Chapter 20
TWENTY
JESSICA
Rain taps against the cafe window.
Somehow, Ava invited herself to our weekly coffee date and now she’s over by the counter, ordering a latte with all the extras.
Rain narrows her gaze. “I still don’t trust her.”
I hide my smile in my hot chocolate. “Why? Because she’s from the Heights?”
“Well, yeah. Do you know what your problem is? You’re too trusting.”
I choke on my coffee, and Summer hands me a piece of tissue. “Don’t you think we should give people the benefit of the doubt?” I ask, wiping up the spill.
Rain stares at me like I’ve lost the plot. “Is Kane’s cock screwing with your head? Does it come with side effects? A warning label for cognitive impairment?”
Ava pays for her latte, then stuffs enough bills into Mrs. Flores tip box to make the elderly woman’s eyes bug out.
“See,” Rain says, keeping her voice down as Ava picks up her tray and heads our way, “She even manipulates Flores.”
It’s hard not to smile when Rain is protective of her loved ones. Everything and everyone becomes a suspect.
I discard the soggy tissue, then rest my elbows on the table. “Maybe she actually cares?”
“About what? No, I’m telling you that this is like season five of Teen Wolf. She’s Theo.”
“She’s Theo?”
“Yes! He was lying to everyone and pretending to be their friend. Don’t you see that she’s luring you into a false sense of security?” She straightens up, lowering her voice. “Here she comes. Act natural.”
Seconds later, Ava sets her tray down, and Rain gives me a long look that says, Don’t trust her.
Done with her drama, I pick up the soggy tissue and toss it at her, which she bats away easily.
“The silver car is still around,” Ava says, sitting down beside Rain, who looks about as approachable as a threatened bee.
Gaining Rain’s trust isn’t something you do overnight. She’s loyal once she gets to know you, but her walls are tall and impenetrable to most.
Unfazed, Ava unfolds a napkin and places it on her lap like a scene from Bridgerton or another Victorian TV show.
“Sweetie,” Rain says, crinkling her nose, “What are you doing?”
Ava looks up. “Protecting my skirt. It’s Ralph Lauren.”
Rain gives me another one of her expressive looks, then flips her long hair over her shoulder. “You’re in the Falls now, honey. Shit like that doesn’t fly here. Do you want to get robbed?”
Ava’s uncertain gaze flicks to me. “No?”
“What about a slushie? Do you want one of those thrown at you?”
“They do that here?”
“Throw slushies? No.”
“No?”
“Of course not. We’re not animals. You’d get shot before you get a slushie thrown at you.”
At a loss for words, Ava opens and shuts her mouth.
“No more of this,” Rain says as she removes the napkin and sets it aside on the table.
“What about my skirt?” Ava asks.
“Do you want my advice or not?”
They keep bickering back and forth. Summer laughs quietly, and we share a smile. Ava has no idea what she’s gotten herself into with Rain.
I finish the last of my hot chocolate, but my thoughts drift elsewhere as I look out the window at the silver car, wondering how much longer this can go on. It’s been weeks.
Part of me wants to grab my bag and confront them. I wonder how they would react if I knocked on the driver’s window and asked if they were lost. Would they come up with some bad excuse? Or would they own up to it?
Sighing, I push the coffee aside. I promised Kane I’d stay out of their way. He said he’d handle it, but they’ve been following me for weeks.
Ava notices my change in mood as she stirs her coffee. “Do they leave you alone at all?”
I told them all about my tail the other night at the burger joint. It was a great ice breaker between Rain and Ava.
I shake my head. “Not as far as I can tell. Kane has to sneak past them.”
“Can’t he talk to his dad?” Rain asks.
Ava shakes her head. “You don’t know the twins’ father. Mr. Ravencourt is a dangerous man. You don’t want to get on his bad side.”
“What else do you know about him?” I ask curiously.
“Not much, except that he has a reputation.”
“What kind of reputation?”
“Not the good kind,” she answers, visibly uncomfortable. “All the founding fathers are feared men. Trust me when I say they smell blood in the water from a mile away.”
“So what do we do?”
“You stay off their radar for as long as you can.”
“She can’t stay off it forever,” Rain says.
“No, she can’t. Mr. Ravencourt will find out eventually, if he hasn’t already.”
“Then what?” Summer asks.
“It’s hard to say. It depends on Kane and what potential dirt he can dig up. He needs all the ammo he can get.”
“Why do you care so much?” Rain questions, and I shoot her a warning look which she ignores.
