Elle
“Is she gone?” Rin asks, peering into the bedroom around my shoulder. She’s wrapped in two towels. One around her head, the other around her body that she’s struggling to keep up.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, following her into the bedroom, where she shuts the door and locks it.
“I came to see you. I got the paperwork,” she says, strolling to a night table, pulling open a drawer and handing me a dark green folder with metallic gold letters.
My lips twitch, but no words come out as I relent and snatch the folder from her fingers. I sit on the edge of the bed and riffle through it as she pulls the towel off her head and begins applying some hair oil. My hair oil.
“So the car was actually Delphine’s,” she says, raking through her curly hair that I’d never seen curly before with my wide-toothed comb. It’s looser than Aria’s but just as pretty. It’s a wonder she never wears it in its natural state. “Well, she bought it, but then she gave it to her husband as his fortieth birthday gift two years ago. Silas Parrish.”
“Did you find where the surname Parrish came from?” I ask, scanning his name on the first page. “If he left the orphanage at eighteen, then he wasn’t adopted, but his surname should be Crewley, like Jarett’s.”
“He changed it once he became wealthy,” she says, putting on an oversized shirt. It’s too big to be Gant’s…in fact, none of the clothes in that closet seem to be Gant’s. They're too mature, judging from all the tailored suits.
“ Bitch… ” I trail astounded. “You’re not seriously playing dress up in Bart Auclair’s shit?”
“You mean his rags? I doubt he ever wears this stuff unless he’s in town. And trust me when I say fathers like Bart Auclair are never in town.” She grabs one of the sleek cologne bottles from the dresser and sprays it over the pillows and sheets.
“What are you doing?”
“I sleep so much better if I can trick my mind into thinking a man’s beside me. It helps stimulate the dreams too.”
“I don’t want to hear about your fucking wet dreams,” I say, holding up the folder. A paper escapes and lands on my lap, face up. It’s a file on Silas Crewley. Not Silas Parrish.
“So he and Jarrett are brothers,” I mutter to myself. I was sure of it, but seeing it in ink gave me the official confirmation I needed. “I was right about their connection, but if Madame is linked to Silas and not Jarett, that must mean one thing. She was only using him.”
“For sex?” Rin asks quizzically.
I shake my head. “For revenge. It seems so simple now, doesn’t it?”
But Rin’s connected brows tell me that she doesn’t think it’s simple at all.
I hadn’t clued her in on much. She knew that Silas Parrish was Gant’s uncle and potentially mine, but besides the car's VIN number, I hadn’t told her much else. And I left the part about the secret baby out entirely.
“Madame didn’t care about Jarett at all, she cared about Silas, his brother. Silas was her first love. The father of her first baby.”
“ What?! ” Rin’s jaw hangs open before she snaps it shut. “Gant has a brother?”
Dread drips down my spine at her suddenly enthusiastic look.
“Gant only told me. If you yap to Beaussip, he’ll know I betrayed him.”
“He’ll find that out soon enough anyway. You have the proof; it’s time to turn it in,” she says, waving her hand at the folder. Her nails are freshly polished again with the same polish Gant had painted my nails with over breakfast.
I grab them incredulously, although it’s more for something to do. Time to turn it in. But how?
“You used the same colour as me? How much of my shit have you been using?”
She takes her hand back and grabs the papers. “Duh, I used the same colour. That way, when it chipped around the penthouse, Gant would just think it was yours.”
“Rin — ”
“ Wait ,” she cuts me off. “If Silas is Marisol’s baby daddy, that means she slept with her sister Delphine’s husband? Fucking hell.”
I shake my head. “This baby isn’t a baby any more. He’s older than Gant by a year. That means Delphine is the one who slept with her sister’s baby’s father. Not the other way around.”
Rin smiles cruelly. “I’ve heard some fucked up shit before, but she married her sister’s ex? And gave him a kid too, so their kids are half-brothers and first cousins?”
I nod. “It’d make sense.”
“But how does Jarrett factor in?”
“She must have slept with my father, Silas’ brother, to get back at him. I mean, he slept with and married her sister.”
“Payback.” She sits beside me, and the bed dips. “But wait, you leaked the tape, not Madame, so what was her plan? How was she going to let Silas know what she was doing? It’s not like she knew you’d be there with her son filming them.”
“I’ve been thinking about that… What if she was recording the act to share with him later? Maybe she hesitated, and I beat her to it?”
“Or maybe she was waiting for the perfect moment, like Christmas dinner with the Parrishs.”
“Except, she’s been estranged from Delphine and the Parrishs for over a decade. Why do you think Gant hasn’t noticed the resemblance between Silas and my father before?”
“So they didn’t meet at the estate?”
I shake my head. I hadn’t told Rin about my little barter with Silas or that we’d had a private run-in.
“But now that he’s reconnecting with Delphine, it’s only a matter of time before he meets his uncle too or sees a photo.”
“I know,” I say.
“All the more reason to hurry this along.”
“But it’s still just guesses, theories. Besides the car information, I don’t have any actual proof. I wonder if Jarett knew what Marisol was up to?”
“Why would it matter either way?”
I didn't tell Rin about Jarett’s new condition either, but lately, it’s been nagging at me. The more I think about it, the more I think Jarett’s regression is far more than a bad trip on a tampered drug. What if he was tortured for answers to the same questions that I have? And if that’s the case, there’s only one person who wants them as badly as I do, Bart Auclair.
