Chapter 27
THE FAN WILL NOW SPRAY THE SHIT
Margot
Much like I can’t say no to my sister, I can’t say no to my half brothers either.
And that’s why Rhys and I are hanging out at Laney and Theo’s house with far more people than there were at Sabrina and Grey’s house last weekend.
We’re here because my brothers badgered me to come.
I want one last night of fun with them before I drop a few surprises on them tomorrow.
“Is this everyone who’s ever lived in Snaggletooth Creek?” I ask Lucky over the noise of the rest of the crowd gathered inside, out of the rain that blew in just after we got here.
The good news? With this many people, it’s easier to duck Jonas, whom I spotted with Emma and their kids not long ago.
The bad news? I’m not a huge fan of being in crowded spaces with people I don’t know and limited escape routes.
Even here in Snaggletooth Creek, where everyone I’ve met so far has been kind and has no reason to make me uncomfortable or put me in a precarious situation.
“Only about half,” Lucky replies with a grin.
“This would get shut down by a fire marshal,” Rhys says.
He’s at my side, not even playing that we’re not hooking up. His hand’s gripping mine, and he has his body angled so that he’s half shielding me from the room, and so that he can see both of the entrances to the living room where we’re standing near the front door.
Lucky laughs. “Security-minded to the end. Don’t worry. We know everyone here.”
“Is Decker’s neighbor here?” I ask.
Lucky cringes. “Hope not. That’d get awkward.”
The party isn’t limited to adults, and based on the number and ages of the kids, I’m guessing daycare and preschool friends are among those here.
Most of the kids have disappeared into a large playroom off the kitchen, and I heard a rumor that Laney and Theo rounded up their seven cats—yes, seven cats—and took them to a different house rather than risking the cats freaking out at this many people.
“Was Theo’s speech everything we all imagined it would be?” Jack asks as he joins us.
“It was inspiring,” Rhys replies.
Jack and Lucky both snicker. “He…rose to the challenge?”
“Knock it off,” Sabrina says as she slides into the group with us. “Laney showed me the video. It was really sweet, actually.”
“I didn’t realize she was recording it,” I say.
“She asked the operations manager to do it.”
“Oh.”
“Cynthia got Laney in the video some too. It was adorable to see her get teary-eyed over him talking about his former profession. If you’d told me in high school that they’d settle down together after Theo gave up his job as an adult entertainer for her… Just no way. I never would’ve believed it.”
“She’s not posting that video, is she?” Rhys asks, taking the words right out of the frozen part my brain that’s having an instinctive fear response to the idea of a video like that going viral.
I was standing right next to Laney.
I might be in that video too.
Someone could recognize me, and then my father would see it, and then—
Stop thinking, Margot. Everything’s fine.
“Nope. Friends and family only.” Sabrina gives my brothers a cheeky grin. “Clearly, favorite friends and family only. You must not be it. Have you seen Zen? They’re not a big fan of crowds like this.”
“Saw them leaving,” Decker says as he rounds out the family group. “Said they’d call later.”
“Hey, Grandpa’s here,” Lucky says. “Catch you later. Margie—ah, yeah. Have fun with Rhys.”
Decker snakes through the crowd with Lucky on their way to talk to a tall older gentleman who’s just inside the kitchen with his arm tucked around a shorter older woman.
“You any good at darts?” Jack asks me.
I shake my head. “One talent I don’t possess.”
“Excellent. Lucky and Decker always kick my ass. Be nice to win for a change.”
He grins, and I laugh at his honesty. “Great. Lead on. I can’t wait to lose.”
He leads me and Rhys downstairs to a walk-out basement where he waves at his dad, who’s playing pool with someone I don’t recognize.
“Your parents are here?” I murmur as he hands me a set of darts.
“Yeah. Sabrina’s mom and Theo and Emma’s dad too.”
“Big party. They all know about what was at the retreat center this week?”
Jack snickers. “No. They think we’re celebrating a random anniversary related to Theo not getting detention for something when we were kids.”
“Seriously?”
“He set a new standard for troublemaking. Decker and Lucky and I have bets on how much heartburn his kids give him before they’re eighteen. My money’s on the oldest. You never suspect the oldest.”
“Are you the oldest?” I haven’t asked that yet.
“Middle.”
The way that makes so much sense…
“Now, here’s how you throw a dart,” he says to me as he turns to demonstrate.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rhys says. “He wants you to lose. And it’s about that Monopoly game last weekend, not about who beats him in darts.”
Now that cracks me up.
