Stroking the matchbox, I closed my eyes and said a prayerful goodbye.
This is to find your perfect freedom. The Debt Inheritance is gone. It’s over.
Stepping to join me, Jethro’s gaze glowed with love and support. Holding out a folder, he murmured, “This isn’t the original—I’ll get that from the lawyers next week and burn that too—but this should be destroyed with the rest of what we’ve done.”
Taking the folder, I opened it. Tears sprung to my eyes. Inside were the pieces of Debt Inheritance I’d been given after each round of the table along with the amendment I’d recently signed under Jasmine’s duress.
“Thank you. This means a lot.” Holding the folder, I struggled to open the matchbox to set it alight. It would be the first piece to burn. The catalyst to decimate everything else.
A flick of flint and glow of flame appeared in my peripheral. Jethro held out a monogrammed lighter. I’d seen it the night he’d dragged me into his office and made me sign the Sacramental Pledge.
“The wood is drenched in kerosene, so it will catch easily.” Holding the lighter to the corner of the Debt Inheritance folder, he waited until the paper caught fire. Taking a step back, he smiled. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I looked at my brother and father. They stood like two sentries against the darkness. Hawksridge loomed behind them, leering over all of us as no longer foe but friend. A few of the windows gleamed with golden lights, spilling rectangle wedges of illumination across the grass.
Jasmine sat primly in her chair, her eyes reflecting the smoking flame in my hand. The folder rapidly dissolved into leaves of blackened char.
Evil had vanished. Only happiness remained.
With no hesitation, I threw the burning paper onto the bonfire and watched with soul-singing satisfaction as the entire thing erupted with orange heat.
The icy air was battered back as flames whipped into existence and my mind quieted from thoughts of Jacqueline, my mother, and secrets. My family stood all around me, cementing me in a brand new world where nothing could separate us.
There was nothing else to say.
The flames spoke for us.
The smoke purged the past.
And the crackling spoke of a future where no debts existed.
SOOT TAINTED MY mouth.
Smoke laced my hair.
And my eyes still burned with sparkling orange and yellow from the bonfire. We’d stayed vigil for hours. Nila and Vaughn were the only ones who threw the documented debts onto the flames.
The rest of us paid our respects and supported them silently.
I didn’t save any evidence. I didn’t put aside valuable proof to incarcerate the men who’d hidden my family’s secrets. Partly, because their sins were our sins and it would be hypocritical to lay the blame at their feet when we all shared the crime. And mostly, because I wouldn’t use others’ pain as a bargaining chip.
I had more respect than that.
If the lawyers wanted to play and proved to be a problem when sorting out the final paperwork, then I had other means in which to hurt them. More just means. We’d dealt outside the law for so long, a few more ‘loose ends’ could be managed in the same way.
Tex had stared ahead, his hands clasped and face hard. If I let myself feel what he went through, I’d suffer a clout of shellshock. He hugged Emma’s last remains, twirling her engagement ring from the box as if he could invoke a spell to bring her back.
But nothing would bring her back.
Nothing could undo what Emma had announced.
And I feared what Nila would do once the wounds of tonight had been tended to and she’d had more time to think about the sudden revelation of having a sister.
I hid my derisive snort. Daniel had been right, after all. His stupid joke in the car about stealing the wrong sister—he’d meant nothing by it—a stupid ploy to unsettle Nila even more.
But somehow, he’d guessed the unthinkable.
There’d been another Weaver.
A firstborn girl hidden from us.
Jacqueline.
A few minutes older than Vaughn. A few minutes older than Nila.
The love of my life had been sacrificed to a fate that wasn’t hers to bear.
Did that make me happy or sad?
Happy she’d become mine?
Sad I’d put her through so much?
Who was Jacqueline?
What did she look like? How would she have reacted?
My hands balled.
One thing I was certain of—whoever Jacqueline was, she wasn’t Nila. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. I wouldn’t have broken my vow or bowed at her feet.
Jacqueline wouldn’t have changed history.
Succumbing to torrenting thoughts, I remained silent, locked where I would stay for the rest of my life—beside Nila.
I didn’t leave as she threw paperwork and audio and video into the raging flames. Every time Nila looked my way, I kissed her. I passed her file after file, delivering my family’s crimes into her hands to dispose of.
Only once the grass was empty of history did we disperse our separate ways. The fire would continue to rage on its own while we retired to different corners to rest, revalue, and regroup.
Textile was the first to disappear, wordlessly hugging Emma’s box and disappearing into the orchard grove.
Vaughn rolled Jasmine toward the Hall, her wheels sucking in the mud of her tracks from carting so many files earlier in the evening.
Nila and I—we headed back to my quarters.
Her cheeks smudged with ash and charred pieces of paper decorated her hair and lined her jacket hood. She looked as if she’d been in a battle. She looked endlessly tired.