Chapter 31 London
London
Icover the last of the dough and set it in the giant commercial refrigerator at work, dusting my hands off and silently congratulating myself for not fucking anything up today.
The mistakes have become fewer and farther between in the time I've been employed, but every time they happen, I worry it'll be the one to end my career here.
After I wash my hands, I check my phone, skimming my missed text messages, none of which are from Archer.
The guy I went on a date with yesterday called and left me a voicemail to let me know he had a good time and wants to do it again, but I delete it, not being able to ignore the fact that despite him being a perfect gentleman, something was off.
I thought the date would have spewed some kind of reaction from Archer, all the other times doing exactly that, but this time he didn't show up, didn't reach out, didn't do anything.
Maybe he's finally started to respect my wishes, something that I should be okay with, and yet I'm not.
I slide my phone into my back pocket and approach the office in the back of the bakery, peeking my head around the corner. "Hey, you need help with anything else?"
Andrea looks up from her stack of papers, her hair a mess, her mouth hanging open. She blinks at me a few times. "Actually, yeah."
I come a little closer. "What's up?"
"I forgot to tell you, but we got a call this morning for a baking gig.
Is there any way you can do the consultation?
I'm up to my neck in paperwork from the health department that just came in, and I can't peel away.
" Andrea turns her wrist to check her watch.
"If you leave now, you should be able to make it there in time.
I'll order you an Uber. Please, I'm begging you. "
"You want me to do the consult?"
"Don't act so surprised, London. You know all the cake variations we make, the quantities of cookies and brownies and muffins.
You've taken orders over the phone without having to check the notes.
You're ready for this, really." Andrea adds, "Plus, I'm desperate, so what better time than now to throw you to the wolves?” She winks at me, and I fight the urge to panic.
When I got this job, I had quite literally zero formal experience, both with baking and working in general.
I've tried hard to prove to myself, and everyone here, that I belonged, but I guess it only hit me just now that maybe all the faking has gotten me somewhere.
If Andrea trusts me to pull this off, I must trust myself, too.
"Okay," I tell her. "I'll do it."
Andrea lets out a sigh of relief. "Thank God, I thought I was going to have to beg.
" She pulls out her phone. "Let me order you an Uber now.
" She pushes a few buttons and drops her phone onto her desk.
"It should be here in three minutes. Look for a black Kia, license plate starting with SKP. Seriously. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." I grip the doorframe and say, "Let me know if you need anything else," before leaving her office and making my way to the front of the store, navigating past coworkers and customers.
Once I'm outside, I stand on the sidewalk, watching the cars pass and keeping my eyes peeled for mine.
It arrives just as she said, pulling up in front of the bakery behind a white Range Rover. The driver rolls down their window. "Andrea?"
"Yeah, that's me," I say, sliding into the back seat. "Or, well, I'm not Andrea, my boss is. She ordered it."
"Totally understandable," the woman tells me and pushes a button on her dash to turn some music on.
I thank the universe that I don't have to make awkward small talk with her and settle into the seat, bracing myself for the consultation I'm about to go through.
Andrea is right, I do know all the cake variations, along with icings that travel well and don't, and every single small item we offer.
I've been on the opposite end of a sales transaction plenty of times, what's so different about being the person doing the pitch for a change?
Plus, if they were calling to request Andrea's baked goods, they've no doubt tasted something of hers before, and that alone should be enough to convince them to order anything from our bakery.
Glancing out the window, I attempt to locate where we are, this side of town farther than anywhere else I've been since I've arrived in New York.
My heart picks up its pace as my safety net disappears, Archer somewhere in the distance, no longer watching me intensely like he had been doing.
I suddenly regret asking him for space, but the second I pull out my phone to text him, we stop in front of a beautiful historical house on a large plot of land, with trees and overgrown shrubs all around it.
"Here we are," my driver says, putting the car into park. "Have a good day."
"You, too," I tell her and step out, closing the door behind me.
