Chapter 6 #2
My ears prick, and adrenaline spikes in my system as noise comes from somewhere behind a closed door. Nicole’s snobby voice reaches us before she comes into view with a guard at her side.
She stops when she spots us. Her surprised expression morphs into anticipation. She stumbles a step before straightening her shoulders and plastering on a fake smile. “Well, well, well... look who’s come crawling back.”
Rogue stiffens beside me.
I grab his thigh and press my fingernails into the muscle to keep him from jumping up. Despite the orange jumpsuit and wrist restraints she’s managed to keep her air of superiority.
“I got your gift,” I say.
“Roses are so... classic.” She stands behind her chair and clears her throat.
The guard pulls it out for her.
She batts her lashes and flips her hair as she sits. “Thank you, Isiah. You are my favorite. Now be a good soldier and give us the room.”
“That’s not going to happen, Nicole,” he says like they may have had this discussion more than once and he’s bored of it. He does leave her side, however, to stand by the door where he can keep a watchful eye on us.
“What do you want, Nicole?” Rogue asks before I can.
“You didn’t pick roses, did you? Something blue perhaps, hmm?” Her attention catches behind us, on Dizzy. Her eyes widen, flaring with emotion. “Or white lilies? Dreadful, vile, tacky things.”
“You know who I am?” Dizzy says in a cold, quiet voice that’s somehow clear as a bell.
“Of course I do, Lily.” Nicole pulls herself up to her full seated height. Lifting her chin, she stares down her nose at my sister. “No matter how much you try to hide it, girl, you look just like your mother. More so than this one.”
“Leave her alone.” My sister’s real name is Lily.
I learned that when Rogue and I did our family trees.
After finding out that Alec was not my brother, but being his brother instead, and after West came crawling out of the woodwork in search of Dizzy, it seemed pertinent to make sure we weren’t in for any other surprises.
That’s when my connection to Lily Hawthorne showed up. Dizzy had always seemed like an odd name, but it fit her well. The one time I tried to bring it up she said she didn’t want to be a flower and hung up on me.
I figured there was too much trauma associated with the name, but now I must consider it’s more likely that she doesn’t want it to be easy for the FBI to find her with a trail of dead bodies behind her.
“It’s a shame, really.” Nicole’s face breaks into a vicious smile. “I was always jealous of her beauty when we were younger. But look where it got her.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” Dizzy snaps.
“The same place it will get you.” Nicole’s gaze roves keenly over every inch of Dizzy. She stops at my sister’s wrist where she’s scratched red lined into her pale skin. She smirks at the flushed, angry blotch. “Caged. Used up. Dead.”
“Enough.” Rogue bangs his hand down on the table, which alerts the guard. He lowers his voice. “This isn’t what we came here for. Tell us what you want, Nicole.”
“What I want is for the two of you…” She looks from him to me. “To help me prove that I didn’t do what they’re saying I did.”
“What?” A buzzing starts in my ears. There’s no way… “You’re guilty. You killed my dad. You embezzled his fortune.”
“You abducted our mother,” Dizzy interrupts.
“Without evidence that will be hard to prove.” Nicole examines her short, chipped nails.
“What did you do?” I can barely speak. Did she tamper with the investigation somehow? Is she planning to? If she has people helping harass me, then she could have people on the inside doing her bidding too.
“What wouldn’t I do?” She finally looks up.
There’s a glint in her gaze. “I’m not spending the rest of my life in this hideous jumpsuit…
with these murderers and drug dealers and whatever else.
I’m going to get out one way or another.
But it would be more pleasant for all of us if you two recanted your testimonies and dropped off the witness list. I might send you another wedding gift to celebrate your nuptials if you do. ”
“Like the roses?” Rogue jumps in. “Or someone else to hurt us?”
“Like the chateau in Switzerland your father bought me,” she says. “The one not mentioned in his assets. You should see it. You’ll love it.”
“That’s not happening.” My voice feels foreign, brittle.
“No? No matter. I hardly need you. I just thought it would be kind to offer you a chance to let bygones be bygones. I’m a Hawthorne after all.”
Of course she has powerful allies to fall back on. She comes from old money. Power and corruption run through her veins. I’m a mouse caught under glass all over again and she’s sucking out all of the oxygen.
