Chapter Twenty-Five
With only four days until Christmas, Penelope had agreed to help Laura get a dress. She received a note from Beckham with the pickup time for her and Laura. Reyna raced out of her room and found Meghan, Jodie, and Laura seated around a table in the rec room, which was crowded for early afternoon.
“Hey!” she said, running up to them.
“Reyna.” Meghan jumped to her feet. “I need to talk to you. Can we do it outside?”
“Can it wait? I want to talk to Laura. I have good news.”
Meghan grabbed her arm and tried to all but drag her out of the rec room. “It’ll just be a minute.”
“What the hell,” Reyna said. “Meghan, stop!”
“Go with her, Reyna,” Laura said cajolingly, her face wan.
Only Jodie seemed too interested in the television to bother trying to corral Reyna out of the room.
Reyna yanked her arm out of Meghan’s grasp. “What is going on?”
That was when Reyna noticed the television and, more specifically, who was on it. Beckham and Penelope’s smiling faces and a bridal shop.
“Looks like he’s taking her to pick out her wedding dress. I guess they’re closing down the entire boutique just for her,” Jodie said with a sigh. Her eyes finally turned back to Reyna. “Sorry. Seems he played you again.”
Reyna laughed at Jodie. At all of them. “He didn’t play me. This is for Laura!”
Laura looked confused. Jodie disbelieving. Meghan a little sad.
Reyna took a seat across from Laura and took her hand. “It’s a setup, and it was my idea to begin with. We asked Penelope to pretend like she was going to get her dress there so we could get the shop to close. Then we can sneak you in the back to get a wedding dress.”
“What?” Laura gasped. Tears came easily to her eyes. She swiped at them. “Pregnancy hormones.”
Jodie laughed. “Holy shit, bet Little Miss Mayor is super thrilled about this.”
“Wow, Reyna,” Meghan said, sliding into a chair next to her.
“I cannot believe you did this!” Laura squealed. She threw her arms around Reyna. “You are the best soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
Reyna hugged her back. “You’re welcome. I’m glad it worked.”
“This is great, but…” Meghan began.
“Oh God, here we go,” Jodie grumbled.
“It’s not safe for you or Laura to leave Elle.”
“We’ll be with Beckham. I’m pretty sure he knows how to secure a facility. He would never put me in any danger.”
Meghan glanced at the floor. “Except that time he did.”
“I put myself in danger. Not him.” Meghan opened her mouth to respond, but Reyna beat her to it. “And if he thinks it’s okay for us to go to the bridal shop, then it is.”
“Okay. Okay,” Meghan said, holding her hands up. “I’m just looking out for you. I really am excited about the dress.”
Reyna hugged Meghan and promised to be careful, then dragged Laura away to her room to meet their pickup window.
Laura was abuzz with excitement, chatting nonstop about how incredible it was that Beckham could pull this off.
A knock came to her closet door at precisely the time Beckham had said, but when Reyna opened the door, she didn’t find Beckham.
“Ladies,” Gabe said with a wink. “Slight change of plans. Come along, you two.”
Laura scurried forward as Reyna made the introductions and they headed out of the room. Laura blushed when Gabe worked his charm on her. Reyna had to refrain from rolling her eyes.
“So…a wedding dress, huh?” he asked Reyna.
“For Laura. She’s marrying my brother.”
“Lucky guy.”
“Oh, shut it,” Reyna said with a laugh.
They took the elevator up to the top floor, went out the steel door, and hurried out into the cold. Reyna was glad they’d once again bundled up downstairs as they hurried into a heavily tinted black van.
Reyna sat in the passenger seat next to Gabe while Laura peered eagerly out the window in the back. She had forgotten that it had probably been months since Laura had left the safety of the underground bunker. She was soaking everything in, because who knew when it would happen again?
“So, why you and not Beckham?” Reyna asked, turning her attention to Gabe.
“I was in the area. Thought it’d be easier.”
Reyna doubted that was the entire story but decided to let it drop. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Do you normally ask for permission?”
“No,” she said with an eye roll.
“Then shoot.”
“The first time I was at Five Points, I ended up two floors up in a black-market blood bank.”
Gabe swerved the van. Laura grunted from the back seat, her hand on her belly, and Reyna clutched the side panel.
“Watch what you’re doing,” she groaned.
“How the hell did you come across that?”
“On accident?” she said with a shrug. “There was a riot. We escaped and fled up two floors and found it when we were hiding.”
