Page 64 of Point of No Return

Crew hands the car keys off to Skar, and a wave of relief washes over me as I realize we’re leaving. My father is silently urging me to look at him, but when Skar motions me toward him, I give a single shake of my head. Skar guides us toward the exit.

As the front doors open and the cool night air wafts toward us, the last thing I hear is Tyson’s grainy voice calling to us: “If only she saw you now.”

The ride back to Viserion was quiet. Stiffeningly so. Crew rode in the front of the car and despite the fact that I thundered off a million questions since we left the club, there’s only silence. From both of them. It’s confusing and annoying, and my thoughts are so scrambled that nothing is making sense. As soon as the car pulls into the driveway of Viserion, Skar storms out, leaving me floundering after him.

“Wait. Skar-” I follow him inside, and he heads right for the stairs, climbing the steps two at a time. With these heels, I’m too far behind to catch up quickly enough.

Damn him.

“Skar!” He doesn’t stop, even as the front doors slam shut behind us, and I teeter after him. He’s nearly halfway up the stairs by the time I get the bright idea to tug my heels off.

“Oskar!” I yell this time, and when he still doesn’t answer, I do the only logical thing I can think of: I chuck the heels at his head- as hard as I can. They hit him, and he freezes, gripping the railing as the heels clatter to the stairs beside him.

I pause at the landing below him, breathing hard. “Don’t ignore me.” He says nothing, but I’m fully aware of the fact that his eyes land on my heels again, disbelief clear in his rigid movements. I bulldoze ahead. “What happened back there?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” he says darkly.

“Like hell it doesn’t,” I grit the words. He’s still not looking at me. “You nearly started a fight over having me there, and now it’s not my concern?”

“Leave it be, Charlotte.”

Charlotte. Not Charlie. Not Highness. Charlotte.“Why did you buy him out of Viserion?”

His hands become fists at his sides. “You know why.”

“No- I don’t,” I tell him, and when he doesn’t move away, I decide to press my luck. “What happened between today and that night at the Belmont?” He isn’t answering but he isn’t telling me to piss off either, so I carefully climb the last few steps toward him. My voice is a whisper, quiet, unsure despite myself. “Let me in, Skar.”

He whirls abruptly, and I’m shoved back, trapped between his body and the railing. One of his hands pins me and the other grips my throat, the touch just firm enough to border on pain. His eyes are dark, so dark…

“Don’t do that.” I’ve pushed him too far- pulled on that line between us too hard. “Trust… is not something I can afford,” he echoes darkly, but the longer we stand like this, neither of us moving, the more I realize that he wants to.

He wants to trust me. But he won’t. He can’t. And the realization is like a punch to the gut.

He and I…We’re the same.

“Skar?” Aleks’ voice comes from above us, and for just a moment longer, it’s me and Skar. We’re staring at each other, unwilling to give in, and then I lift my gaze toward Aleks standing at the top of the stairs.

Skar releases me but doesn’t back away, still looking at me like he can’t quite figure me out. “Aleks?” I turn to him, brushing off Skar’s touch as I step forward and his silhouette becomes clear. “What is it?”

The look on his face is more than just confusion. It’s agony. Sorrow. Pain. His hair is up at all angles, and his eyes are red with unshed tears. Reality grabs hold of Skar, and realization slowly creeps in.

“It’s Dad,” Aleks says, his voice cracking. There’s only one thing that could stop both the Benenati boys in their tracks: The Great Dragon has fallen.

Part Two

Crossroads

Chapter Thirty

Skar

For four years, the doctors told us it was only a matter of time. Days turned into weeks which turned into months. And on a rainy Friday in October, Tyson Benenati finally passed. He spent all of Thursday night in a hospital bed, unaware, mostly unresponsive. He passed in his sleep sometime last night, and he still lays against the hospital bed in the corner of the room. Stone-faced, eyes vacant. And yet I feel nothing. Nothing but empty.

I’ve always hated hospitals. It was where I first learned of Tyson’s sickness. Where I first learned that the empire my father spent his life building was going to be mine sooner than I realized.

It isn’t that I care that he’s gone. I shut that part of myself off a long time ago. But Aleks cares. For all of Tyson’s faults, he never stopped taking care of his youngest son. Aleks is still asleep, head resting against the bed railing. He snores softly, and as the door creaks open and a nurse peers inside at the dead man laying in his bed, I know we only have a few moments before the doctors come in and pronounce him dead.

“Sir, we have to-”

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