Chapter 29
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
It had been a full week since Rowan had been escorted from Raven Wood by two incredibly uncomfortable guards.
The way they’d shuffled their feet, looking everywhere but at Rowan, completely avoiding Delilah, was almost funny.
Would have been funny were it not for the sheer fury on Delilah’s face when Rowan told her that was the last time.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. For Delilah to beg her to stay, to manipulate Adele and the guards into keeping her around and forgetting what they saw?
Maybe some sort of confession, an admission that Delilah, too, felt the cruel talons of addiction.
There was none of that. Delilah simply glared at her, like this was Rowan’s fault, until the door closed behind them, sealing Delilah’s rage off from the rest of the world.
Rowan had spent almost every night at Arcana.
Once, it had been her favorite place. Now she was using it to drown in whiskey, alone, trying and failing to formulate a plan.
Her last plan had been years in the making, and Rowan didn’t think she had it in her to wait that long again.
Getting Delilah arrested… That hadn’t been easy.
Getting her hands on enough of a paper trail to leak the arrest back to her in the hopes that Delilah would find it and seek her out had been even harder.
Especially because Rowan had known it needed to be vague enough to intrigue Delilah as opposed to setting a big fat “kill me” target on her back.
But she didn’t have to do that anymore, didn’t have to trick the system into bringing them together. Because Delilah knew about her. Delilah had her. And Rowan had never known Delilah to let something go once it was hers.
Images of Delilah flashed through her mind now.
The memory of her moaning and squirming beneath Rowan as she climaxed.
That was how Rowan wanted to remember her.
She wanted to be filled with the ghost of her scent, her taste, her sounds.
She didn’t want to be swallowed whole by the image of Delilah’s rage which they’d parted with.
She hadn’t seen any information about Delilah in the news either. No information about her being transferred back to prison, nothing about any escape attempts or new kills surfacing. There had only been silence.
A few times over the past week, Rowan had—shamefully—pulled up Riley’s contact, her finger hovering over the call button before throwing her phone onto the couch or table, a frustrated groan surfacing. If Delilah wanted to get into contact, she would.
And she clearly didn’t.
Rowan signaled the bartender for another drink.
She was pacing herself—barely—but that didn’t stop the woman from giving her a quick once-over to assess how drunk she was.
Someone slid into the seat next to her as the bartender pushed the new glass of whiskey over.
Her head was pleasantly fuzzy from the buzz of alcohol and the bare leg against hers brought a stirring of arousal.
She wasn’t there for that though. She wouldn’t betray Delilah, not in that way. Not in any way, really. Rowan sighed, angling her body away from the woman without even looking up, and swirled her whiskey, watching it climb the sides of the glass before sinking back down.
“Surprised you haven’t texted,” a low, sultry voice whispered to her, a familiar hand creeping onto her thigh. Rowan snapped her gaze to the side, meeting Riley’s playful eyes.
“Why are you here?” she asked, trying to keep the hope and desperation out of her voice.
Riley pouted, batting her eyelashes. “Thought you might miss me. You know, after Delilah tossed you aside.”
Rowan’s barely-there hope shattered in her chest. Her breath caught and she quickly schooled her features into a glare. “You don’t matter enough to miss,” Rowan growled, refocusing on her drink.
“Ouch,” Riley gasped, putting her hand to her heart and laughing in mock offense.
“Thought you might be a little nicer to the person who could get you access to her again, but that’s fine.
” She shrugged and pulled away from Rowan.
“I don’t think she wants to see you anyway.
You had fun, right? She certainly did.” Riley lowered her voice, leaning against the bar and invading Rowan’s line of sight again. “So did I.”
“It’s funny,” Riley continued after a long pause in which she’d practically undressed Rowan with her eyes, “that you’d come here again.” She dragged a thin finger up Rowan’s forearm and Rowan gripped her glass tighter. “Back to our first date.”
