Chapter 29 #2
He nods, then goes back to his phone, swiping through a few screens. Then he stills, thumb hovering over the display.
“What is it?” I step closer to look at his screen, but I can’t decipher what I’m seeing.
He studies it another second before his jaw clenches.
“The system’s pretty sophisticated. It keeps logs of every access and every view.”
“Okay…” A cold feeling settles low in my stomach.
“The Sugar Room footage,” he says with a grimace. “From the looks of it, they watched it in real time.”
Dread pools in my stomach. “Castle.”
“That’d be my guess. Could that have something to do with why he sent her in there with Frog? Like did anything happen in there that could’ve set him off or something?”
I rack my brain, scratching the back of my head. “No? Fuck. I don’t know.” My head hangs and I groan. “Jesus. This sucks.”
After a second, I groan again just to get at least some of the powder keg of frustration out before I blow, then I point to the phone.
“Okay. Moving on for now. Can you delete the video from tonight at least?”
“On it.” He gets back on his phone and taps, then curses. “The Smoke & Mirrors Room wasn’t just viewed. It was downloaded.”
I whirl on him. “What?”
His jaw is hard, and he looks almost as furious as I feel.
“It was accessed remotely. I don’t know who got it, but I can make one pretty educated guess.”
Castle.
I tug my hair. “But why?”
“I have no idea. The man’s a mystery to me, always thinking twelve steps ahead.
” X pockets the phone and shakes his head.
“He says life is a game of chess, but half the time it feels like he already knows how the match ends before the rest of us even sit down at the board. The only thing I know for sure is that he always has a plan.”
My thoughts go right back to Lucy. How is she part of his plan? Was she in on it somehow?
Her closing the vents in the Sugar Room means she knew what Smoke does. Did she know what would happen before she walked into that room tonight? Did she agree to go in?
Or was she forced?
The questions keep piling up faster than I can answer them, so I shove aside the ones I can’t and focus on the ones X might actually know.
“I thought you couldn’t get high off it secondhand anyway.”
“At low doses, you can’t.” X sucks his teeth. “But that room?” He shakes his head. “That’s a whole ’nother level. OTC ain’t got nothing on that concentration.”
He eyes me. “How the fuck were you okay, by the way? You never did answer me.”
It all clicks into place.
“My allergy meds.” I shrug. “I’ve doubled up on them since I got here. I’m on so much shit right now I could take a pollen bath in a cat-fur coat and walk away feeling clean and cozy.”
The way Lucy hates drugs, she must have wanted to resist. She didn’t want to go in there with Frog, but for some reason she felt that she had to.
Once I figure out why Castle forced her hand and why, everyone involved is dead.
The thought makes me shudder with anger.
“You cold?” X asks.
“No, just pissed.”
The bakery is freezing, and I’m only wearing my vest, but the fury in my chest is its own inferno. .
With X’s eyes roaming over me, though, there’s another familiar discomfort that itches under my skin.
“Go ahead.” I mutter.
When his brow furrows, I nod toward my burned arm.
Lucy’s still wearing my shirt even though Duchess brought her clothes from the dressing room, a sight that pleases me to no end.
But that means my scars and tattoos are on full display.
The only person that matters still hasn’t noticed them, and I have no idea how I’ll explain them when she does.
But apparently, I’m willing to practice with this nosy motherfucker.
“Ask.”
It’s a risk to be shirtless around this crew.
The amount of scarred skin I have is remarkable, something a place running off secrets might find value in knowing the backstory of.
My injuries are rare enough to doxx me if someone goes searching.
Very few people survive burns like mine, and a child surviving them because he was protected by his mother?
That shit was such media gold, not even Dash can bury that amount of press.
People love a good Hatfield and McCoy style feud, and for a while there, they were addicted to Wilde-Fury drama.
Every year, another true crime special would come out, rehashing generations of bloodshed and misery until Dash figured out how to superficially tank the ratings.
People go where the money flows, even when tragedy steers the boat. Sometimes especially in tragedy.
And if that didn’t work, I went and had little chats with directors and producers. A few choice words were all it took to ensure our motivations aligned.
But after a beat, X shakes his head.
“Ask about what? I don’t see anything that’s my business.” Relief eases the tension I didn’t realize had built in my muscles as his attention returns to our girls. “From where I’m standing, there’s only one person in this room that might deserve to know.”
Lucy glances my way, catching me staring, but she gives me a shy smile that literally makes me go weak at the knees.
Christ, I didn’t even know that romcom shit was real. But here I am, gripping the bakery counter for support.
The need to be near her, to touch her and hold her—it’s suddenly so overwhelming I push off the counter and—
A door slams at the top of the alcove upstairs, and my hand is on my knife before the sound finishes echoing across the black and white tile.
Heavy footsteps follow.
One second X and I are standing by the counter. The next, we’re in front of our women, a wall between them and the intruder.
The footsteps continue, an irregular cadence that raises the hair on the back of my neck. The second step follows softer. Then there’s a pause.
Thud. Step. Pause.
Thud. Step. Pause.
Over and over.
My pulse doesn’t ease until the edge of a flowing white nightgown appears in the stairs alcove.
The woman takes each step with exaggerated care, placing both feet on every stair before attempting the next. One foot is bare, pink toenails catching the warm light. The other still wears a slipper, though it’s hanging halfway off her heel.
X and I slowly lower our weapons as the rest of her eventually appears.
She’s older, with silver-streaked strawberry-blond hair woven into a thick braid that wraps around her head like a glittering crown. In the dim, golden light, her pale skin makes her look ethereal, like she stepped out of one of Lucy’s books. Or maybe a dream.
She looks fragile, thin and frail, and after a few more steps, my fingers ache to help her.
But determination lives in the line between her brows, and the tip of her tongue peeks between her lips as she concentrates.
When she finally reaches the bottom, she looks up and freezes. Her frosty blue eyes are so light, they’re almost white, and the surprise in her wide gaze smooths some of the fine lines branching from the corners.
Then she frowns.
“What are y’all doing in my living room?”
Huh?
I glance around, just to double check that I’m not dreaming, as her gaze drifts from X to me, then to Duchess.
Finally it lands on Lucy, and everything about her changes.
Her shoulders relax, and her face lights up so brightly it almost hurts to look at.
“Oh. Mary Ann.”
Tears well in her eyes, and she spreads her arms wide.
“You’ve finally come back home.”