She leaves, turning down an alley and disappearing out of sight. The street is empty of passing cars, not a single soul in sight. I take a steadying breath and turn toward the house, marching right up the sidewalk and knocking on the door.
"Come on in," a woman's voice calls out. "It's unlocked."
I grip the handle, glad it was a woman who answered instead of a man, my nerves already settling.
But once I'm inside, that peculiar feeling hits me again.
I reach for my phone, thinking that if I just let Archer know where I am and what I'm doing, he'll do whatever it is he does and keep an eye on me.
Only, I don't get that chance, because instead of making contact with my phone, a hand grabs onto my wrist and snatches it from me, their other hand pressing a rag over my mouth and nose.
Fucking chloroform.
I try to withstand the way it makes my vision blur but the man holding it against my face is too strong, too much in control.
I reel up my leg and kick him in the shin, causing him to falter and loosen his grip.
With his hand exposed, I bite down hard, the skin of his finger breaking under my wrath.
"You bitch," he blurts out. "You fucking bit me." The man hits me with the back of his hand, knocking me onto the floor.
I scoot away from him, desperate to regain my footing, but I can barely make anything out, my vision still fucked up from the shit he was making me inhale.
See, that's the thing that movies always get wrong.
Sure, it can make you pass out, but depending on how much is inhaled, that's not always the immediate effect.
Trust me on this, I grew up with a fucking lunatic of a father.
He kicks me in the stomach, sending me onto my back, my lungs gasping for air.
Tears well in my eyes and I can't help but wonder how much damage he re-inflicted that I had healed from following my time with said father.
Just when I thought I was fully on the mend, another dickhead man hurts me.
I cough and hold my side as he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me a few feet into the house.
Is this the way I die—at the hands of some guy I have never met in my life?
"Tie her to the chair, you imbecile," a familiar voice orders him.
The man complies with her, dragging me onto the wooden surface and securing my arms to the rungs.
He backs away and sets my phone on the table by the door, his form disappearing and the woman stepping into my line of sight a blur.
I blink, trying to clear my vision, unsure of what I'm seeing, almost like she's a ghost materializing in front of me.
She traces my face with the gun in her hand, tilting my head up toward her. "London," she says with a grin.
I stare at her, those big brown eyes, that mud-colored hair. The last time I saw her, she was bleeding out on the floor in my father's study. She was pleading for her life. She was dead.
"Madison," I respond, uncertain whether I've finally had a psychotic break or not. There's no way she's standing in front of me alive and well. "I watched you die."
"You saw what I wanted you to see," she tells me, smacking my cheek with the barrel of the gun. "Funny, you did the same thing, didn't you, London girl?"
My nostrils flare and before I know it, I'm leaning back and spitting in her face. "How fucking dare you."
Madison pinches her eyes shut and wipes at her face. "That was uncalled for."
"You're supposed to be dead."
"So are you." She taps the toe of her stiletto against the wood floor.
At least it isn't covered in plastic, then I'd be really concerned.
But what Madison has in store for me today isn't to kill me, it's to send a message, I'm just not sure what it is yet.
If she intended on killing me, the room would be covered in plastic, making for an easy cleanup.
No one wants to scrub blood out of a wood floor, never quite getting it all out of the nooks and crannies.
I hate that I know this but find comfort in it all the same.
"I think you owe me an explanation." I fight the haze in my eyes and focus on her, confirming that she really is real.
"I don't owe you shit." Madison pauses and adds, "But I'd say a thank-you is in order. I guess we were both liberated when you killed your dad."
"I didn't kill him," I tell her.
"You were complicit and to me, that's all the same."
"This is a fucked-up way of saying thank you." I tug at the ties around my forearms and they dig into my flesh.
"How did you do it?" Madison asks me. "I heard there was a fire."
"What do you want, Madison? What's the real reason you brought me here?" I don't mention that I'm sure it has something to do with Archer, because why else would she have some weird fucking vendetta against me?