Chapter Fifteen. Ember
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ember
The fuck?
I shift on my bed, groaning. My head is killing me. What the hell did I drink at that ball, and how much? Gingerly, I roll over, but instead of sinking into my comfortable mattress, my elbow hits a hard-ass surface, propelling another groan from me.
I repeat, the fuck?
Sitting up with my eyes squeezed closed against the terrible pounding in my skull, I press my palms to my forehead.
But the pain isn’t emanating from the front of my head but the back.
Teeth sunk into my bottom lip, I move my hand and encounter a tender lump right above the base of my skull.
I probe it, and another blast of pain damn near sends me into a fetal position and my stomach soaring for my throat.
I swallow back bile and breathe in and out.
In and out. In and out until the worst of it passes.
What the hell happened? Was I in a car accident? Am I in a hospital? That would explain the hard-as-bricks bed.
Slowly, I peel my eyelids open and …
Not a hospital.
A cage. I’m sitting on the floor of a muthafuckin’ cage.
As if just the sight of my jail unlocks the steel door in my mind, the memories flood in, worsening the ache and nausea.
The ball. The courtyard. Talking with Kareem. Feeling uneasy with the conversation and leaving. Then … nothing.
That muthafucka hit me. And apparently kidnapped me.
A huff of laughter escapes me as I stare out at the ordinary-looking den, with a regular desk, boring leather couch, a couple of chairs, and a scratched coffee table, that stretches out beyond the black bars of the cage.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I’m the one usually on the other side, but now I’m the subject, imprisoned, waiting for God knows what.
Son of a bitch.
I bow my head, the weight of my predicament pressing down on me. What the fuck does Kareem want with me? And does Asad even know that I’m gone? How long have I been locked … where here is?
This can’t be the end for me. There’s too much for me to do. Too much for me to say.
“What the fuck do you have going on, Kareem? You had one job. One damn job, and you fucked that up.”
My head snaps up at the familiar voice, and I instantly regret the abrupt motion.
The explosion of agony has me swaying, and I allow it to take me back to the floor of the cage.
I curl in on myself, body half twisted to face the door as it opens and reveals Michelle, wearing the same dress from the ball, stalking into the room behind her son.
Her steps are agitated, jerky, a contradiction to her elegant appearance.
Rage fills me, battling back the pain, shooting adrenaline through my veins and clearing my head. These two? I should’ve guessed it, but I didn’t. This bitch tried to have me killed by execution. Of course she’s in on my kidnapping.
“Plans changed, Mom,” Kareem says, casually striding into the room and over to his side bar.
Still wearing his dress shirt and pants, he doesn’t appear like someone who just committed about four felonies.
He grabs a decanter and pours a couple of fingers of alcohol into a tumbler.
“I changed the plans. You wanted me to take out Asad so you could take over—”
“That’s not true! I wanted this for you, Kareem. So you could run House of Cross and the Cross organization.”
I almost gasp, nearly giving away I’m not asleep. The hell? What did I just hear? She and Kareem are plotting on Asad, not me? They’re the ones who’re working with Xavier and Deacon? My heart slams against my chest, causing an echo chamber in my head.
“Bullshit.” He chuckles and takes a sip from his glass.
Who is this person? The Kareem I know has never stood up to his mother, has always been obsequious.
This Kareem is a stranger. And apparently, not just to me either, judging by the jerk of Michelle’s chin.
“You want me to take over Cross because you think I’m easier to manipulate.
Since women can’t sit on the throne, you’ll do second best—rule through me.
There’s no way in hell you could do that with Prince. C’mon, Mom, give me some credit.”
Michelle doesn’t reply, but the heaving of her chest and clenched fists is reply enough. Shit, even I know he isn’t wrong. Asad checks her every time she steps out of line. He can’t be run or managed.
It’s starting to make sense now. It’s starting to make a terrible sense. The anger coursing through me has me seeing red, and I don’t need to close my eyes to envision their deaths. Their painful, slow deaths.
They took from me.
I don’t need to hear them say the words to confirm what I already know.
They’re responsible for murdering Marcus.
As shitty as he was, they stole my father from me.
Maybe more importantly, they stole the chance I had to make peace with him.
To reconcile who we were to each other, whatever that would’ve been.
