The best night of my life was the worst of hers.
I couldn’t keep reading as my tears fell down and smudged the words on the paper.
“I never thought I’d hear him admit it, and even now it’s just on paper. I don’t know if I’m happy or sad…or mad…or…”
I set the diary down as a rush of sobs wracked me. Grayson fell beside me on the couch, pulling me closer.
“Have you read this?” I asked.
He nodded. “After reading this, I don’t know, Story. A part of me thinks he always knew what would happen, which is why he made me promise to get Lottie out. He knew the day he agreed to work together he was going on a suicide mission.”
“So why even pretend to be winning me over?” I couldn’t breathe as the rush of just everything overwhelmed me. “Why fucking hold on to the coin? Why?”
Grayson and my eyes locked.
He wanted redemption.
“I hate him.” I chucked the journal at the wall and the brittle spine broke in two. “All these months, he had it. We could have left. We could have been free. Why is my heart breaking again?”
Grayson grabbed me, ripping me to his chest, but careful not to smush Sonnet. My tears melted into his shirt in a mess of sobs and snot.
“Because he loved you,” Grayson said. “Because he was trying to protect you. Because he died protecting and loving you. Because you’re Story Hale, and it’s your curse to feel what others don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just…reading this, I’m so sad. Our win feels lik
e a loss. I wanted to free you. I made you go from one cage back to another. This house, this place…”
He pulled my face from his chest, forcing me to see his burning eyes. “I was never shedding this cage. There are too many people relying on me to stop the iron bars from getting rusty. But now I have the key. This was the only way. I’ll control everything. I’ll control what they say about you. I’ll control who touches you. I’ll control everything.” His voice warbled, barely restrained.
He gripped my chin, bruising. “You made my dream come true, Story Hale. You saw what no one else could. You saw the good in all of them. You made me a good man. A hero. A good father. I would have been none of those things if I abandoned my family. I would have been nothing without you.”
Tears fell harder, faster. “I feel like if he had just told the truth, if they had just told the truth, none of this would have happened,” I said. “We could have avoided everything.”
“You’re right,” he said easily. “None of this would have happened. We would have run, my grandfather would still be in power, and never brought to justice. We’d have avoided our destiny.”
I frowned. “That’s not…I guess…”
“You said our destiny was divided, but I think we always had a path and it was clear: we weren’t supposed to be together. That’s why everything kept pointing back to them,” he growled. “We had a destiny, and it was fucking wrong. We finally fucking destroyed it.”
He crushed his lips against mine, growling against my lips. “I promised to build you a kingdom; don’t apologize for blowing up the world so I could.”
My Atlas carried a world that would never know how grateful they should be.
My tears fell, but as they did, so did the watercolor of us fade—all of us, the thorny vine of fate that had woven West, Lottie, Grayson, and me together—blurring and distorting for a final time.
Seventy-Seven
STORY
Grayson held our baby to his chest.
Asleep.
Rose gold hair fell across his sleeping eyes. For the first time in a while, he looked content, truly content. Sonnet rose and fell with his breath, and he covered her back with one arm, the other holding my hand.
King.
Protector.