But Harod had said he was with a blonde boy…
I shake my head. “I need to visit Jarett for more clarity. Gant and Bart think that he’s this secret baby’s father after all.”
Rin recoils. “You didn’t tell me that! So Gant thought you shared a sibling this whole time, and he’s still into you? I mean, that’s more fucked up than Aria and Etienne, because at least they don’t share blood.”
Aria.
I narrow my eyes. Sure, I’m not getting involved in whatever Rin has going on with Etienne, but I sure as hell didn’t want to hear her talk about Aria either.
“Even if that were the case, Gant and I still wouldn’t be related. We’d just be related to the sibling.”
“Semantics.” She tosses her still-damp hair. “But who is this brother?”
“If I knew, I damn sure wouldn’t tell you. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t. No one does. Gant’s trying to find him.”
Rin’s eyes light up. “Is that what he’s always sneaking off to do?”
My throat suddenly grows dry. “What do you mean, he’s been sneaking off?”
“Every night after he drugs you, he sneaks out for a few hours,” she says as casually as if telling me that it’s raining.
“He sneaks out?”
“You seem more concerned about that than the drugging part.”
“Because I already knew that.”
She freezes. “You’re joking.”
I shake my head.
“And you just let him?”
After the bloody performance, I had nightmares. I couldn’t sleep without my meds, and how could I heal if I couldn’t sleep?
How could I tell him that I liked the fucked up way he looked at me when he thought I was out cold? How could I say with one breath that I hated him and with the other tell him that I craved his attention? That I loved being his little doll he touched as he pleased? That I needed his lips on my tits and his cock smearing my slit when I was supposed to be on that fucking high horse twenty-four-seven?
I couldn’t. So I didn’t.
“You think it’s fucked up that I knew? Apparently, you knew too, because you’ve been here this whole time and you didn’t say shit. Just like you didn’t tell me in the hospital until after the fact.”
“It was none of my business.”
“None of your business? You’re all up in my business! You’re using my shit, eating my shit and living in my boyfriend’s penthouse!”
Rin’s wide eyes narrow to slits. “You’re boyfriend? I was just using Gant and his shit the same way you were just using him to get the proof we needed.” She taps on the folder. “You’re welcome.”
“Why are you here?” I glare at her.
“Why are we both still here?” she asks flippantly. “Now that we have the information, we can go cash out.”
“You creeping around here wasn’t necessary for us to find out any information. You’re here because you’re homeless and mooching. The strawberry lemonade bottles were you!” I say, remembering the pink film in the glass. “You humiliated me in front of Heldina with your fucking filthy thong by the way. It’s bad enough that you’re trespassing, but you couldn’t even pick up after yourself?”
“She ambushed me!” she says, throwing up her hands. “When Gant leaves, I always clean up after myself. Why do you think I use your dirty bathroom instead of this one when she comes? She knows Bart isn’t here. And anyway, I only left that stuff out because she nearly caught me twice . Besides, she’s a right cunt bossing you around like that. You’re Gant’s guest, and he pays her.”
“It doesn’t mean you should make her job harder. It’s like you were raised by wolves.”
“I was raised to be a spoiled brat, and now I’m not. Okay?” She crosses her arms, but her eyes fall to the floor. “I’m trying to adjust. I’ll pick my shit up.”
“Yes, and then you’ll get the hell out because you’re not staying here to blow my cover if you haven’t already. I’m sure this place has cameras somewhere.”
“Beaulieu doesn’t open for three days, and even if you got that transfer from Bart tomorrow, it’s too big. It won’t be clear for a few days, which means I can’t get my cut for a few days. I don’t have access to my bank account right now, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
I almost give a fuck.
Then I remember her pouring that hot drink on me. The burn’s faded, but it’s still visible over my heart.
I remember the computer she fried, and I had to push aside my pride to ask Gant to pay for it, even though it was technically his fault for instructing the girls to bully me.
I remember how she’d taken the vulnerable video of Gant’s mental breakdown and how she still keeps it for leverage.
I remember how Beaussip is her only friend.
I peer into her pleading eyes and get to my feet. “ Not. My. Problem . Remember? I only care about problems that pay. Get out. ”
“Now look at who's a spoiled princess on daddy’s dime. Although your daddy is a different kind.”
I ignore her. “You have five minutes.”
I expect her to throw a pillow at me, but instead, she slips beneath the covers and rests her head on it.
“What are you — ”
“I’m not going anywhere because you are.” She pulls out the night table drawer and tosses me something.
A black card. A key card.
“Gant hid it the same day we came home.”
“How did you come home with us, anyway?”
“I was in Aria’s boot after Stassi’s party.”
What the actual fuck.
“He’ll be back by three. Sometimes a little later. If I were you, I’d go get some more of those answers you’re desperately wanting without him hovering over you. Didn’t you say you wanted to see Jarrett?”
“If I have the key, I still don’t need you.”
“But don’t you want to put it back where Gant hides it?” she says, pulling a sleep mask over her forehead. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know where that is. But I do.”
Glaring, I whip around on my heel.
“Don’t let the clock strike three before you’re back, Cinderella, or you’ll have far more worries than little old me. Oh, and lock the door on your way out. Bart normally keeps it locked when he isn’t here. I assume there’s a safe in here somewhere.”