Chapter 300: [4.118] Appendix C: Do Not Make Me Regret This
Around ten o’clock that night, after Iris had retreated to her room with Gerald and her sketchbook, I sat on the couch surrounded by Vivienne’s documents and realized something uncomfortable.
I had no idea what I was going to say to Camille Valentine.
Not the broad strokes. Those were obvious enough. Stand my ground, don’t flinch, don’t let her smell weakness. Basic survival tactics I’d learned from years of bartending for Manhattan’s wealthy and entitled. Rich people operated on the same principles as territorial animals. Show fear and they go for the throat. Meet their eyes and sometimes they decide you’re not worth the effort.
But Camille Valentine wasn’t some drunk finance bro trying to impress his date at the Velvet Room. She ran a multinational empire with the same warmth and compassion of a glacier calving into the Arctic. Vivienne’s notes described a woman who viewed conversations as chess matches and human relationships as transactions with negotiable terms. The kind of person who could smile while dismantling your entire life, then ask if you wanted cream with your coffee.
I read through Vivienne’s psychological profile for the third time.
Subject defaults to authority-based pressure when initial rapport fails. Responds to emotional vulnerability with suspicion. Interprets kindness as manipulation. Respects competence but resents being challenged by those she considers subordinate. Primary motivator: control. Secondary motivator: legacy preservation. Tertiary motivator (unconfirmed, personal observation): fear of losing relevance to her own children.
Vivienne had written that last part in smaller font, as though she was ashamed of the observation. Or afraid of it.
My phone rang. Not a text. An actual call.
Felix Beaumont’s name filled the screen.
"Talk to me."
"Angelo. My man. My guy. My favorite disaster in human form." Felix’s voice carried the particular energy of someone who’d consumed too much sugar and not enough sleep. "I have been sitting on this for four hours because Harlow told me not to call you, but I physically cannot contain myself any longer and if I don’t tell someone I’m going to rupture something internal."
"Felix."
"The Valentine sisters all want to date you."
I closed my eyes. "Who told you."
"Nobody told me! I have EYES, Isaiah. I’ve had eyes for four years and they’ve been pointing at you this entire time. You showed up to the festival with four matching girls in matching costumes who all looked at you like you were the last slice of pizza on earth and they hadn’t eaten in six days." He paused for breath, which was generous of him. "Also Harlow told me."
"Of course she did."
"She swore me to secrecy on pain of death and also on pain of losing my waffle privileges, which are apparently a real thing that exists in the Valentine household. I respect the threat. Waffles are sacred." Felix inhaled. "But Isaiah. ISAIAH. How. How did you. Four. FOUR of them. The same face four times and they all want YOU."
"Felix, I’m trying to prepare for a meeting that will probably determine whether I continue to have a functioning life, so if you could save the interrogation for literally any other moment in human history, that would be great."
"A meeting with who?"
"Their mother."
The line went dead silent. In four years of friendship, I had never heard Felix Beaumont produce silence voluntarily. The boy communicated through noise the way fish communicated through water. It was his natural medium.
"Felix?"
"I’m processing. Give me a second." A pause. "Camille Valentine. THE Camille Valentine. The woman who made a Fortune 500 CEO cry during a shareholder meeting. The woman who fired her own cousin on Christmas Eve. THAT Camille Valentine."
"That’s the one."
"And you’re going to sit across from this woman and tell her that you’re dating her four identical daughters simultaneously."
"I’m going to sit across from her and tell her that her daughters chose to date me. There’s a difference."
"Is there? Is there really a difference when the woman across the table could buy your entire neighborhood and convert it into a parking garage?" Felix made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper. "You’re either the bravest person I’ve ever met or the stupidest person who has ever lived, and I genuinely cannot determine which."
"Both, probably."
"Yeah." He laughed for real this time, the warm sound of someone who actually cared about me and was terrified on my behalf. "Yeah, probably both. Listen, if you need backup, I know people. My father has lawyers. Good ones. The kind that eat other lawyers for breakfast and use their bones as toothpicks."
"I appreciate that."
"I’m serious, Angelo. You’re my best friend. You’ve been my best friend since freshman year when you let me copy your physics homework and then yelled at me for copying it wrong. If that woman tries to hurt you, I will personally drive my Range Rover through her office window."
"Please don’t."
"I’ll think about it. No promises." A beat. "Also, can I ask a question?"
"You’re going to regardless."
"Four girls. Same face. Different personalities. How do you, you know." He lowered his voice as though someone might be listening. "How do you keep track? Like, logistically?"
"Goodnight, Felix."
"It’s a valid question!"
"Goodnight."
I hung up before he could protest further and dropped the phone onto the couch cushion. The apartment had gone quiet again, just the distant murmur of Mrs. Delgado’s television through the walls and the occasional creak of pipes that our landlord swore were perfectly normal and not at all a sign of imminent plumbing failure.
I picked up Vivienne’s folder again. Flipped past the psychological profiles and negotiation strategies to the final section, labeled simply APPENDIX C: PERSONAL NOTES.
The handwriting here was different from the typed text of the main document. Smaller. Less controlled. Written by hand rather than composed on a keyboard.
Isaiah. I know you will read this last because you always read documents back-to-front, which is infuriating but also useful because it means you reach the important parts while you still have the energy to absorb them.
I have two things to say that do not belong in any professional briefing. First: my mother loved my father. Genuinely, completely, in a way that I believe surprised her as much as anyone.
When he died, the person who loved him died too, and what remained was the version you will meet on Thursday. She is not evil. She is terrified. Terrified of losing us the way she lost him.
Terrified of feeling anything again. This does not excuse her behavior. It does explain it.
Second: I trust you. I do not say this lightly or often. In fact I can count on one hand the number of people I have trusted in the past two years and two of them are dead. But I trust you with my sisters. I trust you with our secrets. I trust you with the parts of us that nobody else has ever been allowed to see. Do not make me regret it.
V.
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