Fool’s Gold (Cruel Empire #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

M arcus Ortega is a fucking liar.

The thought plays on repeat in my head with the crash and boom of a marching band. My cell drops to the floor, my fingers numb and the screen already cracked in the corner.

A terrible, monstrous liar, and this time, he’s gone too far.

Spirit laughter from down the beach is in another universe from where I stand, existing. Tugged along by a huge hook of grief and rage and who the hell knows what else.

I slam the car door shut, the noise drowned out by the crashing waves of the beach beyond.

Somehow, by the grace of a god determined to spit on me, I made it to the beach bungalow in Malibu without running into King Liar.

The place is shuttered tightly against the elements. The key works, though, and a simple twist has me coughing. The air inside is peppered with dust. Even so, it still smells like my parents.

I slap my hand against the doorframe, and tears prick the corners of my eyes. “Oh, god.” The familiar scent of fabric softener, a tropical candle, the lemon cleaner mix…

I stumble forward, the white-sheet-draped furniture witnesses my trek. Once inside the kitchen, I grip the counter to hold steady. My cracked phone dings again to let me know I’ve got a thousand internet alerts. A thousand headlines about how Marcus, my manager and guardian, took advantage of me.

There are pictures to prove it. My heart leaps into my throat and strangles me. In the next beat, I’ve gone from barely making it to practically choking on my own spit. How did they get pictures of us?

Doctored, for sure.

Fake news, definitely.

The reports and the social media posts, the news, all of it—they’re all saying Marcus is a predator, painting him as an older male captivated by my youth and beauty, like I’m not the one who jumped his bones first.

They all say the same thing, and none of them give a shit about me beyond casting me in the light of an innocent angel.

The stories are false, but Marcus is definitely a liar. He’s worse than the news outlets because he knows me, and he must have known how it would hurt me when I was served those fucking papers dissolving his guardianship.

He didn’t even have the decency to give them to me himself. He had his assistant do it for him!

My knees are practically jelly, and I sink to the floor with tears blurring the rest of the room in a watery wall. The media doesn’t care about dragging me through my grief and my pain with their pictures and videos.

I fumble with the phone again, sniffling and ticked off. But being pissed is so much better than feeling victimized. There’s nothing worse than living your life feeling like you’ve got a target painted on your skin.

The first few articles used stills and videos from the movie premiere Marcus took me to. One of the rags even goes so far as to show pictures of me as a kid, with my parents and Marcus, at some kind of pool party.

“Fuck.”

My throat is raw, and the word comes out as a croak.

My stomach rolls dangerously, and I scramble off my hands and knees. My gorge rises, goose bumps peppering my skin and my throat too tight. I make it to the sink before my stomach erupts. The puke burns my throat, and I close my eyes against the uncontrollable swells. My body empties every last bit of food I’ve eaten.

I grip the side of the sink until the waves of nausea pass, then turn on the faucet and wait for the water to run clear. The cool stream helps bring me back to my body. I grab a sip, swirling it in my mouth to get rid of the foul taste of vomit.

Christ, the day of never-ending shit has got to stop.

Instead, it followed me here, to this place where my dad used to carry me on his shoulders and make jokes about the creatures in the sand coming out to nibble my toes.

The place where Marcus used to toss me into the waves before I was old enough to think about what those hands might feel like if they slipped off my waist.

Fuck everything, and everyone, especially Marcus.

He’s nothing but a rat bastard in addition to being a liar.

I suck in a breath through my nostrils and straighten, pushing long golden hair out of my face. The windowsill in front of the sink is littered with dust like the rest of the house, and the cactus that was left to its own finally succumbed to neglect and shriveled up in death. Beside it sits a cracked cup with a handle shaped like a frog leg, the rest of the mug painted to be the body of the frog.

Mom’s favorite.

Another wave of sickness hits me, and my stomach contracts painfully. I have nothing left to throw up, yet my body revolts, trying to call me a liar, too.

Mom loved that mug. She found it in a thrift store during one of her and Dad’s trips up the coast, when they took out the convertible and just drove. She said it was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen in her life, and yet she always found joy in having her morning coffee out of it when we came to Malibu.

It’s an oddity the press wouldn’t have appreciated about the star actress.

Reality strikes with the strength of a sledgehammer right through my skull. Only my stranglehold on the lip of the sink keeps my dizzy ass from falling over.

I’m really here, in my parents’ bungalow.

It used to be their sanctuary. A place where they got out of the spotlight and could pretend, even for a few days, they were normal people. There’s nothing glitzy or glamorous about this place. It meant something to them.

And I came here.

My gorge rises again. Why did I think I’d be safe here, too?

The walls are haunted by their absence even more than the main house. The personal touches in this place are gunshots, and every one I see sends a fresh well of pain shooting through me. I should go back .

I’ll end up seeing Marcus too soon, though, and I’ve got no clue what to say to him. I can’t bring myself to leave yet.

I splash more cold water on my face before cutting off the tap and sinking down to the tile floor, my back against the cabinet. Maybe it’s right for me to be here. I’m nothing but a ghost, too. Cut down at the knees too many times to count at this point. The hits keep coming.

When are they going to stop?