Father, daughter. Employee, employer. Or nothing.
But it was our choice. Not theirs. Now, I’ll never know what we could’ve had. I’ll never know if …
They took from me.
And now they nearly took Asad, too. For what? Power. Money. Greed.
They can’t have anything else from me.
Now I’ma take every fucking thing from them.
Even if we all die right here in this dusty-ass den.
Carefully, slowly, so not to draw their notice, I inch my shoe off and reach for it.
While they continue to go back and forth, I quickly screw the heel off, removing a needle inserted on the inside of it.
Who knew my own special design would come in handy so soon?
Time isn’t my bitch, so I stick the needle, cap on, against my breast and twist the heel back on the shoe.
“You’re an ungrateful shit, Kareem,” Michelle fumes, jabbing a finger at him.
“I did all this for you. Arranged all of this for you. Do you really think Deacon or Xavier would’ve entertained working for us if not for me?
No, they respected me, not you. I got that videotape from Marcus’s building.
I arranged for that whore to overdose him.
What have you done except play the pathetic sycophant fool for Prince?
What are you without me? What do you really think you’re going to do without me to tell you how to wipe your own ass? ” she sneers. “You’re nothing.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he shouts, hurling the tumbler at the wall.
Michelle jumps as glass splinters and alcohol decorate the wallpaper near her head.
I don’t manage to control my flinch. Gotdamn.
Thank God they’re too embroiled in each other’s mess to notice.
“Just shut the fuck up for once. All we’ve ever heard is what you’ve done for us.
What you sacrifice. I’m sick of it. We weren’t born to be your fucking pawns.
Shit, we didn’t ask to be fucking born. Did you ever stop and think for once that Prince didn’t give you a position in his inner circle at Cross because he knows he can’t trust you?
I mean, why would he?” Kareem starts laughing, and the deranged note sends chills racing over my skin.
He’s unraveling. And Michelle is too arrogant to realize it.
“He knows what you’re capable of. You murdered our father for a come up. Why wouldn’t you take him out for one?”
“Shut up!” Michelle screams. “That’s a lie! Don’t you ever say that again.”
Kareem laughs again and grabs a bottle off the bar but is careful not to turn, giving Michelle his back. Smart guy.
“You keep telling yourself that,” he taunts, pouring another glass of alcohol.
“But here’s what’s going to happen. Fuck Cross.
I’m tired of standing in the shadow of my big brother.
Even in this plan, I’m second best to you.
So fuck him and fuck you. I’m taking the key to all this shit”—he turns toward the cage, and I quickly shut my eyes, going so still, I stop breathing—“her, and leaving. I have a plane ready to leave in ninety minutes, fueled up and headed to Europe. I’m going to start my own empire.
And the only reason I have someone on Prince to kill him is because I don’t feel like looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
So congratulations, Mom. You’ll still get what you want.
Prince, dead. Though what you can do with that and a crumbling kingdom with no king, I don’t know. And don’t give a fuck.”
“You can’t possibly believe you’ll get away with this,” Michelle says, a note of desperation creeping into her voice beneath the fury as she spreads her arms wide.
“Get away with it? Shit, it’s done. You already said it. I’m the pathetic sycophant brother. Who would suspect me of trying to kill him or kidnap his fiancée? I don’t have it in me.”
I lift my lids to see him set his glass on the bar and approach Michelle. I stiffen, expecting him to choke her, kill her … anything but plant a kiss on her cheek. Grinning, he turns and walks toward the cage.
My heart kicks against my rib cage, attempting to execute a jailbreak, but I deliberately force my body to relax, trying not to give him any reason to suspect I’ve awakened.
Patience. Be patient. Clearing my mind, I focus on his every movement, planning mine.
It’s two against one. But one at a time.
I cautiously roll over, moaning as if I’m just waking up. Kareem, standing at the cell door, smiles at me, and I want to burn the shit off his face with hydrofluoric acid. Give that muthafucka a facelift.
“Ember, you’re awake.” He winces when I touch the back of my head, and the genuine concern in his expression has my belly clenching against the nauseous churning.
“I’m sorry about that, but I needed to incapacitate you fast. Don’t worry though.
I have painkillers for the headache you no doubt have. ”
I don’t say anything, just stare at him. What am I supposed to say? Thank you? The fuck?