Chapter Thirty-Five
Rocky
Phoebe says she needs to think on everything and hightails it back to the loft. I see the panicky look in my sister’s eyes.
“Go with her,” she pleads.
I’m not sure I’ll make things better. I’m still shell-shocked from my sister’s confession. I’ve known the depth of which Hailey and Phoebe love each other, but I never considered the lengths Hailey would go to protect Phoebe. I figured she knew that I would be there for her friend. That she could rely on me, instead.
You two don’t have a patent on protecting people. She was speaking to me, too.
“Why won’t you tell me what happened?” I ask Hailey. “I would’ve—”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t, Rocky.” She rubs her reddened nose, then picks up her sandy boots. “Please, just go.”
“You can’t just tell me about Carlsbad yourself?”
“She needs you.” Hailey nearly starts crying again. “Don’t leave her alone, please.”
I hate leaving either of them like this. “Call Nova or Oliver.”
She nods.
Right now, I don’t feel comforting. More like raw wire ready to slice open anything I touch. I want answers so badly that I could dig through hardened clay to reach them.
So maybe I need Phoebe more than she needs me in this moment. I unearth my heels from the sand and head to Phoebe’s loft, unlocking the door with my spare key.
Her bedroom door is ajar, and I push it further open.
She’s tucked in on her queen-sized bed, watching A Nightmare on Elm Street on the TV in the same jeans and sweater from the beach. She doesn’t acknowledge me.
I lean a shoulder against the doorway, eyes on the screen. “My sister was willing to quit her whole life, piss off our parents, and lie to us both.”
I turn to Phoebe.
She doesn’t take her gaze off the movie, but she hugs a white pillow to her chest, her jaw cementing in a struggle not to cry.
“And here I am thinking, what could have possibly happened to make her go to such lengths to protect you? What could have been so bad? You want to know what I’m thinking, Phoebe? Because in my head I’m painting real vivid pictures of that night.”
My pulse isn’t steady. I’m swallowing a mountain of emotion, and the only way not to burst at the seams is by concentrating on my breathing. On the fire that fills my lungs with every searing inhale, every anguished exhale.
Phoebe tosses her pillow aside and swings her legs off the bed. While she comes toward me, I shut the door. Trevor is on the couch in the living room, and I couldn’t see whether he was asleep or not.
As I walk deeper in her room, Phoebe meets me near the foot of the bed. She faces me with toughened eyes. But it’s a front. I see the pain simmering beneath. I can practically feel it tearing through me.
She asks, “You want the truth?”
“From you. Always.”
She takes a step closer, her chest rising and falling in heavy breaths. “The truth won’t solve anything. It’s going to hurt you, and the last thing I’ve ever wanted is to hurt you.”
Now I’m scared. I search her eyes for something more. “Did you kill someone?” I ask in a breathy whisper.
She shakes her head. “I wish I did.”
Jesus Christ.
I run a harsh hand through my hair, trying not to jump to any conclusions. “I need answers, Phoebe. I’m asking for them. I’m telling you to fucking hurt me. Because this... this is obliterating me.” I want to touch her. Hold her.
She swallows hard, her throat bobbing. “Rocky.” Her voice quakes.
I push closer, cupping her cheek in my hand. She hangs on to my wrists like we’re falling, and I breathe, “Hurt me.” I hear that movie playing in the background. “Do your worst, little nightmare.”
Her eyes flit to mine and they steel. “It was the Fiddle Game.” She tells me first what I know. The basics of the con.
Hailey played the role of a small-town girl living in California for the first time. Phoebe was her rich socialite friend who convinced her to fly out to the West Coast to pursue modeling. They both attended a party at a multimillion-dollar beach house with a hundred other guests.
Among them: Jeremy Leeds, CEO of Aquarius, one of the biggest fashion brands in the country. He was the mark.
