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  Without further adieu, here's this week's chapter.

  Briar Rose

  “You realize of course that this is completely deranged, yes?” Ruth as she drank in the sight of me in a bck catering uniform with a bck pill-box hat covering my hair. We stood in her driveway, sunset only now beginning.

  “I don’t see how this is any crazier than anything else she’s done up until this point,” Lisa said, cd in an identical uniform and helping load the food into the back of her SUV.

  “I agree with my wife,” Rachel said, cracking her neck.

  “Unsurprising,” Kyle ughed as he helped Lisa maneuver all the trays into the trunk.

  “It is pretty nuts, you’ve gotta admit,” Nathan said, holding baby Caleb in his arms as he watched us finish loading the trays.

  “It very much is,” Violetta said, leaning against the side of the car. Carlos stood next to her, nodding sagely.

  “Why’s that such a problem?” Juniper said from on top of the SUV, where she was doing a handstand. She and Goliath had flown in for emotional support, and as one of our many potential teams of get-away drivers should we need to retreat. Goliath, for his part, was doing push-ups off to the side while Ruth and Nathan’s daughters, Tiffany and Trish, sat on his back. “Sometimes you need to be a little crazy in order to get what you want.”

  I pointed up at Juniper and said, “That’s more or less exactly what I’m banking on. Mallory has no idea how unhinged I can be. She thinks I’m still just a scared, shivering little kid who will do anything to get momma to love her. She’s unprepared for the sheer depths of madness that lurk inside the byrinth of my mind.”

  “Briar Rose, I think it’s hot when you say things like that, but let’s not get too carried away,” Kyle said as he started piling burners in with the food. “No pn, no matter how crazy, survives contact with the enemy.”

  “I’m aware,” I said, facing him with my hands on my hips and an impish smile on my face. “But I’m very good at pivoting and improvising. And so are you. I think the entire story of us up until this point is a solid demonstration of that fact.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve got me there.”

  “I still don’t know about this,” Ruth said, standing next to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “You’re betting a lot on the idea that this proof about Dad… About Dad being Mom even exists to begin with.”

  I nodded. I’d expined everything to Ruth and Juniper before anyone else, and they’d both been shocked… But not that shocked. In retrospect, according to them, it made a lot of sense. If nothing else, it expined why our te mother had been so willing to do girly stuff with them growing up. I’d never noticed it, but… God, it really did fit. Particurly with how she felt about my dressing up as a kid. She worried, but she was never anything but supportive. She mostly had seemed concerned about this part of me making my life a lot harder.

  I suppose she was speaking from experience on that one.

  “I know, it’s a longshot,” I said. “But I have to try. I have to find out. For my sake, for Mom’s sake… And for Sarah’s sake, too. If she’s carrying this burden, then… I need to help her. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Ruth sighed. “I know it is. Are you sure I can’t do more to help?”

  I shook my head. “The pn falls apart if there’s too many of us there. I need y’all on standby, but I think it’s better if Kyle and I try to handle this one ourselves for the time being.”

  “She doesn’t even want Rachel and I helping,” Lisa added. “Something about giving us pusible deniability for our business’ sake.”

  “What can I say, I don’t want you to lose a client,” I smiled.

  “Ever the humanitarian,” Kyle said.

  Ruth brought me in for a hug, and Juniper jumped down from the roof of the car and joined us in it.

  Once it ended, Violetta and Carlos came up and hugged me as well. “Go kick ass out there, kiddo,” Violetta whispered to me.

  “I will. Also, uh, I was wondering something?”

  “What?”

  “For Kyle and I’s wedding, I need someone to walk me down the aisle… Carlos, do you think you could-”

  He nodded, a single tear streaming down his face as he gave an affirmative grunt.

  “And Violetta, I was wondering if you might be my maid of honor?”

  She was crying too as she nodded, hugging me once again and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m assuming we’re bridesmaids, then?” Juniper asked, bouncing up and down.

  “Yes, you and Ruth. And Lisa, if she’s up for it,” I said.

  “I am!” Lisa beamed. “Thank you!”

  “What about meeeee?” Rachel gave a melodramatic whine from the driver’s seat of the car, tossing her hands about for good measure.

  “Oh, you’re with me,” Kyle smirked as he leaned against the side of the SUV. “You’re my Best Girl.”

  “Do I get to wear a tux?”

  “Yes, obviously.”

  “Fuck yeah! I’m Best Girl.”