“We?”
“Everett and I,” she clarified.
“Motherfucker.”
“I just wanted to know if it belongs to Elle?”
“Well, it’s a side business I was running out of Five Points, but we relocated it somewhere safer shortly after that riot. Elle has some of it. I have some of it.” He shrugged.
“That’s an interesting side business.”
“Hey, it’s hard to make money on the streets, and blood is no different than drugs or sex. It all sells.”
Well, she couldn’t argue with that—but it did leave her with a lot of questions.
If Everett was working for Visage when they found the blood bank at Five Points, had he reported it?
He had to have known it would have been of interest to them.
She had so many questions about Everett’s behavior—his friends’ distrust and hatred of vampires, his knowledge of Elle, his interest in her rebellious photography.
How could a man like that also work for Visage? How could he have betrayed her?
She sighed and decided it would continue to be a mystery. She needed to focus on the present anyway. Getting Laura a wedding dress and dealing with Penelope.
Gabe turned them down an alley and parked the truck in an underground garage.
“The store has been cleared, and paparazzi have been removed from much of this area, but it’s never a guarantee with those fuckers.
Wear this hat,” he said, tossing it to her and one to Laura as well. “Keep your heads down.”
They all hopped out of the van. Gabe ushered them into an elevator that shot straight up to the ground floor and opened up on the opposite side into a deserted corridor.
They walked partway down the hall to a back entrance, and he slid a key into the door.
It popped open, and Reyna and Laura both hurried inside.
Gabe glanced once more down the hall before ducking inside and locking everything back up.
Reyna yanked the hat off her head and breathed a sigh of relief. She hated this sneaking around. She could tell by Laura’s expression that she didn’t like it, either.
They were standing in the back room of the bridal shop where dozens of gowns in various states of unpacked took up much of the space.
There was a corner for a seamstress to work, a small shipping and receiving area cluttered with boxes, tissue paper, and tape, a door to the owner’s office, and a second one to the boutique itself.
The boutique door opened, and Gabe immediately thrust himself in front of them. In strode a shrewd-looking woman in her early thirties wearing a slim-cut black dress.
“Olivia,” Gabe said with a grin. “Good to see you.”
“Gabriel,” she said with a tight-lipped smile. “I wasn’t aware you would be joining us.”
“Just here for the delivery.” He gestured to the two women behind him. “Olivia, this is Reyna and Laura. Olivia is part of the cause.”
“Indeed. Now come along, ladies,” Olivia said, clapping her hands twice. “Let’s get you inside. I hear we have a bride we’re shopping for?”
Laura grinned like a fool and joined Olivia. They immediately began chatting up a storm about the impending wedding.
Reyna nudged Gabe. “Heartbreaker.”
“As if I’m the only one.” He disappeared back through the door.
Reyna hurried to catch up to Laura and Olivia, only to be stopped by none other than Penelope Sky herself.
Reyna swallowed and tried to remember that she needed to be nice.
Nice and happy and appreciative. Penelope had gone out of her way to help set this up.
Without her, Laura never would have gotten to pick her own dress.
“Hey, Penny,” Reyna said, forcing a smile on her face. “Thank you so, so much for doing this for Laura. It’s super nice of you. I know both Laura and I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, it’s just you,” Penelope said with a frown. “I thought Beckham had come back, finally.”
“Gabe said there was a change of plans.”
“Yes.”
Reyna waited, expecting her to elaborate. “What happened?”
“Don’t you already know?”
“I don’t.”
“Maybe he’ll tell you when he comes back for me,” she said, then turned and walked back into the boutique.
Reyna closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and counted to ten.
She understood why Penelope was uncomfortable in this situation.
They were using her fake engagement to help someone else.
It couldn’t be easy, being reminded that the engagement was fake.
Still, Reyna was trying to be on her best behavior, and Penelope’s attitude didn’t make it any easier.
After she calmed down, Reyna walked through the doors and into the boutique.
The place was breathtaking. The walls were lined with evenly spaced white gowns in every shape and cut imaginable.
Some were the starkest white while others were a dark cream or off-white or even an array of colors—red, green, blue, and black.
Glitter and lace and sequins and crystals abounded.
Gossamer and tulle and silk and satin and all kinds of brilliant materials made these incredible creations.
Reyna couldn’t stop staring at them. The cost of one of these amazing gowns could likely feed the entire Warehouse District for a day.
Of course, Beckham could afford it, and he was footing the bill.