“It started out fine,” Phoebe tells me, my palm on the nape of her neck. She’s clutching my forearm, and I wonder if she feels my pounding pulse like I feel hers. “I was just introducing Hailey, also known as Faye, to Jeremy and telling him that she’s new and getting her feet wet in the industry. Then she left for the bathroom, and she gave me her purse to hold on to. Her phone, wallet, everything inside.”
“That’s when I called.”
She nods.
I remember that phone call. It was the last contact I had with them until after the con. I haven’t wanted to replay the call in my head. I didn’t want to think I had any part of something going bad. But I have mulled it over. And now... for the hundredth time, I recollect it again.
Phoebe “drunkenly” answered her friend’s phone and put me on speaker.
“Faye?” I asked over the music. “Are you at a party? You do realize, you have a photo shoot with Dior tomorrow? This is a two-hundred-grand campaign on the fucking line. The agency is not going to be happy about this. Faye, are you there?”
Phoebe probably pretended to be stunned and then she hung up on me.
“I put on a show of complete remorse,” she says. “I told Jeremy that I shouldn’t have answered the call. That you must have been her agent. I kept telling Jeremy not to tell Faye. That I had no idea just how successful she’s been in California, and I didn’t want to fuck it up for her.”
I know how this con is supposed to work. Jeremy should have realized the fiddle (Hailey/Faye) was actually worth more than Phoebe knew. Add in the fact that Jeremy Leeds hates Dior, and he should’ve offered Faye more money than Dior to get her in his Aquarius campaign instead. But all of this relies on Jeremy being greedy enough to screw over another brand.
“It didn’t work?” I ask.
“He was already kind of drunk,” Phoebe says, staring straight ahead. Past me. Off in the distance in remembrance. I skim her, careful not to move. Her grip is tightening on my forearm.
“When Hailey returned,” Phoebe says gradually, quietly, “he told her that he found out what she was worth, and he’d be willing to double it and bring her into the Aquarius campaign in exchange for sex.”
My heart quickens, now seeing where this is going. Muscles tensed, I don’t make a sound. Don’t want to startle Phoebe into stopping the story altogether.
“Hailey was against it, of course,” Phoebe murmurs. “And I was the principal on this—so I tried my best to course correct. I told Jeremy that Hailey wasn’t that kind of girl, but if I could get a slice of the deal, I was willing to sleep with him as long as he agreed to wire the money beforehand.”
I don’t go numb.
I’m torched. Burning the fuck alive. I can barely breathe, barely move. Barely see anything other than red. I blink. Because I need to see. I need to see her.
Phoebe grits down on her teeth, and her eyes flash up to me. “How many times had I been in that situation before? And how many times had I talked my way out of it?”
Sickness churns in me. “Too many times,” I tell her, fury and torment making a home in my body. “But you should have never been in that position in the first place. You should have bailed—”
“I couldn’t!” she screams at me, battling tears. “I can count on my hands the number of times our moms gave Hailey and me two-person cons. If I failed once, it’d never happen again. And I’ve never failed before. On any con. I couldn’t imagine disappointing my mom in that way, and I thought... I believed in myself enough that I could get out of it.” She blinks back more emotion. “Would you have not believed in me?”
Pain infiltrates like a ten-inch gash. I struggle to keep my shit together. “I would have,” I tell her the truth. I would have let her go like I’ve always done. “But I wouldn’t have left you alone with him for long. You know I never would have left you—”
“It’s not her fault!” Phoebe screams, her voice threatening to crack. She catches my other forearm and brings both of my arms to my sides. Causing my hand to slip off her neck. And I don’t fight her. She doesn’t release her hold on me.
“I’m not blaming my sister. I’m not blaming you,” I say with an inferno in my lungs. It hurts—every single breath hurts.
“Hailey tried to get in the room,” Phoebe says with amassing tears. “She tried. Really hard.”
This is gutting me.
