Chapter 4 #2
My mouth waters with the memory of her taste, her hips fucking my mouth out back at the Portland Classic Car Circuit. I’ll miss that. There were so many things I wanted to do together.
I need to get Scarlett as quickly as I can. Before the wedding. This weekend, at the racetrack.
My breath catches.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll wipe the fucking floor with her on the track first—and then I’ll kill her sister and burn her house down.
An eerie calm settles over me like a fog.
This is what I was made for: betrayal in an all-black suit.
Police Chief Bolin shows up a few minutes later, EMS in tow.
Chet and Jonas don’t come in person. Instead, they’ve sent Trish Edelman and Denis Rattray in their stead, publicist and deputy mayor respectively.
Ernest is the one to pass me a phone while Cody is put on a stretcher and wheeled out the door.
“If you ever hang up on me again, I will tie up that housekeeper you’re so fond of and see how many dicks she can take before she begs me to kill her.” Jonas is absolutely vicious when he delivers his threat, a striking viper. “Show me the reporter.”
“She’s a journalist,” I reply, and the air cracks with icicles, sharp and violent.
I toss the phone to Ernest as he gapes at me and babbles something to Jonas that I ignore.
Fighting through the haze of my despair is easier when I remember how startled Jonas was to find the rotted corpse of Lucy Hall in his bed.
Aspen the Frog accompanies me, despite the odd looks I receive. He, too, is my calm center.
I lead Ernest, Trish, and Denis up the stairs, opening the door to my bedroom to reveal the squirming blond in my bed. She’s thrashing now, manacles clanking as her eyes go wide at the sight of three new faces in the doorway. Ernest uses the phone to broadcast her to Jonas.
I dig the bloody wedding invitation from my pocket and lift it up to block the camera. Jonas leans in, studying the gilded words with a sigh.
“Well, this certainly complicates things. Are you sure you didn’t already know about this? Seeing as you were at a Thanksgiving dinner with the missing Borisov heir.” Jonas drips poison as he speaks, disgusted with me.
“There can’t be a wedding if there’s no bride.” I tap, tap, tap the flat of the sword blade against my shoulder, setting the vivarium aside as Aspen the Frog croaks.
You are cordially invited.
“If that bitch isn’t dead before the wedding, then you will be.
” My father’s eyes are black glass pools to nothing.
Before my mother died, he was marginally more pleasant.
Less tyrannical. It’s taken me years to finally realize it’s because he was torturing her instead of me.
I’ve been a naive fool my entire life, protecting my inner Ash when only Aspen could ever survive Jonas’ tyranny.
“Oh, I guarantee it,” I reply with an insouciant flick of my fingers.
Jonas peers at me, dissecting me through the screen. He doesn’t trust me anymore. Fine.
I’ll just have to prove myself.
You are cordially invited. You are cordially invited. Invited. Invited.
“I’m leaving for DC tonight. Take care of it before I get back.” The words or else are implied. He doesn’t need to threaten me again. My father only ever makes a statement like that once. Scarlett or me, dead before the wedding, guaranteed.
Jonas ends the call and Ernest tucks the phone away. His piggy eyes shine greedily as he takes in Emma’s pointless struggling, licking his lips with a swinish tongue. The wet sound of it irks me. Twitch. Twitch. My fingers spasm, wishing I could wrap them around his throat.
“I’ll have a quick go then,” Ernest says, unbuttoning his pants as Trish scoffs and retreats into the hall, taking Denis with her to discuss strategy. No big deal that the police chief wants to rape a kidnapped woman. Business as usual.
I swing the sword around, putting the tip of it against Ernest’s throat. He swallows nervously, his angry gaze lifting to my face.
“I hate sloppy seconds.” My voice is unhinged, dripping with threat. Aspen never liked to fuck after other men. He always believed he should go first, that it was his divine right. Ruined toys are less fun than shiny new ones. “Get out before I decide to do to you what the Borisovs did to Cody.”
Ernest fixes his pants, regarding me with wary distrust. He knows what I did with Lucy’s corpse, too. Didn’t faze Jonas, but I think it freaked Ernest out. He’s the one that had to dispose of the waterlogged rot. He hasn’t looked at me the same since.
“Call me when you’re finished. I’d like a turn while she’s still alive.
” Ernest takes off, wearing his uniform, boots loud as he storms off in frustration.
He’s always hated that Aspen was higher than him on the dominance hierarchy.
I heel the door shut and put my back against it, turning the tip of the sword in a circle on the wood floor, carving a small divot.
My eyes are on the journalist as she screams behind her gag, fresh tears streaming.
I would hate to be Emma Jean right now.
My lips twitch into a disturbed smile.
Aspen or Ash, it doesn’t matter. The expression remains the same.