  “Yes you are, babe, yes you are,” Lisa said as she climbed into the shotgun seat.

  “Rose,” Kyle said. “I think it’s time.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, looking up towards the setting sun.

  I looked to family and friends, gave one final nod and wave as they watched me with bleary eyes, and then climbed into the back of the car with Kyle.

  And away we went.

  ***

  The house I’d grown up in looked much the same as when I’d st seen it: three stories tall, four if you counted the attic, made of pure brick and mortar. The driveway practically had its own zip code it was so long and winding, and the backyard was as big as a public park. Dozens of windows let natural light stream into the pce during the day, but tonight, the inner lights were pouring out en masse alongside the wall of sound presented by the party.

  The catering company van allowed us to bypass the valet and park near the side-entrance that led directly into the kitchen. With my uniform covering up my figure, a medical mask over my face’s lower half, the cap covering most of my hair, and my eyebrows drawn on extra thick, I was, if not unrecognizable, than at the very least obscured by my disguise. Kyle was a little harder to cover up, but I was banking on the idea that Mallory wouldn’t even remember what he looked like (generally a safe assumption with her). We went in behind Lisa and Rachel and helped them set up in the kitchen.

  It was amazing how little the pce had changed. The same photos were up on the kitchen walls, the same table, the same chairs, the same spotless cleanliness that I’d always known it as having. Stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors with dark, deep hues. It was like a time capsule to my childhood, all assembled in such a way as to make it seem like nothing ever changed. Which was just the way Mallory liked it- why else would she still live in this massive house all by herself. She was alone save for the staff, and none of them lived on site. It was a monument to the lie upon which our family was built, a castle for her to rule from entirely on her own. Time to tear it down, brick by boring brick.

  “You guys all set up?” Kyle asked Rachel and Lisa.

  “We should be fine to take it from here,” Lisa said.

  “Awesome,” Kyle said, pulling off his bck uniform and revealing a form-fitting tuxedo that made him look positively delicious in the way that it hugged his pecs and biceps and triceps… Goddamn, how did I get this lucky?

  I took the cue and climbed out of my own uniform, revealing the green dress that had started all this in the first pce. The one I’d worn on Kyle and I’s bar-crawl date months. God, it felt so long ago now, but it felt like a good reminder of what I was doing all this for. For love. For family. For a future.

  I pulled my hair out of the bun I’d tied it in and shook it out, running my fingers through a few tangles while I used my spare hand to retrieve a rope of pearls from my purse and fasten them around my neck, then took a pair of matching earrings from them and attached them to my lobes. I used my compact mirror to check my lipstick and mascara, fiddled with my hair a bit more, and smiled. My battle armor was on, and I was ready for war.

  “Ready?” Kyle said.

  In my spike-heels, he only had to lean over a little so I could kiss him while I fisted his jacket. “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Awesome. Let’s do this.”

  “Godspeed,” Lisa said.

  “B’esras Ha-Shem,” Rachel added.

  And so, arm in arm, we stepped out of the kitchen and into the main room.

  I’d always found it a little ostentatious of us to have a literal ballroom in our house. Was part of it a little bit magical? Yes, definitely, but like… It’s a bit much, okay? Just one of those things that even as a child I’d considered a bit snobbish of us. Either way, the round room with the high ceiling and the wooden floor was packed with partygoers from a list personally cultivated by Mallory over the years. A string quartet, two violins and a vio and a cellist, all offered the night’s music as wealthy northeasterners of all ages mingled while holding flutes of champagne. Nobody was dancing, obviously- that wasn’t something Mallory would have allowed- but all the other trappings of high society were there. Tuxedos for the men and evening gowns for the women. Our staff were on hand with trays of appetizers (sorry, hors’ d’oeuvres, because God Forbid our family do anything the normal way) and drinks.

  It was all utterly sterile and completely joyless. Nobody’s smiles reached their eyes. Nobody’s ughter was genuine. Nobody actually wanted to be there. They felt they had to, to meet some arbitrary expectation of them, to fill the role that society had dictated they pyed. I’d been just like them, once upon a time. Hell, it wasn’t even that long ago. But the idea of going back to that, of living in accordance with what I thought the world expected of me… Fuck that. Fuck that entirely.

  “I feel woefully inadequate here, Briar,” Kyle said, genuine apprehension trickling into his words.

  I patted his arm gently. “Don’t. You’re worth twice as much as any of these idiots.”