After dabbing at her mouth with a tissue, Ava avoids looking any of us in the eyes as she says, “Kane is a good guy, and he deserves to be happy.”
“See, that right there, I don’t believe. What’s in it for you?”
“Rain,” I sigh, exhausted, “let it go.”
She gazes at me with her expressive eyes, then finally relents, sitting back and crossing her arms.
“I know this is difficult to understand, but all my life, I’ve been an object for my father to use. Think of it like an asset in a video game where I’m the bargaining chip he pulls out when he needs to leverage his advantage on the board. It’s not often we feel seen in our world.”
Rain’s skeptical expression softens.
“Kane made me feel seen.” Ava’s trembling voice breaks on the last word. “And before you jump to conclusions, I’m not talking about sex.”
“It’s okay,” I say, but she shakes her head and blinks rapidly to stave off tears.
“He’s always sacrificing his own happiness for everyone else. Did you know he wasn’t going to contact you because he knew you were safer without him?” she asks me.
My own eyes threaten to tear up. I did know that, because Kane and I have discussed it late at night when I’m in his arms.
“He was crumbling inside,” she continues, “but it didn’t matter as long as the people he loves and cares about are safe. I was there. I saw him break down—”
She stops herself as if she’s revealed too much. Then she raises her chin and says, “He saw me. The real me. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t see him now?”
I glance at Rain, who drops her head back in defeat. “Fine,” she says with a small shrug, then tips her chin toward the window. “But what do we do about them?”
“Thank you for taking me.”
Once we finished our coffees and demolished our cookies, Ava offered to drive me to Kane’s place. She smuggled me out the back door, and I waited by the trash cans while she fetched her car. The men in the silver car were none the wiser as we made our escape.
“No problem,” she says now, glancing at me in the backseat. “What’s wrong? You seem nervous?”
I didn’t realize I had pulled my sleeves over my hands.
To stop my knee from jiggling, I drop my head against the headrest. “I’ve never done this,” I admit.
Ava’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Never done what?”
“You know…” I gesture with my hand. “Never showed up unannounced at his place to surprise him.”
She smiles. “This is a good surprise, I promise.”
“Is it though? What if he gets upset? What about his dad? What if he’s home?”
“He’s in New York on business.”
“What if he gets home early?”
“He won’t. My father is there too. In fact, all the important senior members of the Society are. They won’t be home for days, not as long as there are drugs and high-end escorts.”
My eyes bug out and Ava laughs at my horrified expression. The gold bracelets on her wrist jingle as she turns down the radio. “It’s what they do.”
“Excuse me?”
“The business parties. It’s how the Society traps people. Most of them are married men in positions of power.”
“So they give them access to drugs and escorts?”
“Amongst other depraved things. Then they sit back and watch them hang themselves with their own noose.”
“Blackmail material.”
“Once you’re in, there’s no way out. You’re trapped for life. And that’s what Maverick is looking into.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kane’s father and what secret he wants to keep buried.”
We cross the bridge to the Heights, and my nerves spike.
I wring my hands in my lap. What if Kane doesn’t want me to show up unannounced? This past week, he’s been showing up at my place late at night. I haven’t questioned it.
My thoughts come to a grinding halt when Ava says, “But not just any secrets. It needs to be something that endangers his place within the Society or something with high personal stakes.”
“Like what?”
“It’s hard to say. Something with wider consequences.”
I would ask more questions, but we pull up outside Kane’s looming estate. “Duck down,” Ava instructs as we arrive outside the large gates that creak open. “You don’t want to be caught on the CCTV.”
She instructs me to hide under the blanket next to me in the back seat, then shifts the car into drive as the gates creak open with a tired squeak, like something out of a horror movie.
“We’re in,” she says, a little too chirpy.
Meanwhile, I’m about to panic because it’s hard to breathe under here. And not to mention, I feel ridiculous. “You could have just dropped me off outside. I would have found my way in.”
The night I met Kane, it was easy to sneak inside. The gates were open, and the guards were busy checking the drivers and passengers as they rolled through in a never-ending line of expensive sports cars.
All we had to do was stay close to the tree line where the shadows were thickest and wait for the perfect moment to slip inside. Summer trembled with nerves, but I was excited.
But now there are no shadows to hide in and I can’t use the cover of night to get past those gates. The only way in is to be smuggled past the guards. But my plan isn’t foolproof.
“What about the cameras around the property and inside the house?” I ask.
Ava pulls down the blanket once we’re past the gates. “Don’t worry. Kane will take care of those later.