Page 25 of The Beautiful Dead

Brielle Cain had no shortage of space. The home was only at half capacity, and even if it weren’t, she had her own damn property on the estate. Staff quarters. Empty rooms. There was no reason—none—for him to be holed up in that godforsaken shelter on Clayburn Avenue.

Anger licked through my veins, slow and insidious, as I turned the page to his family’s financial records.

And there it was.

A sizable trust fund. Set up by his father before he died in the service. Untouched. Locked away until his graduation. It appeared Remi didn’t even know it existed.

An amendment had been made after his father’s death that explained so much. A new trustee? Brielle. I gritted my teeth as something dark and twisted coiled inside me, pressing tight against my ribs.

“Fuck.”

That scheming bitch was after his money—always taking the easy way out. She was keeping him weak. Dependent. Helpless. But she had no idea—none—that Remi was anything but helpless.

My fingers clenched around the desk, knuckles bleached bone-white. Brielle had been a thorn in my side for years, but now? Now, she was an obstacle. An obstacle that needed to be removed.

I wouldn’t come for her head-on. My father would never allow it, considering they were in bed together. She was one of his many playthings. They also had a racketeering ring together. So that made her a valuable asset in his eyes, but never mine.

No—what I had planned? She wouldn’t see it coming. None of them would. Not until it was too late.

Movement flickered on one of the screens, catching my attention. Remi. His name curled through my mind like smoke—intoxicating—I wanted to breathe in until I was drunk on it.

He was walking slow steps along the river, head bowed like the weight of the world was suffocating him. A ratty backpack slung over one shoulder, the sharp wind tugging at his clothes. He was heading toward the old cemetery on the edge of the city—miles away from anywhere he’d been before.

Why?

The question burned under my skin as I tracked him, my pulse syncing with his every movement. The way he moved—lithe, fluid—felt at odds with the darkness that wrapped around him like a second skin.

He slipped through a gap in the rusted boundary fence and vanished into the shadows. Gone. My jaw clenched. I needed to know why he was there. Why this place had called to him? The need to know every facet of him coiled inside me, sharp and insistent. It was no longer just curiosity. It was fixation. Obsession.

With my mind made up, I locked the folder away in my office, grabbed my jacket, and took the elevator down. My bike rumbled to life beneath me, the vibrations sinking into my muscles as I twisted the throttle and tore through the city. Cars blurred past, nothing but noise, background static.

All I could focus on was him.

Always him.

I killed the engine near one of the cemetery’s entrances, the silence that followed sharp and unnatural. Twilight stretched long shadows over the crumbling gravestones, casting everything in muted shades of gray. When Remi had slipped through the fence, I’d seen it—the way his tension melted and his shoulders eased like he was coming home.

The city wasn’t where he belonged.

This was.

Decay. Darkness. Forgotten things.

Just like the sketch he’d been drawing at Denny’s—morbid and stunning in a way most wouldn’t understand.

But I did.

His trail was easy to find. My footsteps were silent as I weaved through gravestones, cracked and worn by time. I kept my distance, watching as he traced his fingers over ancient names, reading stories no one remembered of people long forgotten. He marveled at the way nature has started to reclaim what had been taken, photographing the sprawling ivy and twisted brambles.

His soft voice reached me in the wind. I couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter. The sound of him wrapped around me, seeped into my skin, and lodged deep in my bones.

He was different here. The sadness, the weight that clung to him in the city—it was gone. Here, he was… peaceful.

He stopped at a grave with a towering angel carved from a stone at its head, one wing cracked and broken, and hoistedhimself onto the main body of the tomb. He settled against the angel like he was being held in its embrace and pulled out his sketchbook.

Remi was lost in his own world as his pencil glided over the bone-white page. From this distance, I couldn’t make out what he was drawing, but he filled the page with his creation. He started with long strokes before going back and adding in small details. Brows furrowed, lips pinched in concentration. The wind played with his hair, the messy black strands fell into that striking white streak.

Totally unaware I was watching him, circling him like a hunter. That I was drawing closer with every breath. Every step on silent feet. My heart rate picked up, heating the blood in my veins. I felt electrified. Alive.

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