  “I… Thanks,” he smiled. “Really, thanks. I… I’m gonna work on this whole insecurity thing. It’s… It’s been making me miserable for long enough.”

  “Good,” I said, rubbing his shoulder as we made our way across the ballroom. “Now, walk with purpose, keep your head up and your eyes forward, but try not to meet anyone’s gaze directly. We want to look like we’re busy with something, but not like we’re actively avoiding anyone. That’s how you blend in at a pce like this- you pretend you’re on the way somewhere else but you’re still happy to be here.”

  Kyle gnced to the side at a woman whose smile looked like it was stitched on with a needle and thread giving an empty nod as an older man droned on about the stock market. “I’m not sure anyone’s happy to be here.”

  “Oh, amen to that,” a man said as he approached. He looked familiar… Oh God.

  An inch over six feet, with neatly parted bck hair and an echo of aggressive stubble on his face, broad-shouldered and fit but not quite buff per se, with a hint of a natural tan… Yup, it was him. Crispin Winfield IV. As I lived and breathed.

  “Pardon me, but I have to ask: did you go to Harvard at the same time as me?” Crispin said. “And your st name wouldn’t happen to be O’Neil, would it?”

  “Not for much longer it’s not. And yes, Crispin, it’s me,” I said in a low, ft tone as we kept on walking, my old cssmate trailing along after us at my side. “I go by Rose now.”

  “Thought that was you,” he said with a chuckle. “And this is your beau?”

  “Kyle Duggan,” the beau in question answered, suppressing an annoyed huff. “Rose, who is this guy?”

  “A fellow trust fund brat,” I mused as we navigated our way past the crowd and towards the far end of the circur room. Through that door was the rest of the house, and more specifically, the stairwell that would take us upstairs to find the goods. “Crispin and I went to Harvard together.”

  “And Overton, don’t forget about that,” Crispin added. “We’ve moved in simir circles all our lives, really. It’s a shame-”

  “If you’re about to say it’s a shame that she didn’t always look like this, I’d strongly recommend shutting your mouth,” Kyle growled.

  “I was gonna say it’s a shame we lost touch because I missed her, but that’s cool too, I guess,” Crispin shrugged. “Not to be weird, but you did turn out beautiful.”

  I couldn’t help but crack a smile. Cris would flirt up a storm with every girl he met, though he was a lot more respectful about it than most guys from our world. He mostly lived to see women’s faces light up when he id on the charm. Kyle, of course, growled, which may or may not have sent a shiver of arousal down my spine.

  “Your family here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, my old man dragged me,” Cris said. “Something about wanting to introduce me to some eligible bachelorettes.”

  “And how will you handle them?”

  “Same as I always do.”

  “By saying right away you’re only interested in hookups?” I said.

  “You know me so well, even after all these years.”

  “Does that work?” Kyle balked.

  “Roughly half the time.”

  “And the other half?”

  “I give them a hearty handshake, wish them the best of luck in finding a guy or girl who’s a better match, pay for dinner, and sneak off to a singles bar to find a girl more interested in buying what I’m selling,” Cris said with a goofy smile.

  “That… Is… Remarkably above board,” Kyle said. “How come you’ve never mentioned this guy before?”

  “He just stopped talking to me after grad school ended,” I said. “I never was clear on why you did that.”

  “Eh, well, that pertains to the other reason I didn’t want to come,” Cris grimaced. “Your sister, the birthday girl, kinda… Solicited me one night?”

  I exhaled with raspy venom. “Of course she did.”

  “Yeah, she didn’t even bother to take off her wedding ring while she did it,” Cris said. “Just… That shit’s supposed to be sacred, you know?”

  “I do,” I nodded.

  “And after that I didn’t wanna make things weird between us, so I kinda just… Kept my distance,” Crispin shrugged. “I should’ve reached out or something, but… I didn’t know what to say. Seeing Sarah, drunk and crying, trying to use me as a side-piece… I didn’t think you’d like to hear about that, and you know how bad I am at lying.”

  “Would you believe that we’re here to save her, though?” I said.

  “You’re shitting me. How?”

  “Kyle and I are here on a secret mission,” I said. “My mom and Sarah don’t know we snuck in. We’re looking for evidence that will help break Sarah free of our mother’s control. Wanna help?”

  We reached the door at the edge of the ballroom. “Will it piss off your mom?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Good, I always hated her,” Cris said. “Will it piss off my dad?”

