Chapter 34
BIANCA
I escorted Alissa to Harrison’s car while he and Dinah fireman-carried Maddox. I offered to help, but they have all the medical training and know how to handle him in his fragile condition, so I let them do it.
Harrison found them two vacant rooms in the ICU.
Alissa was able to keep Dinah’s applesauce down.
Maddox still hasn’t regained consciousness, so he’s hooked up to an IV.
Harrison said he’ll get him a nasogastric feeding tube when he’s ready.
Then, when he’s conscious and strong enough, Harrison and Dinah will reintroduce him to solid foods to see what he can handle.
They’ll need physical therapy too, since they’ve lost a lot of muscle tissue.
Harrison is getting Alissa settled, and I’m in Maddox’s room tucking him in when his eyes flutter open and his heartbeat monitor goes haywire.
I grab his hand, give it a light squeeze. “It’s all right, Maddox. Everything’s okay.”
He squints slightly upon seeing me. “Bianca?”
I can’t help a smile. “Maddox. Yes. It’s me. You’re okay. We got you out of the hotel.”
He blinks a few times. “Alissa?”
“Yes, we got her, too. She’s fine. We’re getting you both back into fighting shape.”
“Tell her…I love her…”
My heart warms. That’s so sweet.
“I will, Maddox. But you need to rest now.”
He swallows. “But… Rouge…”
“You don’t have to worry about her,” I say, praying to the heavens above that I’m not lying. “She doesn’t know you’re here. Harrison and I are going to figure out how to make her pay for what she’s done to you.”
“May… Svetlana…”
I tilt my head. “What?”
“In the office… Safe… Journal…” His heartbeat monitor starts accelerating again.
I squeeze his hand. “Maddox, please. Take a deep breath and calm down.”
“River of tears… Writing raven…” His eyes roll back in his head and he loses consciousness again.
His heartbeat, thankfully, returns to normal levels.
Harrison rushes in. “Is he okay? I heard the monitor go haywire.”
I nod. “He woke up for a minute. I told him he was safe, that we had everything under control, and then he got very agitated when he tried to tell me something.”
Harrison widens his eyes. “What was it?”
I frown. “It sounded like nonsense to me. He might have just been delirious. He’s been through so much.”
He frowns, crosses his arms. “Yeah, well, we found the two of them because of a shampoo bottle, so I’ll take any hint we can get.”
I shrug. “Fair enough. He mentioned Rouge’s office. A safe? And then he said something about a river of tears and a writing raven.”
“A what?”
“Yeah. Like I said, he was out of it.”
“Alissa is still awake. Maybe she can help us make sense of what’s going on. Let’s go ask her.”
We walk over to Alissa’s room, where she’s lying down being fed more applesauce by Dinah. She’s gotten a little color back in her face and is a little more alert, but she has a long way to go before she’ll be back to herself again.
I cross over to her bed and offer a smile. “Alissa, you’ll be happy to know that Maddox woke up for a few minutes.”
Her eyes are sunken, with big dark circles under them, but still they seem to brighten just a little. “Really?”
“Yeah. He wanted you to know that he loves you.”
Her lip trembles. “Next time he wakes up, tell him I love him too.”
“You can tell him yourself. We’ll move you two into a shared room once you’re both a little more stable,” Harrison says. “But listen. He said something that sounded like gibberish to us.”
Alissa swallows, wincing. “What was it?”
I sit on the edge of her bed. “Something about a river of tears, and a writing raven.”
She widens her eyes. “Yes. The riddle.”
“The riddle?” Dinah asks.
She nods. “When Maddox’s father died, he left him a riddle to solve. Follow the writing raven through the river of tears.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dinah asks.
“It’s a hint. We think it’s a means of taking down Rouge.
We figured out what the river of tears meant.
Maddox’s car, his Rolls Royce—it was a gift from his father when he died.
We found out that, when it’s raining, the raindrops create a trail down the window that lead to a hidden pocket in the car door.
In it was a key that opened the safe in Rouge’s office. ”
“What?” I ask. “How did you get into Rouge’s office?”
Before Alissa answers, Harrison’s mouth drops open.
“Oh my God. The fight with Pia. You started it as a distraction.”
“I did. Though the little bitch had it coming.”
“So Maddox got into the office and opened the safe?” I ask.
“Yes. Inside was a brooch that one of the waitstaff had been given as a gift before she left Aces. And there were countless red diamonds. Billions of dollars’ worth of them. And…beneath the diamonds was a manifest.”
“A manifest?” Harrison asks.
“Yes. A list of all the former waitstaff at Aces. We think Rouge has been doing something terrible with them. What, we’re not sure. But she had May—the Seven of Spades—killed and beheaded. We found her head buried in that nature preserve out by O’Hare.”
My chest caves and expands at the same time. Air won’t fit. A cold slick crawls down my spine. My mouth goes dry. Nausea claws up my throat, and I swallow hard because I can’t do anything else.
Did I really just hear what I think I heard?
Color drains from Harrison's face, and Dinah looks like she's about to lose her last meal.
“We think she did the same thing to Svetlana, the Nine of Diamonds,” Alissa continues.
“Oh, my God.” I swallow again. “I can’t wrap my head around this. My sister can be evil, but…”
“Maybe that’s what happened to the waitstaff at Rouge’s other clubs,” Harrison finally says.
Alissa squints. “Her other clubs?”
“Rouge doesn’t just own Aces Underground,” Harrison explains.
“She has a bunch of other clubs throughout the city. Clubs that aren’t as exclusive but are still as lavishly decorated and attended by the city elites.
I must have dropped a couple grand in cover fees for the two of us to tour them all last night. ”
“But people have been mysteriously disappearing all over the city,” I add. “And they’re all connected to one of Rouge’s clubs.”
“My God.” Alissa swallows. “Perhaps this rabbit hole goes deeper than I ever could have imagined.”
“It seems to be swallowing people up,” I say. “But I swear to you, Alissa. Harrison and I will finish the work you started. We will get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing we do.” I pause a moment. “That riddle you mentioned. You said you figured out half of it?”
“The river of tears, yes. But we’re not sure what the writing raven is supposed to be.”
“We’ll take it from here, Alissa.” I pat her hand, my own hand shaking from what I now know my sister is capable of. “You focus on getting your strength back.”
“One more thing,” Alissa says. “Chet. Don’t trust him. We thought he was on our side, but he’s loyal only to Rouge.”
“He’s a creep anyway,” Harrison says. “He wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of allies.”
“Even so, be careful.”
“We will be,” I say. “Dinah, you’ll keep an eye on them, won’t you?”
“Absolutely. I’ll get them admitted, too.”
“Great.” I turn to Harrison. “Because you and I have to go back to the club that started all of this.”