35. Thea
THEA
“No way,” I say. “That can’t be the same Asha from that other article, can it? The spelling is different.”
“I think it’s because the spelling is different that the article wasn’t scrubbed from the internet,” Aus replies. “I think this woman is named Ausha Paisley with a U, and Rouge tried to get rid of every mention of her name. But that Tribune article misspelled it, so she missed it.”
“And then whoever this blogger is tried to get the message out. But even in her death, they knew people would try to keep her name off the internet, so they made a riddle out of it. Then they added the other pattern names so the ‘Paisley’ tag wouldn’t stick out.”
“Damn.” He rubs at his forehead. “This is a lot.”
“It is.” I hang my head. “Unfortunately I don’t think it’s any help to us. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t implicate someone else in Kin’s murder.”
“You don’t know that.” Aus lifts my heads up, kisses my cheek.
“Rouge is—was—an extremely clever woman with an uncanny knack for understanding how people function. She was able to easily manipulate people in her orbit to perform heinous crimes.” His voice catches for a minute.
He clears his throat and continues. “She just had this way about her. It’s difficult to put into words. ”
Again, I’m sensing there’s a story here, but I can’t dive down that rabbit hole right now.
“What does any of that matter?” I ask. “Rouge has been dead for nearly a year.”
“People like Rouge Montrose live beyond their earthly bodies. She could have easily had a plan in place to keep her operations moving after her death.”
“Her legacy…” I murmur.
“Exactly. The article might have been hinting at more than one thing.”
“But the organ harvesting ring was shut down.”
Aus widens his eyes. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t have other things going on. Something even darker.”
“Darker than killing people and distributing their parts for profit?”
He nods slowly. “I knew Rouge pretty well by the end. Her potential for evil was unmatched.” He closes his eyes, draws in a slow breath. “It’s clear now that everything that has happened—everything leading to Kin’s death—wasn’t a coincidence. And that includes you.”
I drop my jaw. “Me? But you know I didn’t—”
He holds up a hand. “That’s not what I meant. I mean you were meant to go to the Jade Sanctum Thursday night.”
I narrow my eyes. “No I wasn’t. I downloaded that damned Twistr app on a whim. It’s not like—” I clap a hand over my mouth.
“What?”
“I got a targeted ad. To my email. That’s why I downloaded the app.”
“And then you went to the Jade Sanctum. Wick was waiting for you.” He drums his fingers against his chin. “Wick, who had conveniently asked for the night off, yet was still hanging around.”
“Oh my God. And he knew I’d been stood up. I didn’t think much of it, but he descended like a vulture the minute it became clear Bobby Q. wasn’t going to show.”
I nod. “It’s Wick. He laid a trail of breadcrumbs for you.
He probably knew you from the news, developed a crush on you.
Hacked the Twistr app and your email. Got his brother to drug you.
Maybe they had an argument that night and he decided to kill him.
You’d refused his advances, so he decided to frame you for it. ”
I jump to my feet. “Holy shit. That’s it.”
Aus stands as well, wrapping his arms around me. “We figured it out, babe.”
I start crying, but this time they’re happy tears. “I was so scared I was going to go to prison, Aus.”
He squeezes me hard. “Not while I’m around, baby.” He breaks the embrace. “All we have to do now is turn this shit around on Wick. Then you’re protected from any more of this bullshit.”
For the first time since the gala, a weight lifts off my shoulders. Not all the way—we’re not through this yet—but enough that I can breathe more easily.
And I figured it out at the side of this man in front of me. This gorgeous, rock-solid Adonis of a man.
This man who barely knows me but will move heaven and hell to protect me.
Before I know it, I’m kissing him. He’s kissing me back, unbuttoning my blouse. My tits fall out and he whips my bra off like it’s made of cotton candy.
In an instant he’s on my nipple, sucking it. Biting it. I whip my head back and moan.
He alternates between my nipples—one sucked by his smooth tongue, one pinched by his strong hands—for a few moments until he clears the table of our laptops and half-eaten TV dinners and lays me out on it.
“Those frozen meals were awful.” A grin snakes across his face. “I’ve got a better idea for dinner.”