Chapter 15 #3
“I don’t want to go back out there. All those fucking people.” She took another steadying breath. “I saw their faces. Maddie will always be the innocent little girl to them, and I’m the big bad bitch who tried to ruin her life. I hate her. Hate them.”
I tilted her head up. “Then help me take them down.”
“Why should I?” she asked, her eyes searching mine. “Who’s to say you won’t turn around and stab me in the back when I’m done? Or keep piling on more debt any time I piss you off, so I’m stuck beneath your thumb forever?”
I heaved a sigh. Time to do what it took to make this right. “Fine. It’ll stay at three million flat, like we agreed, even if you constantly piss me off.”
“Again, why should I believe you? You already told me I’d be an idiot for trusting your false promises.”
“I know. But that was because I thought you were just like them.”
“I am just like them,” she said. “You’ve made that pretty goddamn clear.”
“Then why are you paying Runa’s bills?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I can find out with a few phone calls, but I’d rather hear it from you now and save myself the time and money.”
“Like you’ll believe me,” she said, her tone laced with acid.
I eyed her for a moment. “There’s no record. So, what’d you do, Sunshine? Settle it in a private civil suit?”
She clenched her jaw and looked away, confirming my suspicions.
“You did, didn’t you? You admitted guilt.” I frowned. “Why? You’d already been cleared in the criminal case.”
She tried to yank her wrists from my grip, but I kept them pinned to the door.
“Why?” I repeated.
“Because Runa couldn’t pay,” she said, voice low, eyes looking everywhere but at me.
“And you could.”
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded.
“Do you really hate these people as much as you claim?” I asked, wanting to see her answer from up close, where she couldn’t hide.
“Most of them, yes. With every fiber of my being. Why do you think I spent so much of my life numbing myself with drugs and alcohol and acting so stupid and reckless? I was lashing out. Being a self-obsessed, rebellious child because it was either that or cut myself off completely from this world.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I worried it meant I’d lose my family, too.”
I stared into her eyes, looking for lies, but I saw none. Only fear, anger, regret.
“Why do you hate them so much?” she asked.
I forced a smile, rubbing my thumb over her lower lip, marveling at the way the color stayed perfectly in place. Had she learned her lesson from our first two encounters and switched to something that wouldn’t smear if we kissed again? Did that mean she wanted me to kiss her again?
I shook my head, clearing those thoughts.
“Let’s just say I pay attention to what goes on in this city, and I don’t appreciate that there are rules for me but not for thee.
There’s no way Bradley Bluhm is the only monster hiding in these circles, and if our justice system won’t deal with them, then someone else should. ”
“And that someone is you?”
“I don’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate.”
Her gaze swept over my face, sharp, observant. I kept my expression carefully neutral, because it was clear we were approaching a critical moment, one in which Stella finally made up her mind about what she wanted: Help me take these people down, or stay on my bad side.
“Come on,” I crooned. “You know you want to ruin them.”
“I do,” she admitted. “But only financially. I don’t want to be complicit in people being harmed in any other way.”
“I’ll only hurt them if they make me,” I said, repeating the line I’d already said to her.
She rolled her eyes, the soft overhead light catching the golden flecks in her irises. People who claimed brown eyes were boring had never seen them close enough to realize their true beauty.
“What are you doing?” she said, her voice low and raspy.
I stopped, my lips an inch from hers. What the fuck was I doing?
Losing my goddamn mind, apparently.
I forced a grin. “Trying to seduce you into going along with my plans. Is it working?”
She tore free from my grip. “Oh my god, you are so obnoxious! I don’t even know why I told you any of that.”
By the time I spun around, she was halfway across the room. “It’s because you care deeply about my personal opinion of you.”
She grabbed a small globe off a bookshelf and threw it at me.
I managed to block it before it connected with my crotch. “Fuck! Truce, okay? We want the same thing. You out of debt, and these assholes in it. We just need to find a way to work together without killing each other. Should be easy enough.”
“Easy enough?” she parroted. “That’s what I tried to do earlier, and how did you react?
” She puffed her chest, arms flexed out wide.
Her voice dropped an entire octave in mockery of me.
“I’m talking scorched earth, Stella. Nuke you from the orbit, curse your entire bloodline, replace all the flooring in your apartment with Legos. ”
Goddamn it, she was not funny. “Can you blame me for not trusting you?”
“Yes!”
We eyed each other, clearly at an impasse. I’d done most of the damage tonight, and I had the most to lose if she failed to uphold her end of the deal, so it was on me to fix this. To get over my shit and do what I’d set out to do: work with her, even though I couldn’t stand her.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll try to be less of an asshole.”
She paced to the windows and threw open the curtains, staring into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for the flying pigs.”
“Stella,” I ground out.
She turned, smirking, and I realized it was the first time she’d come close to smiling in my presence. The sight was . . . fine. It was fine. That’s all.
“Oh, no,” she said, tone mocking. “What’s wrong? You don’t like it when someone is mean to you? Does it hurt your feelings? Make you angry?”
“No. It makes me hard,” I snapped.
That shut her up.
“Are you in or not?” I asked. “This will go a lot faster if we’re on the same team.”
Which means you’ll be rid of me sooner, I didn’t have to add.
She eyed me across the room. “I’m in. But you’re going to have to follow my lead tonight,” she said. “None of the stodgy old assholes here will take an invitation, at least not without immediately outing you and calling the cops. They’re too stuck up.”
I released an aggravated sigh. “Then what the fuck are we doing here? You said there would be plenty of targets.”
“Their children and grandchildren are who we’re after,” Stella said.
“They’re the ones who are bored and depressed and looking for the kind of thrill you can provide.
But first we have to get through dinner.
Then we can follow the younger crowd to the afterparty, somewhere else in the house or on the grounds. That’s where the real fun will begin.”