“But it was being blocked,” Phoebe explains. “They even took her phone.” I grind my jaw, breathing through my nose, and she takes a long beat, gazing over at a crumpled dress thrown across the ottoman at the foot of the bed. “I told her it was okay beforehand. I wanted it to be okay. And afterward, I tried telling her it was fine. The sex was all right, a little rough, but not the worst thing in the world. I thought I played it off cool, but obviously not if Hailey devised this whole thing...” She looks around the room, taking it all in.
She’s still holding on to me. Her nails are digging into my arms. I can hear my heavy pulse beating against my eardrums. I try to simmer my rage to be comforting, but how can razor wire embrace anything without slicing it open?
Her reddened eyes lift to mine.
“Give me the truth,” I tell her.
“About the sex?” Her voice isn’t small despite the tension splitting it.
“Yeah.” My muscles are flexed scalding bands, and my hands clench into fists. “How was the sex? Truthfully?” Never in my life have I wanted Phoebe to tell me how another man rocked her world. Lit her up in the most mind-blowing orgasm alive. But I’m hoping to hear it now. Anything other than what I think happened. How he hurt her. Abused her.
Her breath staggers, and then she swallows hard. “I was just... an object to him. A plaything. He was rough—and I mean, I like rough, but... his rough was...”
I run my tongue over my back molars, fighting a thousand emotions that boil inside of me.
“It was like he didn’t care if he split me in five pieces that night.” Her eyes meet mine again. “It wasn’t good, Rocky.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I say, coldness in my voice.
She sniffs hard. “You aren’t. Because I need you here and not in prison.”
My breathing deepens like each inhale is a struggle for oxygen. “That’s it?”
She nods, but I can tell there’s still more.
The pressure in my chest won’t relent. “Phoebe?” I lean my forehead down and press it against hers. “Phoebe, please.” I try to lift my hands to her cheeks, but she’s still imprisoning my arms at our sides.
“I can tell I’ve already hurt you,” she whispers, closing her eyes, and a tear tracks down her jaw.
“I said do your worst,” I tell her. “So fucking do it.”
“His friend came in and asked if he could pay for an hour. It didn’t feel like a question.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
She releases my arms like a dam rupturing, the worst wounded sound I’ve ever heard her make escapes her lips—and I clutch the back of her neck, drawing her against me. Her hands cling at the button-down under my jacket, fisting the fabric.
My other arm curves around the small of her back. I tuck her close to my chest like I can protect her from the past. You can’t.
I stare down at her, watching Phoebe slowly gather her breath. She tries to speak. “The saddest part...” She looks off. “Is I felt nothing. It was like my body wasn’t mine. And I kept thinking: Has it ever been mine? Have I ever felt like it belonged to me while anyone was touching me?” Her watery gaze meets mine. “And the answer was yes. The answer was you.”
My hand slides up to her cheek, our eyes crashing into each other. “I love you,” I tell her through a swollen throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
Tears slip down her cheek and over my hand. “That’s not your job.”
“It’s always been my job,” I breathe. “Loving you, though, that wasn’t a role I was given, Phoebe. Loving you has been the most authentic and natural thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I don’t protect you just because I’m told to. I protect you because I’m yours. You’ve had me since I was five.”
She’s crying in my arms.
And I’m done—I’m done giving a shit what they’ll do if they find out we’re together. I never thought I had a breaking point. I believed I was made to withstand everything under the sun. But I’ve found my limit—and I can’t do this another day. I just fucking can’t.
She lets out a shaky breath and fear hits her eyes. “Don’t pity me, Rocky.”
I hold her gaze. “I’ve never pitied you a day in my life.”
“Then why are you saying that now? After my sob story—”
“If you think I heard a fucking sob story, you’re mistaken,” I say strongly. “I heard a story about a girl that was raised to be manipulative, self-reliant, and brave. And when she was put in a position to save herself and someone she loved, she took it. It backfired. I heard a story about parents who manipulated this girl into thinking her worth came from a job and not from this...” I place my palm on her heart.
Her eyes search mine in wanting.
God, I want her. I’ve always, always wanted her.
