grumbling here and there, while my patience sizzles.

“Valentine.”

There’s more grumbling before he manages to continue. “He left a raven’s feather on the body. Do you have any idea what it could mean?”

I rack my brain for an explanation but come up empty-handed. Why did he let Aurelia kill Whitman without getting involved? Who is this guy, and what does he want from her?

Then the most dreadful thought digs a hole in my stomach.

What if he hasn’t told anyone about what Aurelia did because he wants to use it to his advantage? What if he’ll use her to get back at me for pinning DeMarco’s death on him?

“The invisible man,” that’s what Adrian called him. Fuck, I wish he’d stayed invisible a bit longer.

Then, before I can ask the one question pestering my mind, Valentine answers it.

“No, Julian. Aurelia isn’t working with him,” he says. “Actually, she has no idea anyone was there to know she killed Whitman. I’d like for us to keep it that way.”

He wants me to lie to her. I would have thought he’d be the one to teach me to never lie to a woman, but I guess he can’t be any different from the men of the Inferno Consortium.

What’s another lie to add to the pile? It’s better this way, for her own good. If she knows, havoc will rain down. And the Inferno Consortium will notice her involvement.

“Fine.”

“I’ve got it under control,” Valentine says. “Trust me.”

“Keep me in the loop if anything new emerges.”

“Will do.”

I hang up and stare at my reflection in the steaming mirror.

I look a fucking mess.

Dark, puffy bags under my eyes, glaring red scratches on my chest, hair sticking out in every direction, hands clenching the edge of the sink.

And still, it’s the happiest I’ve felt in ten years.