Chapter Twelve
I t was the usual Saturday crowd at Pendulum.
Pain coiled tight like barbed wire inside my chest with no way to ease it.
No way back to the time before this.
The club loomed like a dangerous secret, its halls stretched too long and the music too loud. The scent of waxed wood filled the air, along with something else, something carnal.As I moved through the rooms, they seemed to shift—each door a new passage to somewhere darker, an activity within that reflected the men who played hard.
This time, I had the sense of being watched by other members, and then came the unfamiliar feeling that eyes were watching me from the paintings. I knew this was paranoia.
Agony burrowed deeper inside me.
I’d never be able to shake the horrifying image from three days ago, Amelia floating in the pool, her pale skin glowing under the glistening sunlight, while the blue tendrils of her hair drifted around her.
Dead.
Jewel had done what she’d threatened to do. Now she was taking me down with Amelia, only this was a different kind of drowning.
Neither of us were getting out alive. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Amelia was a good swimmer, so I knew they’d drowned her—in my own fucking pool. In the only sacred place I had memories of her.
A precious childhood memory I clung to—the beautiful woman with bright red lips, shiny blonde hair, and a smile that makes everything feel happy and exciting. She liked to swim, too, in that same pool, and then she would read one of her novels. Sometimes, I’d sit beside her with a book she’d bought for me.
Jewel had untethered that recollection and stained it.
Who would believe a man who had already acted unhinged? I could see doubt in Atticus’ eyes, the need in Cameron to explore my psyche, chip away until he uncovered the truth, and prove to himself that I wasn’t a murderer.
Even though I’d reassured them that I had rescued Amelia from Pendulum, sent her away in a taxi, told her to get to safety, to get out of the state and put as much distance between us as possible.
But the night before her death, I had witnessed her in a scene with three men. That, right there, gave me a motive—the jealous lover.
Jewel’s method of plunging me over the edge was monstrously crafted. This was also her way of seducing me back, even as my friends had advised me never to return to Pendulum.
My eyes searched the rooms for her. If it was to be me who ended this, a man willing to throw away his freedom, so be it.
Everyone had sacrificed a part of themselves. It was my turn to do the right thing. Jake had removed Stella from a scene, turning heads and making enemies. Atticus had tracked Roper across the world and seen his reign end, and now, I was here to do what everyone had failed to achieve.
After I’d placed my own personal touch on Pendulum, I was the one who deserved to bow out of this life.
Not her, not Amelia. Not like that.
Being back here, I was wracked with memories of my time with her. Doubt and denial left a taste of bitterness in my throat for having failed the woman I had sworn to protect.
Amelia was lying dead in a cold deserted mortuary.
And I was to blame.
I was her guardian, meant to shield her from danger.
My friends, with their well-meaning words and their futile attempts at reason, couldn’t understand why I still cared about her. They spoke of Amelia as though she were no longer the girl I had once known, but a woman consumed by greed and sin.
Now, she was lost to me.
Yesterday, in Cameron’s office, both he and Atticus had offered their theories on what had gone down in my backyard, ranging from Amelia taking her own life to more sinister scenarios.
Either way, the guilt ate me alive, tearing me apart, cutting into me like a thousand blades, slicing into my psyche.
I should have escorted Amelia home from here that night. Personally packed up her apartment and ensured she left the city, not taking my eyes off her until she was on that plane and flying out of California toward her home state.
Instead, I’d placed her in a cab and sent her back to her lonely apartment, letting my feelings get in the way of dealing with a woman who was clearly troubled. Because she had so easily bent to Jewel’s persuasion.
I’d witnessed Jewel’s elaborate ceremonies. Her obscene acts of what she labeled as pleasure. Her house of cards would come crashing down by my hand.
This I knew for sure.
Amelia had seen too much. Perhaps that was why they’d murdered her. I needed answers, needed to know why Jewel had gone out of her way to kill her. I couldn’t bear the thought that Jewel had done this to Amelia as revenge against me.
Within minutes, I entered the lounge.
Jewel barely looked up at me. Even as I stood here, in the middle of the room, seething in quiet rage, my hands clenched into tight fists, formed in the silence of my thoughts, as though my body understood what had to be done.
I had always prided myself on my control, but control, like everything else, had its breaking point. She would come to know in the seconds that followed, that nothing goes unpunished, even she had appeared unstoppable.