When is it all going to make sense?

Even the guardian I thought wanted me doesn’t —he’d rather sign away his rights before I’m even of age, even though there were only a few more years left.

I dropped the phone somewhere on the tiles. I swipe my face with the back of my hand and crawl for it. The screen is blank, but it landed case side down this time, which is a miracle. The facial recognition software kicks in, and the screen opens.

Ugh, the text messages. I’ve got five of them in a row, all unanswered, each one more panicky than the last one. The name at the top definitely doesn’t spell out M-A-R-C-U-S, either.

I find the phone icon more from habit than anything else, with tears still blurring my vision, and the call to River connects.

“Hey.” The word comes out as a sniffle.

“Hey, boo. How are you doing?”

She knows me better than anyone else, but it still feels weird and wrong to let everything spill out. I groan and settle back against the cabinetry. The wood behind me is unyielding, exactly what I need.

“You already know how I’m doing.”

“Know about what? The only thing I know is that you didn’t answer my texts, and now you’re crying,” she replies.

“You don’t need to pretend. I hear it in your voice. You feel sorry for me.”

Of course she knows. River is the queen of social media, and she’s got her finger on the pulse of the latest gossip.

Then she sighs, the thin sham of her ignorance gone in a blink. “I’m allowed to feel sorry for you,” she adds. “It’s not pity, Em. You’re just stuck in a really shitty situation, and the press is doing what the press always does. Make a mess of things. Skew reality into something gross. You know?”

My eyes burn along with the rest of me. “It really fucking sucks.”

She sighs again. “Of course it does. Where are you?”

“Probably someplace I shouldn’t be.” And for some reason, I’m reluctant to tell her my exact location. Like it will somehow be found out, and the swarming locusts of reporters will find me too soon as well.

“Are you not going to tell me?” River presses.

Her voice is a soothing balm but not enough to combat the demons in my head. They feast on my insecurities, on my fears, and on the part of me that wants to curl up in a little ball and demand an answer as to why life seemed to shit on me lately.

I lost my parents. I lost Marcus. And if these stories continue, then I’ll lose my reputation, too. What’s left when all of those things are gone?

“Not right now. I need a little time to settle in and…” I trail off. “Get back to myself. What do you think of these articles?”

River draws in a deep breath and stays silent for a moment. “I think they’re not really helping you when you’re in this kind of headspace. And if there was anything I could do to get the press to back off, I would. Want me to cause a scandal? I know a guy.”

“Of course you do.” And of course she’d try. She’s my best friend.

Hopefully she’s not going anywhere, either. Then I’d be entirely alone.

I shiver, a chill running down my spine, and I press the phone tight to my ear before hauling myself to my feet using the countertop for leverage.

The bungalow has been sealed up tight for too many months for the air to smell fresh.

“They’re nothing but flesh-eating vipers, Em,” River continues in my silence. “The sooner you put them out of your mind, the better. Maybe this is a chance for you to turn it around and get the vipers to bump your new movie. What do they always say? All press is good press.”

I trail from room to room and throw open the windows, muscling several of them when they stick. “All press might be good press, but now really isn’t the time for it.” I swallow over the tightness in the back of my throat, every muscle constricting.

God, please, no more puking. I’m not a pretty puker.

The breeze blowing off the ocean is fresh and slightly cool to combat the warmth of the sun. I throw open the windows in every room except my parents’ bedroom, leaving their door closed.

“Do you think he’s going to come for you? Hot Daddy Marcus.”

I groan, pain spiking through my head and all the way down through my torso. “Please stop calling him that.” Especially since I haven’t told River what he and I have done to, with, and for each other.

“What? He certainly comes across as a daddy type of energy in these pictures. Even though I know it’s not true,” she rushes to say. “He isn’t the kind of man to take advantage of a young woman, and you would have told me.”

Her voice is probing as though she might secretly believe I kept things from her. And I have.

River doesn’t have any idea what kind of man Marcus really is. Or how good he tastes. If I have my way, she’s never going to know. Some things need to stay private between a girl and her… no longer guardian, semi-uncle, dad’s best friend.

“Em?” River presses when I stay quiet.

I unpeel my lips from where they’ve pressed tightly together. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. I’m a little out of my mind.”

She clucks her tongue sympathetically. “And I’m sure I’m not helping you, asking these kinds of questions.”

“You talking to me is a help,” I answer honestly, stopping in the door to my bedroom and staring at the bed still made up from the last time we were here. “I have no clue what I’m going to do.”

And no idea if Marcus is going to come and get me or not. I actually want him to, I realize, even when it seems pathetic to want. Only because that will give me a chance to really explode on him. To erupt and let out every bit of anger and hurt I’ve repressed at finding out he signed the papers to release me from his guardianship.

Then again, I came out here to put some space between us and avoid his lying face. It’s probably for the best we keep our distance. Besides, if he signed the papers, he’s not worried about where I am.

He’s only worried about himself.

That’s not going to change.

The sooner I destroy whatever kind of fucked-up bond still makes me feel something for him, the better off I’ll be. Marcus can go sink in the ocean for all I care. Except the tears are back, because I really do care, and I’m terrified of getting hurt. Again.