Chapter 60
Evie
The Re-Creation
“I never thought I’d see the day when your name appeared on my screen again, Sebastian Shaw.
” Heather, a woman I hardly recognized now from all the work she’d had done, sat across from us at the restaurant.
Sadness and a bit of pity flooded me as I stared at the botched work.
I was never one to shame someone for trying to feel more comfortable in their own body, but whoever had done her lips and facelift had done a bad job. It all looked... painful.
“Yes, well.” Sebastian cleared his throat and shifted his weight from side to side. “Me neither, but my girlfriend is in need of an agent.”
“I see.” Heather’s eyes flicked to me with disinterest. “Who are you?”
Reluctantly, I put my hand out. She stared at it, and I slid it back under the table.
“This is Evie Reyes, Lita Reyes’s daughter. You’ve met before.” Sebastian’s annoyance was clear in his tone, but he quickly reined it in.
Heather scrunched her nose and motioned for the waitress to return to the table. She ordered a martini and then turned back to us.
“Sorry, I don’t remember you. You need an agent?” She sighed, clearly bored.
My stomach tightened with nerves, and I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. My previous agent passed away.”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” she snapped. “You look older than me.”
My eyebrows shot up as I pressed my lips together. She couldn’t be serious.
“Anyway,” Sebastian interjected. “I thought we could have dinner and talk. Maybe work something out.”
“Yes, well, you and I were always able to do that, weren’t we?” She looked at me and winked, and my mood faltered. What was she winking for? Was she implying that she and Sebastian had been... lovers? No. I could believe a lot of things, but that was not one of them.
Sebastian ordered for us all, per Heather’s request. She spent the evening flirting with him, blatantly ignoring me, and repeatedly asking if they should take another, more private meeting to discuss his career, not mine.
If I didn’t know his plans for her future, I’d be jealous as hell, which was new for me.
After our meal, Sebastian paid the bill and offered to escort Heather to her car.
“Actually, I took a ride here. Did you two take separate cars? Maybe I could get a ride from you, Sebastian,” she purred, leaning on his shoulder.
She’d had far more to drink than what was professional.
I’d had one beer to her five martinis. She was sloppy drunk, which I thought served well for this moment.
“Sure. Let’s get you in the car.” Sebastian led her to his vehicle and helped her inside.
I took the back, albeit a bit begrudgingly.
“Oh, sweetie,” she slurred as I crawled into the back seat. “It would never work out. You’re not pretty enough to act. You need to lose all those tattoos, get bigger lips, a new nose, less of a tan.” She snickered.
My eyes widened as I took in her disgusting comments.
Excuse me?
Less of a tan?
“I’m Mexican. This isn’t a tan—it’s my skin color,” I snapped, unable to keep it to myself.
She hiccupped. “I’ve been in this industry a long time. I just speak the truth.”
“Right. Well, let’s talk about how true that is when you wake up.” Sebastian plopped into the driver’s seat and pulled out a syringe.
“Wha—”
He plunged it into her neck, injecting a tranquilizer into her blood. Heather went limp. He tossed the syringe into his glove compartment then started the car. “Groovy.”
“Where did you get that?” I asked. He’d told me he was going to sedate her, but he hadn’t said how.
“I was in a movie with horses and made friends with the wrangler. He was a drug dealer on the low and used to give us all ketamine as a ‘sample.’ I never sampled, so this has been in my cabinet for a while.”
I stared out into the dark, surprised again by another secret in this dark town. “What now?” I asked as he pulled onto the highway.
“It’s not a movie, but you’ve seen Dexter, right?”
HEATHER ROUSED TO life a few hours later, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
She flinched at the harsh light over her head.
“What the—” She tried to move and quickly realized that she’d been restrained with plastic wrap. “Sebastian?” she whimpered.
I stood in the corner as Sebastian stepped out of his, looking like the titular TV character.
My heart pumped wildly, admiring how good he looked in the tight olive thermal and cargo pants. He walked to her, plucking the apron off a hook and making sure she watched him put it on.
My stomach hitched with anticipation. While I had looked away when he’d torn apart Glenn’s body, I planned to watch this.
“What are you doing? Why am I here?” She fought the restraints, but it was useless. Sebastian and I had used a metric fuckton of the plastic. Even the Hulk couldn’t get out of it.
“See those?” He pointed his black leather–gloved hands at the wall.
She turned her head as much as she could and squinted, trying to see the images.
He really was having his Dexter moment—and as much as it scared me, I wanted this for him.
After what he’d told me on the way to the restaurant, he deserved it.
Heather was an asshole.
“Those are the people you pushed me to sleep with. Do you remember any of them?”
Heather’s wide eyes turned to slits in an instant, and she stopped fidgeting. She narrowed her eyes, and her blown-out lips attempted to sneer.
“Pushed you?” She laughed. “Hardly. I seem to remember you being more than eager to get on your knees for a bigger role. I may have suggested it, but you didn’t hesitate.”
“What were my choices, Heather? If I didn’t do what you sent me to do, not only did I not get the job, but I knew these men’s secrets and could’ve been blacklisted. I had little choice.”