She sat there, the Queen of Pendulum, cloaked in cigar smoke and the rich scent of cologne and leather, surrounded by men in tuxedos who carried their reverence for her like a burden.
She was the only woman in the room, but she ruled them. Her power crackled in the air, making them twitch, their expressions showing admiration and fear.
Her heavy perfume reached me as it mixed with their liquors, a hellish intoxication. The men shifted uneasily, their faces betraying the truth they couldn’t hide—they recognized something in her they couldn’t control.
Up until now, she had held the reins—and we were all at her mercy.
Time to finish this.
“Why?” I seethed, needing to know, suspecting the question of why she’d murdered Amelia would go unanswered.
I had a thousand questions. Why kill her? Why in my pool?
Why now?
Me spiraling, this gradual eroding of self, me losing all sense of reality, was Jewel’s latest achievement in a long line of cruelty.
She’d wanted this, wanted me to turn up here, knowing I would take revenge, knowing these men would witness me out of control, and therefore steal our chance of owning Pendulum.
She smiled and it looked ugly on her.
“Do they know you’re Pendulum’s grand architect?” she said, enjoying this.
I shrugged.
“That surprises me,” she said. “You looked so concerned when I offered to share that secret. You preemptively confessed it to them?”
“Everyone out,” I yelled.
Gradually, the men got to their feet and made their way to the exits.
Time to die.
She peered over my shoulder at someone and laughed, and it sounded sinister, and arrogant, and tethered in power.
Firm hands gripped my shoulders, pulling me backwards.
I caught a glimpse of a tuxedo and then heard the familiar growl of Atticus as he forcefully ushered me out. I fought him, twisting to break his hold. With every ounce of his weight pressed against me, his body trembled with exertion, eyes wild as he gritted his teeth in defiance.
“She’s not worth it,” he said, hisvoice cracking under the strain, as if holding me back was his final act of resistance against my fate.
I fought against him, trying to get back into that room, but another set of hands gripped me, and I couldn’t push them off.
“Listen to me,” snapped Atticus, his voice deep and steady, the kind of voice that wrapped me in compassion. “Now is notthetime.”
“I have to—”
Atticus refused to let go of me. “You deserve to survive this place.”
“She murdered Amelia!” Glancing left, I looked into the eyes of Jake Carrington, his ironfisted grip causing me pain.
“If you touch her, Greyson,” he whispered, “she’ll win. Do you want that?”
“She already has,” I yelled.
“If you harm her, she’ll get everything—not just Pendulum, but your fucking soul.” Atticus led me farther down the hallway. “We won’t let that happen.”
“Get off,” I snapped, jaw tense with anger.
I’d been so close, I could taste her death, envision her bulging eyes as I squeezed all the life from her.
“Take a breath,” said Jake, helping Atticus pull me along the hallway, putting more distance between me and Hadley.
Soon, we were outside the front door and scurrying down the stairs. They probably wanted me out of the sight of security.
Atticus led us toward his car. “Jewel’s hired Cameron’s sister at Pulse360.”
“I know,” I said. “Cameron won’t let her go back.”
“Willa went back,” said Atticus.
Stunned, I tried to read the truth in their faces as to how Cameron had been unable to prevent that from happening.
My heart sank for Willa, for her safety, and our reluctance to share the truth.
“You don’t think me ending Jewel would keep Willa safe?” My voice was as sharp as a razor’s edge as I moved unwillingly with them toward the waiting car.
“Get in,” snapped Atticus.
I looked back toward Pendulum. “I was in the room with her,” I said in frustration. “I was right there.”
“Please, Greyson,” pleaded Jake.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t get in the car, couldn’t ruin this chance.
They blocked me from going back, as though both assumed I’d bolt at any second. Having Jake, a retired quarterback, take me down would be an experience.
They knew me as a man of order, comfortable in the precision of unflawed designs. Aworld I understood, a world where everything had its place, and no amount of deceit could be included without it becoming a glaring spectacle.
But I’d become the spectacle now.
Atticus had the passenger door open. “Sit with him in the back,” he told Jake.
In a daze, I climbed inside the car.
This wasn’t me.
I was drifting toward darkness, where reason had no voice, and the allure of revenge was impossible to resist.
In my sordid imagination, I had murdered Jewel Hadley, and been okay with it, which made me the monster now.
Jewel is coming for Willa. And if anything happens to me, she’ll be left completely vulnerable.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” I said.