Chapter 1
Scarlett
Legend - noun - multiple definitions
Chiefly ‘Prescott High’ slang: a woman who is a member of all of the above, who leashes fuckboys, serves face, murders goons, gets away with it, changes history, is a badass race car driver, is an adrenaline junkie, is rich, is famous, is a star, is a hero, is a villain.
Absolute fucking LEGEND.
Force, Scarlett. Interview. Conducted by Emma Jean Thompson. 31 Dec.
All statements are officially on the record.
Emma: The one thing I really wanted to bring up is…that army tank.
Interviewer’s Observation: Scarlett Force is sitting in the steaming onsen-style baths that she favors.
These glorious porcelain tubs were handmade in Japan and installed above a natural hotspring, filling each of the nine individual squares with water.
There are smooth pebbled paths in between each with flagstones for easy walking.
Scarlett: *Laughs dryly.* The tank, huh? What’s there to talk about? I don’t know nothin’ about no tank.
Emma: *Nearly cancels the interview.* Scarlett, I was there. Don’t gaslight me. Just say you’re not interested in discussing the subject.
Scarlett: Relax, Suburbs. I said I’d tell you the whole thing once. You just can’t publish it. I warned you not to get involved in all this nonsense just like I’m encouraging your readers not to read it. You know why? Because some things are better left a secret.
Interviewer’s Observation: I am unperturbed by her response.
True investigative journalism finds the truth, no matter how ugly it is.
I may not be able to reveal every detail to the public, but I will present as much of their story as possible.
Scarlett studies me with dark eyes, sweat on her forehead and tattoo ink on her arms.
Emma: I would never intentionally…there’s no reason for everyone to know what really happened to him.
Scarlett: …yeah, that was pretty fucking sad, wasn’t it? *A long, tense pause.* Want to know which bitch ruled the Prescott hellhole after me? I’ll tell you. Stop interrupting and let me say it in order, alright?
Emma: As you wish.
One week before my groom gets shot three times on our wedding day…
Some asshole is blackmailing me with a video of my fuckboy sucking my other fuckboy’s dick.
Alexei and Ash are compelling in this footage. Anyone would be lucky to see it. Black leather gloves threaded in even blacker hair. Pale eyes and dark ones. Dots of sweat on Alexei’s taut lower abs. Ash’s tense jaw, open a little too wide.
They’re mine, and the last thing in the world I will do is share. Nobody is entitled to see our private shit.
I lift my attention up from the screen of my phone.
There’s a text threatening to distribute this video if I delay the police any longer.
Came from the unknown number belonging to Ash’s father, Mayor Kelly.
I text him back with a single thumbs-up emoji and slip the phone back into my leather jacket.
How about I just kill anyone that shares the video publicly? Is that enough of a deterrent?
Racking up more felonies in the name of keepin’ the peace with the family. When all is said and done, Burt Cramer better sign me to his talent agency and make me a star. No. No. He will sign me to his talent agency.
Alexei and I stand shoulder-to-shoulder, framed by the massive iron gate that leads up the steep, forested drive to the Borisov mansion.
My husband and I paint a pretty picture.
Me, all dressed up in a red romper, black leather jacket, and sex-mussed hair.
Alexei, a picture of money, elegance, and zero-fucks-given stitched into the tight, pink line of his angry lips.
In the woods behind us, Kellin Bohnes is hunting.
It’s best for everyone if they leave before it’s too late.
The police in front of us are insisting they have a search warrant for our property, but the lawyer that the mob sent over—a guy named Mr. Lisitsa—claims otherwise.
He showed up here along with the second of three total police cruisers.
They’re looking for Widow, even though I told them the bastard ran off after selling me his car.
Obviously these dudes are all bought and paid for by Jonas. Every single one of them. So, who has bigger balls in the underground? The mob or the mayor?
I’ll give ya one guess.
“Here’s the title for the Vette.” I hand the folded piece of paper over to the lawyer, letting him take a look at it before he shows it to one of the officers.
Widow signed the back of it, releasing the Stingray to me.
Sort of. I maybe took this from his dash and forged his signature.
“Like I said, I bought it. That fucker ain’t here, and you’re not coming in. ”
“One moment.” The blue-suited lawyer makes a call as both Alexei and I study him. He the rat? We’ve been wondering. Our deadline to find and dispatch the mob’s leak is three weeks away. Not a lot of time to commit multiple murders, now is it? “We’re having issues at the house.”