“Like I already said,” Rowan muttered, staring at her whitening knuckles and wondering how much more pressure it would take until the glass shattered and her palm was stinging with whiskey infused cuts. “You don’t matter.”
Riley wasn’t deterred. She leaned in even closer, her lips brushing against Rowan’s ear as she whispered, “I’m wearing her lingerie again. Thought I might get lucky.”
Rowan took a deep breath, images of Delilah in the red-lace bra and matching panties flashed quickly through her mind.
But with Riley breathing down her neck, the memories soon shifted, replaced with the shock she’d experienced when Riley had shown her the same outfit.
The paranoia that had flooded her was so easily replaced then.
That wasn’t the reminder she needed right now. Riley was only here to gloat, to prolong Rowan’s suffering.
Rowan threw back the rest of her drink, wincing at the burn scalding her throat. Then she pushed away from the bar without another word, heading for the exit before she did something she’d regret. Riley didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
“It won’t be hard for her to find someone to replace you,” Riley said, catching up to Rowan in no time, following her as they stalked around the tables together. “You might as well move on. She’s back in prison now anyway. So many women to choose from there. All equally willing to kill for her.”
Rowan gritted her teeth, turning to glare at Riley, willing her to know what was good for her and shut the hell up.
Riley could not have known what Rowan had done…
right? The barest flicker of doubt shadowed her thoughts.
Had she really been so blinded that she hadn’t realized the truth?
That Delilah didn’t actually care for anything other than her fucked up little game of breaking Rowan?
“Don’t be too sad,” Riley persisted. “You’re not a bad lay.”
“Why are you here?” Rowan growled, whipping around and pushing Riley against the wall. The glass door leading to her escape was so close. She could see the sheen of street lights reflecting against it. But she was drunk and Riley was pissing her off. Escape was suddenly the last thing on her mind.
A smirk formed over Riley’s lips. “I wanted to see you.” Her gaze roamed over Rowan’s body, briefly flicking over her shoulder before refocusing on her face. “Remind you of what you could’ve had if you hadn’t fucked it up so beautifully.”
“You don’t know anything,” Rowan snapped.
“I know some things,” Riley shrugged. “Like how Delilah knew all those things about you, all the lurid details of your past. I know how she killed that patient you seemed to like so much, how she got the knife, how she obtained files on every person in that building who would be interacting with her—well, of course, until Adele tightened security. I know all the answers to those questions that are plaguing your thoughts. Including where she is now, what she’s doing, and with who. ”
Rowan did want those answers. It was killing her. She also wanted to know how long it had taken Delilah and her seemingly abundant resources to find the little trail of information that she’d left.
Riley sighed dramatically, the smile on her face betraying the false regret in her voice. “Hate to tell you she’s moved on, but…”
She didn’t get to finish whatever bullshit trailed-off sentence she was going for.
Before Rowan had registered what she was doing, the anger consumed her.
The alcohol clouded her judgement, her awareness, as she snapped.
Her hands closed around Riley’s throat. Her vision tunneled, focused only on the now sputtering woman, whose face had lost all sense of humor.
Riley clawed at Rowan’s arms, but the alcohol numbed that pain and Rowan barely noticed. Riley’s struggling was growing weaker, her last-ditch attempt at saving herself resulted in pathetic raspy, whispered words. “Delilah will never forgive you for this.”
Only a few seconds later did the words hit through the haze, the realization of what she was doing.
Someone grasped Rowan’s arms, tugging her off.
She released Riley, who slid down the wall, coughing and holding her neck.
Around them was pure chaos as patrons rushed in to help, almost too late.
Bodies were shoving against each other, the crowd growing and pulsating around them quickly enough that Rowan wondered where they had been before the cop stepped in.
She looked down at Riley, regret swiftly washing over her.
Until Riley looked back up and met her gaze with a smug smile. Rowan glared at her as her hands were pulled sharply behind her back, metal cuffs slung around her wrists, and a voice she didn’t recognize was stating her arrest.