“You forget Nathaniel is on our side,” Rogue says. “He’s kept records. We have the evidence of the payments you made to—”
“He’ll do anything for Ivy, he always has. I’m sure if you ask him, he will be happy to lose those records. And if not…” She shrugs one delicate shoulder.
In Nicole’s estimation this war was lost to us before we arrived. She’s outmaneuvered us. There’s nothing we can do but agree if we want to be left alone to live our lives out in peace.
“If we do this you will call off whoever you have working with you?”
“No, Ivy,” Dizzy says urgently. “You can’t trust she’ll keep her word.”
I don’t. But there’s still plenty of information we need. Playing along and allowing her to feel smug might be the best way to get it out of her.
“I will let you get married without any more interference.” She nods and then turns up her nose. “You can be Mrs. Rogue Maddox. Until he tires of you.”
Rogue tenses.
I dig my nails deeper into his thigh. She’s baiting him, but I don’t need his assurances. We need Nicole to talk. “And you will tell your accomplice not to kill any more goats. You need to promise me.”
Her brow pulls together. The confusion in her gaze is clear, though she tries to suppress it. “Okay.”
“You don’t know,” Rogue says.
Ignoring him, she focuses on me. “Are we making the deal or not?”
She doesn’t know anything about the goat. That’s a whole separate problem, like we thought. But now we know. “And I want to know who you have working for you.”
“I’m not giving you that information,” she says. “I need an insurance policy, you aren’t going to go against me.”
“That’s okay,” Rogue says as the warden and another guard file into the room. “We don’t need you to tell us. We can find out who you’ve been giving orders to.”
The warden holds a bag of contraband, including a phone.
“While you’ve been in here with us, the guards have turned over all of your things and have confiscated whatever you’ve been using to communicate with the outside world,” Rogue tells her.
“No matter.” She tries to act nonchalant, but it doesn’t make me as anxious as it normally would. The way her eyes dart to Isiah as he leaves his post tells me she’s unhappy.
“And I’ve paid them all very well to give me what they found,” Rogue continues. “We’ll find out who you’ve been talking to.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Her voice carries a shrill edge as Isiah drags her to her feet.
“I have a friend who can work magic with tech.” Dizzy smiles, all teeth. “He’s totally the sweetest and will happily do me a favor.”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t have any more access to unsupervised communications,” the warden says. “We’ll do daily searches.”
“Do you hear that, Nicole?” Rogue slides his arm around me. “You’re going to sit here and rot while Ivy enjoys every moment free from you. Living the way she wants to. The way she deserves to.”
“Raising children with the last name Maddox,” I add. “By the time they’re grown no one will remember the Hawthorne name at all.”
“You ungrateful fucking brat,” she snarls, her wrist restraints rattling. The guard holds her back. The second guard moves to stand on her other side.
“You’re dead to me.” I step closer. I quite like knowing I’m untouchable. It puts a smile on my face. “Don’t contact me again. I won’t respond.”
“You’ll be dead when I get out of here,” Nicole seethes, her nostrils flaring.
The guards are quick. Dragging her back before she can lash out. Shoving her toward the door.
“You all will be,” she rants.
“You. And you. And especially you.” She tries to launch herself in Dizzy’s direction. “I know what you did, you bitch. I know what you did to my beautiful boy.”
I glance at Dizzy. How can Nicole know?
“Time to go back to your cell,” Isiah tells her. The warden unlocks the door.
“You have much worse coming your way, Lily,” Nicole screams. Her calm demeanour has completely evaporated, replaced with fury and anguish. “You have no idea how much pain he’ll rain down on you for what you’ve done.”
Dizzy is whiter than a ghost by the time Nicole is dragged out.
“Time for you all to leave too,” the warden tells us. Another guard steps up to escort us out.
“Come on.” I grab Dizzy’s shoulders and push her toward the exit. She’s gone weirdly still. I have to force her feet to move. It’s like her usual radiant energy vibe has been extinguished.
“The hunt was nothing! It was nothing,” Nicole’s screams grow quieter as she’s moved deeper into the prison. “You hear me. You’re going to regret—”
The door between us closes.
I’m going to make sure it never opens again. She’ll never see my face in person again, except at the trial when I testify against her.
I’ll make sure she gets what she deserves.