It’s all he says. Minutes later, one of the cops gets a message on his radio and they all leave without ever setting foot past the front gate. I’m impressed. The lawyer turns to look at the pair of us, withdrawing a briefcase from the front seat of his—
What the fuck did this bitch do to his car? He’s got a black ‘64 Cadillac DeVille that started life as a coupe and got hacked into a convertible. Please let this guy be the rat, so I can kill him. He’s going to classic car hell right alongside me.
“Uncle won’t be pleased, will he?” Alexei asks, as blandly as one might discuss the weather. Cops called off by the family as a favor? Tch. Just our new reality. We got connections. “To hear that we’ve been harassed within minutes of him leaving. This makes us look bad.”
“Sign.” The lawyer points at the paperwork inside his briefcase, a shiny pen sitting on the top. He adjusts his thin-rimmed gold glasses with his other hand, wearing a disinterested but diplomatic expression. “Both of you.”
The Caddy’s passenger door swings wide and out steps a girl about my age, dressed in the pleated skirt and blazer of our local prep school. An Oak Valley brat. Huh. Why get out of the car? It’s cold as a witch’s tits out here.
The lawyer, he’s bored out of his skull and he’s the one with a job to do.
What does the little chit want? My sus-o-meter is sussing hard.
As a character in one of Adrian’s hoity-toity books might say: my natural perspicacity has led me to quite quickly become suspicious of this new, impertinent face.
“I need to pee,” the girl whines, holding her phone in one bitchy hand.
The myriad charms dangling from it clink together, a sea of shiny pink and purple trinkets.
Her blue eyes catch on mine and then quickly shift away.
I watch her scan the woods on either side of the driveway, like she’s looking for something specific.
“Get back in the car, Polina.” The lawyer sounds exasperated, giving the girl a look before turning back to Alexei with a small dip of his chin, almost like an apology. “My daughter,” he explains, like he feels the need to show respect toward the reigning Borisov heir.
“And I would give a fuck, why?” Alexei replies icily, staring down his stately nose at the lawyer.
I’m pleased to see that Mr. Lisitsa has the grace to know when he’s outranked, taking a small step back from the briefcase and its location on the hood of the car.
With a beleaguered sigh, Alexei takes out a wipe and uses it to sanitize the pen.
In the midst of his manic disinfecting, he peers at me like he’s trying to unmake the origami of my soul. Reading my motivations in the shape of the folds as he smooths them out with his elegant fingers.
My breath hitches. Not even touching me and he’s zinging me? My nipples hurt, and not from the cold.
“I need to go now.” Polina gestures rudely in the direction of the house, phone charms flying. “What am I supposed to do? Piss my pants?”
“You can pop a squat in the woods.” I shrug my shoulders. “Ain’t nobody goin’ in that house that I don’t know personally. I’m sure my husband has some extra wipes on him that he can lend you.”
Polina openly scowls at me, holding her phone in such a way that she could easily be recording us.
The lawyer sighs and removes his glasses, using a microfiber cloth to clean the lenses.
He murmurs a stern order in Russian, something that upsets Polina.
The girl turns and leans her back up against the side of the mutilated DeVille, scrolling on her phone with feigned apathy that’s painful to watch.
I’ve never seen someone try so hard to appear innocent and yet look so guilty. It’s astounding. Teenage girls can be monsters, too, can’t they? I sure am.
Alexei picks up the paperwork—which is also in Russian—reading it with quick flicks of his clever-bright eyes. The fingers of his right hand curl through mine, smooth latex against calloused whorls. Every other sentence or so, he lets his attention skip back to me. Then to Polina.
He’s wondering the same damn thing I am.
If the lawyer isn’t our rat, then it must be someone close to him. Someone with less understanding of the consequences. Someone he trusts so thoroughly that he wouldn’t bother to hide his work from. Someone spoiled. Someone naive.
Polina lifts her head from her phone, peering around with a frustrated moue. She tucks achromatic blond hair behind one ear, turning her phone this way and that way. The camera pans across both myself and Alexei, taking in the scenery behind the iron gate where the Stingray sits.
Mr. Lisitsa sniffs and folds his hands together in front of himself, staring politely at the trees across the quiet country road.
He’s not our guy.
Polina is looking right at me again.
More than likely, a member of his family is betraying his trust.
I should know. I made the same mistake with Lexi.
Burt calls my phone, and I answer like we’re old friends.