  “Probably, yeah?” I said. “They do work together, so Mallory taking a hit will probably be a dent in your dad’s reputation.”

  Crispin pounded back the champagne in his flute and said, “Hell yeah. Let’s fucking go. What do you need me to do?”

  “We need a distraction, something that will draw all the attention in this house to you, here, in this room, while Kyle and I go look upstairs,” I said.

  “You need me to make a scene?” Crispin said.

  “Think you can handle it?” Kyle said.

  “Hell fucking yeah, I can,” he said. “Do what you gotta do. I’ll handle this part. And, uh, let’s catch up soon, yeah? I’m between corporate jobs and actually have some free time again.”

  “Cris, if this goes well, you’re invited to the wedding and first in line for my new assistant at VDAC.”

  “Oh you made management? Fuck yeah, go Rose,” he said, sauntering off in the direction of the string quartet.

  “He seems… Interesting,” Kyle intoned as Crispin said something to the musicians.

  “Jealous?”

  “Of that guy? Hell no.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Oh, really. Know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my name that you scream when you come,” Kyle whispered into my ear. “It’s my cock that you beg for, and my load that you swallow every morning.”

  My cheeks burned with heat as the arousal exploded inside me. Kyle kissed me on the cheek while I stood there with my jaw dropped struggling to find words or coherent thought as steam overtook the Labyrinth.

  It dissipated when the string quartet started doing a spirited Irish jig and Crispin began Irish step-dancing while singing a wildly tone deaf rendition of ‘Lose Yourself.’ At which point Kyle and I slipped away while ughing our asses off.

  “Okay, okay, he can stick around,” Kyle said.

  “Honestly, it was good to see him,” I said as we entered the main hallway. It was the blood vessel that connected every room on the first floor save for the kitchen. It extended on my left towards the front door, and to my right where a sitting room, a dining room, and a more conventional media room all y.

  Before me, however, was a spiral stairwell that extended up three floors. My childhood bedroom was on the second floor, along with those of all my sisters, while my parents’ room and their home offices were on the third. Realistically, we needed to get into Mallory’s office. That was the most likely pce the evidence would be.

  A sound reached my ears, something from over by the doorway: “Brian? Is that you?”

  I flinched, looking back briefly as I registered Gerald. An old school British butler with pencil mustache and a bald pate and a long, limber frame, he’d worked for us my entire life. He’d seen me en femme more than once. And he saw me now. And he did not look happy.

  I pretended I didn’t hear him and clung to Kyle’s hand as I climbed the stairwell, decades of memories singing out inside my mind: every time I’d gotten to be myself, every time I’d been forced to deny that self, every time I’d cowered in fear of Mallory, every time I’d let her force me back to sleep. Every time she’d forced Sarah’s eyes to close shut just a little bit further, until she was trapped.

  For her sake, and for mine, I had to do this.

  We made it to the second floor, at which point we came upon something unexpected: my sister, Veronica.

  Veronica and I had never been super close. She and Mia were identical twins, and they’d spent eighteen years joined at the proverbial hip before parting ways for college. Mia went to Oxford and Veronica went to Trinity; Mia married a diplomat and traveled the world moving from corporate job to corporate job, while Veronica married and divorced and remarried and divorced and remarried the same corporate raider again and again, setting up in New York as a home base while still doing most of her work in Europe. Mia was, by all accounts, not here, while Veronica very clearly was.

  Five foot nine with golden hair worn in a colr-length bob with sideswept bangs (oh dammit we have the same hairstyle) and cd in a long-sleeved bck gown paired with diamond studs and a matching neckce and bracelets, she was a picture of grace and elegance as always.

  Kyle stood behind me, hand on my shoulder, while I bunched my fists together and stood my ground. “Veronica,” I said evenly.

  And she… Smiled. “Rose.”

  I blinked. “You-”

  “I saw the social media profile you made for your new name a few months ago,” Veronica said. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientists to put it together.”

  “And how do you… How do you feel about that?”

  She didn’t say anything. She just hugged me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, hugging her back.

  “No problem, sis,” she said. “What are you doing here, though? I mean, no offense, but-”

  “Looking for bckmail material to stop mom from destroying my career and controlling Sarah,” I said. Then I hitched my thumb behind me and said, “This is my fiance, Kyle, by the way.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Kyle said.

  “Anything I can do to help?” Veronica asked.