And even I can tell Jack’s completely lying as he explains the best way to hold a dart. He’s emulating throwing it with the pointy side aimed away from the board.
We get three games in, with me performing better than expected, before I realize just how crowded it’s getting here in the basement too.
I reach for my phone—I know Rhys has me, but when there are this many people, I like to know Cyril’s nearby too.
But my phone isn’t in my pocket.
I pause.
“You okay?” Rhys murmurs.
My own security training kicks in, and I blurt an answer I know he’ll understand. “I was going to take a picture, but I don’t have my phone.”
Jack glances at me. “You lost your phone?”
I pat my pockets, front and back, and a sliver of panic starts to work its way into my chest.
When did I have it last?
Surely someone couldn’t have taken it out of my pocket without me noticing.
And even if I hadn’t felt it, Rhys has been watching.
“Where’ve you been?” Jack whips out his own phone. “We’ll look for it. Case? Color? Homescreen?”
“No case. It’s black. Black home screen. White clock. I was upstairs and then down here.”
He squints at me. “You know you have a boring phone?”
“Did you bring it inside?” Rhys asks me.
“I thought so.”
He’s wearing a straight face, but I can feel him tensing. “Let’s go check the truck.”
“I told Decker and Lucky to look for it too,” Jack says. “We’ll find it.”
We split up, and Rhys and I head outside.
“I was having such a nice time, I wasn’t paying attention,” I whisper to him.
He squeezes my hand. “Good.”
His truck is many cars back on the long driveway up to the house, and we’re completely alone by the time we reach it. He swings open his door, then quirks a look at me.
“Is that good or bad?” I’m holding my breath.
If I lost my phone and the wrong person sees the wrong person calling me—
It’s one thing to tell my brothers who I really am tomorrow.
It’s entirely different for a potential enemy to have that knowledge first.
“It’s good.” He reaches in, and when he turns back around, he has my phone in his hand.
“Oh my god, thank fuck,” I breathe.
I reach for it, but his entire demeanor has shifted, and he’s suddenly shoving me behind him, between the truck and the world, his back to me.
And just as quickly, he relaxes. “Evening, Mrs. Sullivan,” he says.
I peek out from behind him and give her a small finger wave, but the look on her face makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
A shiver slinks down my skin.
She doesn’t answer Rhys.
Instead, she keeps staring at me. “What are you doing here?”
I make myself smile. “Looking for my phone. I lost it.”
In the dim light from inside the truck and the garden lamps lining the drive, she’s barely illuminated, but it’s enough to see that she’s bouncing on her toes and that her hands are curled into fists.
Her whole body vibrates with an uneven energy that I don’t like, but the shine in her eyes and the wobble in her lips has me putting a slow down, this is okay hand to Rhys’s back as she speaks again. “You need to leave.”
“Mrs. Sullivan—” I start.
“I have protected them for years,” she whispers. “Do not hurt them.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She knows.
She knows.
But she’s not angry.
She’s scared.
“I know,” I whisper back, trying to keep a wobble out of my voice at the instant understanding of the lengths she’d go to in order to protect her sons.
The lengths my father wouldn’t go to in order to protect me or Daphne.
But the bigger problem—this is happening.
It’s happening, and it’s happening now.
I hold my hands at my side, nonthreatening, as I fully scoot out from behind Rhys. “You’ve done an amazing job. I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Then go.”
“It’s not that simple—” I start, but movement behind her catches my eye, and I freeze.
Laney’s here too.
Mrs. Sullivan didn’t come alone.
“It’s true,” Laney says as we lock eyes. “You’re not Margie Johnson. I thought it was weird that you looked like you last week, but that you couldn’t possibly be—but you are. Aren’t you?”
I swallow.
Laney’s parents grew their fortune on their own. They’re what my father would scoff at as new money even as he admires their business model.
She wouldn’t have had the same kind of childhood I did.
The same kind of training I did.
The same kind of expectations I did.
But she has every bit of the poise and confidence and outrage I’d have if I were in her shoes right now.
And she’s pissed.
Pissed in ways I never understood until Daphne was disinherited.
“There are reasons—” I start.
She snorts softly. “There always are, aren’t there?”
“Mar—Margie’s not hurting anyone,” Rhys says to the other two women.
I grip his shirt tighter. “I simply wanted to get to know them.”
“By lying about who you are,” Laney says.
“Do you understand how much damage you’ve already done?” Mrs. Sullivan’s voice cracks, and she swipes at her eyes. “They were never supposed to know.”