Page 142 of When Hearts Awaken

“When did you figure it out?” Sir Ian murmurs, his voice resigned.

“You fucking bastard!” Charles slams a fist across his uncle’s face and Maddy shrieks. “You thought we wouldn’t find out, did you? Because she was drugged? Because she couldn’t remember your face? You put on that innocent front, lulling us into believing it was all in her head when you were the one playing games all along.”

He hits him again, and I close my eyes. My body can’t stop shaking. I feel sick. I want to hurl my lunch on the floor. Flashes of that night morph into Ian’s gentle voice as he guides me into various ballet positions this past year. Then his words of advice on how to improve my Odette echo in my mind. He got me to put my guard down. He got me to believe him.

“‘Fly Harriet.’ She told me she remembered that phrase from that night and it just occurred to me what she was hearing. You were fucking calling her ‘my darling’ in Welsh, weren’t you?Fy Nghariad.You were calling her ‘my darling’ while you were raping her, you sick fuck!”

Charles hits his uncle across the jaw again and blood spews out from Ian’s lips.

My darling.The words I heard, the sounds, the sensations from that night slam into me, and I dry heave on the floor, my body breaking out in a cold sweat.

“I regret e-everything,” Ian rasps. “I was so desperate to get the director position in Paris, and I knew the academy was going to choose someone else. When The Association came to me, telling me they could solve my problem, I was blinded by ambition.”

He grabs Charles’s lapels. “They told me I had to commit a crime. But when I found out they wanted me to assault a woman, I wanted to back out. By then, it was too late. I knew too much. It was to be killed or to do as I was told.”

Sir Ian looks at me, regret and guilt flashing in his eyes. The ruby on top of his pen tucked in his jacket pocket glimmers under the dim light. Another memory barrels into my mind.The flash of red I keep remembering. It was his pen. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.I hyperventilate, my legs giving out from under me, and I slide down the wall onto the floor. My mind is scrambled, desperate to hold on to the scraps of memory I remember.

“Peppermint…but you smell like oranges,” I whisper.

“You changed your fucking scent, didn’t you? Because she called you out on it when she met you at ABTC!” Charles seethes, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

Ian grimaces and nods. I close my eyes, unable to look at him anymore.

He rasps, “I-I’m sorry, Taylor. One of them saw you at the bar, then had his associates run a quick background check. You were the ideal target—poor, no ties to anyone important in society. No one would believe you even if you went to the police or, worst case, went missing. They would see you as a run-of-the-mill teenager who ended up making wrong choices in life.”

“No. No. No.” I feel seasick—tossed around by the high waves in the ocean.

“He drugged you and brought you to the back. There were other members there—it was an initiation of sorts. If I wouldn’t do it, someone else would. And these bastards were brutal—their violence feeding off each other. What they did to some women, I couldn’t even describe.”

More unwanted memories force themselves into my mind. The men in suits grunting. My terror. But I hear more now. The screams. The horrifying screams of other women in the same room.

Ian pleads, “If I did it, I thought I could at least be gentler, to make you feel good. I made sure it was only me that night. No one else, even though those psychos wanted a piece of you. You were so beautiful, lying there. I’m a sick fuck. I’m so sorry, Taylor.”

Nausea sloshes in my stomach. One monster. Only him that night. The thought doesn’t comfort me. I want to claw my skin off and spend an eternity in the shower. An anguished cry rips from Charles’s mouth, and I open my eyes just as he socks his uncle in the stomach.

Ian chokes, coughing up more blood, but he keeps his eyes on me. “Archambeau is one of their enforcers. They’ve been forcing me to identify girls no one would miss to ‘participate’ in the future initiation rituals—which could be any sadistic crime they wanted us to commit. Murder. Assault. Anything’s on the table.”

“You gave them Maddy,” I whisper, my heart hollow. Maddy sobs louder, her cries reminding me so much of myself all those years ago, the last time I truly cried that night in the shower, feeling disgusted with myself.

“I tried to make things right—take care of her finances, but then Archambeau caught wind of it. He thought I was becoming a liability. He found out you and Charles were poking around the past and he needed to take action.”

More clues pieced together—seemingly random events were all part of a bigger scheme. “Paris, at the gala…the other man in the room with Archambeau, that was you, wasn’t it?” I don’t even need him to answer because it made sense. The snippets of conversation I heard. The fluency in French—Sir Ian lived in Paris for a decade. Of course he’d be fluent.

Ian coughs, his face leached of color. “Why couldn’t you guys leave it alone? After the press conference, he flew in because you two were officially liabilities to The Association, and no one messed with them and lived to tell the tale. He told Maddy and I to keep our mouths shut. But you had to gopublicand draw attention to them. They were going to make you two ‘disappear.’”

Sir Ian’s eyes are wild, and he glares at us. “I-I tried making it up to you when I saw you again. I knew you wanted Odette, but you weren’t there yet. I coached you, didn’t I? I gave you opportunities this past year that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.”

My heart plummets to the floor as his words sink in. A different betrayal carves through my bloody chest. All this time, I thought I had got to where I was because I deserved it. Staring at him, my words come out wooden, devoid of emotions. “It was you, wasn’t it? Bethany’s shoes. Her accident. You did it.”

Everything is a lie.

Charles growls, his face mottled as he hoists Ian back up to his feet and pins him against the wall, his arm crushing against Ian’s windpipe.

“Why?” Charles rasp. “You fucking bastard! And to think you were a champion of assault victims. What was that, guilt? You fucking hypocrite, claiming to be an ally when you were part of the problem, when you continued to feed The Association more unsuspecting women. I’mdisgusted!”

He delivers another gut punch and Ian collapses into himself, clutching his stomach. “Why? You’re a Vaughn. You could have anything you want. Why would you do this? Be involved with The Association? Grandma warned us about it.Why?”

Baring his teeth, Ian’s eyes flash with anger. He staggers back up and plows into Charles, the two men toppling to the ground. “She gaveeverythingto you! She found out about my penchant for my students and cut me out of her will.”

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