“Did you get off?”
Silence filled the room. Sebastian’s eyes flicked to me, and I pushed myself deeper into the corner.
I’d told him over and over in the car that none of it mattered.
Erections and orgasms were just biological responses.
They were not an indicator of consent. Putting his hand in his back pocket, he pulled out one of my knives, revealing it to Heather.
She paled.
“You lied. Tonight, at dinner. I know you remember Evie. Tell the truth.”
She scoffed. “Is that what all this is about? Because I was a bitch to your boring girlfriend over drinks?”
“You broke us up,” he accused.
“What?” She squinted, as if trying to recall, and then her eyes widened again as her lips formed an O.
“Wes. You deleted the voice message Evie sent me and crafted a reply with someone else so that I’d never know.”
Heather was silent, albeit squirmy. “So?”
My attention flicked to Sebastian. His eyes had gone wide, and his mouth had fallen open in shock at her aloofness.
“So? So?” Sebastian turned and kicked a wall. “So? That’s all you have to say for yourself? You made me a whore.”
“Oh, come off it, Sebastian!” she yelled back at him. She swung her head toward me, then back to him. “Is this all because of her? Are you ashamed suddenly? She’s not fit for Hollywood if she can’t handle the truth about how everyone wheels and deals.”
“Fuck you,” I blurted, stepping out from the edge of the room. “I don’t care what he’s done. I care that you hurt him.”
“Honey, I didn’t hurt him,” she groaned, refusing to look at me. “He wanted every last bit of it. He hired me to make him famous. I did just that, and then he fired me. Sorry to break it to you, but your boyfriend isn’t telling you the truth.”
“No, you’re the only one lying.” I pulled out the other knife and grabbed her hand, pricking it. A small drop of blood dripped from her finger, and she yelped as if I’d full-on stabbed her.
“You’re psycho. Both of you. Is this some sort of reality show? I’ve seen Dexter. I know what this is. I’m not signing a waiver for this to air.”
“This isn’t TV, Heather,” Sebastian said, striding confidently to the photos. “This is reality. How often did you go through my phone?”
“Fuck this,” she muttered.
I pricked her again, and she let out a scream for help.
“It’s pointless. We’re in your garage. No one’s coming for you,” Sebastian snorted.
“Like you could really kill someone.” She snickered. “You’re just a scared little boy playing pretend, Sebastian,” she taunted him.
“I’ve killed five men now, actually. Starting with your buddy Michael Thornton.”
“Thornton?” she asked, her smile falling.
He ripped a photo from the wall and brought it to her face.
“Michael Thornton, producer? Remember him? I killed him, if you didn’t know.
He was going to force me to suck his old cock in exchange for green-lighting Simon Says Six: Six Six, and I was done.
I killed him and didn’t bat an eye. He was my first, and since then, we’ve been picking away at his friends.
And now, you’re going to be dead soon too.
But before we do this, answer me. How often did you go through my cell phone? ”
“Is this a threat?”
Sebastian lifted the knife and pushed the tip into her chest, right between her surgically altered mix-matched breasts.
“Yes, Heather, it is. Answer.”
“All the time,” she rushed. “It was my job to keep your career safe and growing. You’d be nothing without me.”
A slow grin spread over her botched lips. “When you heard that voicemail, Evie, how long did you cry? I hope it was a long time. I gave Wes a great script.”
“You bitch,” I snapped, raising the knife. Rage flooded my veins. How could she say she cared for Sebastian and then admit to doing all these awful things? I understood now why Sebastian was helping me on my quest for revenge. In this moment, I needed him to have his.
“Evie!” Sebastian yelled, stopping me from finishing this.
I swung it down to my side and hung my head.
“See, I did the right thing.” Heather smiled. “Even now, he’s choosing me. Sorry, sweetie, but men like him will always choose money over sex. I was doing you both a favor. Without me, you’d be nothing, Sebastian. You shouldn’t be trying to kill me. You should be thanking me.”
“Thank you, Heather,” Sebastian snarled and, without hesitation, lifted his arm and slammed the knife into her chest, missing the plastic wrap. She gasped as blood splattered the room. It hit my face, and I winced in surprise.
Heather’s throat gurgled as blood flooded her mouth and poured from her puffy lips.
Sebastian removed the knife, and blood flowed from the wound, covering her orange skin and the table underneath with deep red.
The plastic wrap holding her down grew slack as her body went limp.
I trailed my gaze down her body, noting the occasional muscle twitch, ending with her curled fingers.
And then finally, as we watched Heather’s soul leave her body, I watched the tension leave Sebastian’s.
It was as if he’d taken a large breath for the first time in years.
He fell against the wall and sighed, and then a slow, dry laugh came from his chest.
“How do you feel?” I asked, twisting my hands.
“Fucking glorious.”
I couldn’t wait for that feeling.
“What next?” I asked.
He smirked and kicked off the wall, going to the other side of the room to pick up the chainsaw. “You said you watched the show. Stay back if you don’t want to be sprayed.”