  “I think Gerald saw me,” I said. “Can you run interference?”

  “Happily,” Veronica said, tossing her hair back. “I never did like that old toady. Let’s get lunch or something next week, yeah? I’ll be in town until the end of the month.”

  “Sounds good, Ronnie,” I smiled as Kyle and I furthered our way up the stairs, Veronica heading down in our wake.

  “That went well,” Kyle said. “But how do you know Gerald won’t-”

  “Gerald is an employee, Kyle,” I said. “He’s loyal to whoever signs his paycheck. Plus, I would always catch him gring at me whenever I’d dressed up as a kid.”

  “Fair enough,” Kyle said as we made our way to the top floor.

  At which point we found… Two people I’d never seen before in my life. Huh.

  They were both men, one tall and white with a distance runner’s body, the other shorter and southeast Asian with the slender yet toned form of a gymnast or an acrobat. They looked like they were in their early twenties, and they looked like they knew each other from the way they were reaching their hands out to one another. The white man wore his brown hair short and was cd in a three-piece navy blue suit with brown loafers, while the smaller one wore bck scks and a bck turtleneck and a bck knit cap.

  Did I mention that the smaller one was climbing in through the hallway window off a tree-branch with a small fshlight wedged between his teeth? Because that was also a pertinent set of details.

  “Um…,” Kyle said.

  “Uh… Hi there,” the tall white guy said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “It looks like you’re breaking in,” Kyle said.

  “I’m not breaking in,” the white guy said.

  “And your friend there?”

  The little guy gulped. “It’s… Well… You see… Did you ever watch Saved By the Bell? Because I did, and I thought it would be funny to recreate-”

  “Are you guys robbing my mom’s house?” I said.

  “Of course not! Robbery requires the threat of violence. We’re burgling it!” the tall one said.

  The little guy smacked his companion upside the head.

  “Ow,” the tall one said.

  “Dude, shut the fuck up like yesterday please!” the little guy growled.

  “Well this is actually great because we’re burgling this pce too,” I said, prancing forward in my heels.

  “Wait, seriously?” the little guy said, finally jumping inside and nding in his companion’s arms. Aw, how cute, he was getting bridal-carried.

  “Yeah. What are you guys here to steal? We’re after bckmail material.”

  “We’re art thieves,” the tall one said.

  “Hmm, I see. Wanna know where the good stuff is, then?”

  “What’s the catch?” the little guy said, still in his companion’s arms. Looked like he was used to being in those. Good for these two.

  “Help us pick a few locks,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.

  “You never saw us?” the tall one said.

  “And you never saw us either,” Kyle said, grinning maniacally.

  My mother’s office was the st door on the left, her bedroom the right. The burgrs worked in tandem, taking them out one at a time. I told them about the massive library on the second floor at the end of the hall which was just brimming with fine art, and they eagerly darted downstairs to get their thieving on.

  “Rose, isn’t that immoral, helping them steal those priceless works of art?” Kyle asked.

  “No, they’re all forgeries,” I smirked once they were out of earshot.

  “Wait, for serious?”

  “Very much for serious, yes,” I said, nodding steeply and rapidly. “Mallory doesn’t care about art- it’s a status symbol to her. Why pay the full price when she can get a convincing forgery for half the price?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Kyle groaned.

  “My birth mother is a terrible person, Kyle, I don’t know what else to say.”

  “How’d you turn out so well?” Kyle grinned.

  “I had Ruth. And Juniper. And Cris, in his own way. And Violetta and Carlos. And you,” I shrugged. “Those two will probably figure out the art is bogus before they try to fence it. It’s almost a shame, though.”

  “Why’s that, Briar?”

  “They kinda remind me of us,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? Which one-”

  “The little one, in the window,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Vibes, mostly. Give it a few years, she’ll turn out beautifully.”

  “I’ll put money on that,” Kyle rubbed his hands together. “We should probably get to work, though. Should we split up, cover more ground?”

  I gave him the thumbs up. “Definitely. Text me if you find anything or hear anyone coming. I’ll take the office, you take the bedroom.”

  “Hell yeah. Let’s do this. Your te mom looked like you, yeah?”

  “I’m her spitting image,” I said. “Or I was. I guess I’m… I’m what she could have been.”

  “Then we’re doing this for her as much as we are for Sarah,” Kyle said sagely. “Let’s do this.”

  “Let’s.”

  And with that, we were off.