The door suddenly opens, and I’m cursing myself for not locking the damn thing.
“Hey, Rocky—” Trevor freezes, and Phoebe spins her tear-streaked face away from him.
I’m still holding her against me. “Get the fuck out,” I tell my little brother, pointing at the doorway he stepped through.
“PG?” Trevor frowns, then looks to me in confusion. “Is she crying?”
“Close the fucking door, Trevor,” I tell him like he’s being obtuse, and my brother is many things, but he’s not an idiot.
He hesitates, a phone in the pit of his hand. He’s not in pajamas. Black slacks, snakeskin belt, black button-down with gray swirls and gold buttons—he dresses like an immortal vampire with thousands of years of accumulated wealth.
“I would,” he says, “but I have a problem. And I need your help, Rocky.”
Phoebe rubs her nose, and I can feel that she’s about to break away. So I ask him fast, “It can’t wait?”
“It’s Boyd Delacey. According to his socials, he’s in Connecticut. I think he followed me.”
Shit. I scrape a hand through my hair, and Phoebe inches away, quickly wiping her face. I crave to draw her back, but she speaks to me. “If Boyd tailed him here, he shouldn’t leave the loft.”
Trevor cracks his neck, tension building. “See, this is why I need someone’s help, so I’m not a hostage in this loft.” He turns to me. “You call him. Tell him he won a trip to Bermuda, Bahamas, Antigua—I don’t care. He has to collect it at a port in Miami.”
Phoebe asks, “You think he’ll fall for that? He was already big-time scammed. By you.”
Trevor glares. “Can you tell me something I don’t already know?”
“Phoebe’s right,” I interject. “It takes a certain kind of mark to fall for telephone sweepstakes scams. He’s going to hang up unless you open with something familiar and actually give him the trip.” I’ll have to pretend to be his distant relative. “You want to pay for Boyd’s vacation?”
“Away from me, yes.” Trevor nods. “So you’ll help?”
Do I want to leave Phoebe right now? Fuck no. But if Boyd is already in this state, he might be closer to Victoria than we know.
“Yeah, I’ll help. You have a gun on you? In case he finds you while we aren’t at the loft?”
Trevor reaches in his pocket and displays a switchblade. With the flick of his wrist, the double-edged blade opens from the hilt. “You know I don’t like carrying guns.”
“You should keep mine in the living room,” Phoebe says to me. “Just in case.”
“Where is it?” I ask her.
She points to the top left drawer of her dresser.
I’m closer and reach the thing. It’s in her panty drawer. Of course it is. I shift aside her lacy pink thong, her white panties, baby-blue panties, red mesh lingerie, and as I comb through more and more pastel-colored panties, a new type of heat gathers in my veins.
Frustrated on two counts, I turn my head back to her. “It’s not in here.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Her arms are crossed. “I forgot it’s in the drawer next to it.” She doesn’t hide the subtle lift of her lips, a smile peeking.
I nearly smile back. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Takes a liar to know a liar.”
I do know Phoebe, and I’m not complaining that she led me into digging through her panties. I flip her off while I open the other drawer.
Through the mirror above the dresser, I see her smile growing behind me. I also see it flickering in and out.
The gun is beneath an old journal, the cover faded and creased with a bright pink strawberry on the front. I push aside a pink tin with strawberry-flavored mints and her Strawberry Shortcake pens. Once I have the Glock, I press the release and pull out the magazine. Ten rounds. I push the mag back. It clicks, and slowly, I draw back the slide and check the chamber.
“It’s fully loaded,” I tell my brother, about to hand him the weapon.
“You take it.”
Jesus. “Fine. I’m putting it on the bookshelf behind the fern.” Gun in one hand, I grip the doorframe with the other, and Trevor is gone. But I linger and glance back at Phoebe.
She’s climbing on her bed. Remote in hand, she rewinds some of A Nightmare on Elm Street. As I shut the door behind me, it takes so much in me just to walk fifteen feet away.