Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Rose
Avoice.
“Rose. Sweetheart, wake up.”
It’s soft. Familiar.
I blink through the haze. There’s an ache behind my eyes, and my wrists burn. After a second, it clicks. Zip ties bite into my skin, anchoring me to a chair. The room is dim and smells faintly of disinfectant and burning plastic. Which is odd.
Then I see her.
“Mom?” My question cracks, disbelieving.
Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?
A fuzzy vision of her morphs and takes shape. It’s white and blurry, but it’s her. I blink tightly once and then twice, trying to clear what’s clogging my vision.
Slowly, things are starting to make sense.
Mom sits across the room, her face ghost-pale, wrists bound tightly behind her. For a moment, I forget how to breathe. But then her eyes meet mine, and relief floods her face.
She’s still in her ballgown. The fabric’s torn and frayed at the hem.
Her once-elegant hair hangs in tangled, greasy strands around her face, matted against her cheeks.
The dark circles reveal her exhaustion, but she’s here—she’s alive.
Tears cloud my vision as her lips tremble into a smile. “Oh, thank God,” she breathes out.
“M… Mom.” The word scrapes out of me as the sight of her hits me so hard my whole body goes numb. Tears burn up instantly, blurring my reality. “I … I thought you were—”
The rest dies in my throat. I can’t say the word dead. I won’t. Not when she’s right here. Alive! And looking at me with the same disbelief and aching relief tearing through my body.
“I know,” she whispers. “I know, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m alive.”
Hearing her say it causes all the unease I’ve been holding in to leave my body. I smile, and a relieved laugh slips out. I want to prove to myself that she’s real and throw my arms around her, run to her, surround myself with her motherly affection. And I know she wants to do the same.
But we can’t. Both of us unable to move, tied to our chairs. The distance feels like miles and not feet. It’s unbearable.
My hands twitch uselessly behind my back, aching to hold her. Instead, all I can do is sit here and let the relief crash through me in one overwhelming wave.
But then the fear returns as my body tenses, remembering why I’m here in the first place. Cal holding me, the gunshot, Cal falling, the rain. So much rain. The images race back, and my body chills. “Cal,” I squeak out with a shiver. “He was shot. He … he tried to protect me.”
Mom’s tired face fills with nothing but sympathy and the motherly affection I missed so much these last few days.
“Cal?” she asks softly. “Is he the one you worked with last year? The guy you really liked?” She trembles at the memory.
There’s a faint, knowing smile on her lips. As only a mother can have.
She remembers. Of course she does.
I told her everything.
How Cal made me feel seen for the first time.
How I was falling for him. Hard.
How it broke me when he walked away that night.
She knows it all. I nod, a tear slipping down my cheek.
“I’ve been with him all night, Mom. Trying to find you.
He’s been working on your case.” I pause.
“Those feelings didn’t go away. Cal is …
well, he’s amazing. He…” Choking, I’m unable to get the rest out as the sobs overwhelm me.
The thought of never seeing him again coupled with not knowing if we could make it work, rips through me.
“They’ll find him. If he’s as strong as you described to me last year, he will be okay. But right now, you need to stay calm. Do you hear me? Trust me when I say that you have to stay calm.”
She says this as if she knows something I don’t.
Tears track my cheeks as I nod while forcing a breath, glancing around. Where are we? Wires run across the floor, snaking into black boxes stacked against the walls. Monitors skip and flash with half-dead screens. Security feeds, maybe. I’m not sure.
For a second, the image of the lobby flashes, distorted by static.
Then it hits me. “Oh, my God.” I blink at the screens again, the tangled setup of routers and laptops. “This is surveillance equipment. These are images of the hotel.”
Mom nods faintly. “They moved me here after you arrived. This room is bigger. I was in the one next door.”
“Niko took me. He drugged me with something. He’s the one who shot Cal. Why would he bring me—” Then my mom’s words register. “Wait. They?” I echo.
Her brows knit together as her expression softens. “Rose, honey—” But before she can say anything, the door swings open.
Niko steps in first. His clothes and hair are still damp from the rain. Anguish carves deep into his features. My stomach lurches as soon as I see him.
And then she walks in.
Maggie?
For a heartbeat, I don’t breathe. Her face is assured, but her eyes give her away. They’re sharp, irritated, almost … annoyed.
My jaw drops.
No. No, no, no—this can’t be right. Maggie’s in Italy right now.
Flashes of the last few hours play on a loop like a movie.
I think back to our FaceTime earlier today and immediately recognize the window across the room.
The soft white curtain. The brick wall outside.
How she held the phone, blocking my view of her room.
My mind works backwards as I remember hearing rain when we talked.
I glance into the bathroom. The same one she was in during our call.
She was at the hotel the whole time. In this very room.
Then the commotion, and she told me she was at a club. The Mask. She was at the ball.
Mom’s note.
It all makes sense. Mom didn’t know who was chasing her. She thought she was going to die and wanted Maggie to know she was sorry about the night of the fire.
But now?
My mind trips over itself. Is she part of this? Is she involved? Or—is Niko forcing her? Is she trapped too?
None of it fits or makes sense. My thoughts spin, smashing into each other, desperate for a version of this moment that isn’t true. But the longer I look at her, the more the truth becomes my reality.
The room tilts, sounds fading in and out as the pieces come together in ways I don’t want to see. Questions claw their way through my mind.
How long?
Why?
What did I miss?
And why is she with Niko?
Every memory, every conversation with her, suddenly feels tainted. I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Only that nothing is steady. The room blurs slightly then focuses. Whatever was on the cloth Niko put over my mouth is still lodged in my head.
Niko locks onto me instantly. “Rose.” He crosses the room in three long strides and kneels beside me, glancing around, assessing the zip ties, upset and concerned that I’m strapped to this chair.
Which is ... confusing. He reaches for me, but I reel back as far as I can.
“Are you okay? I know you must me so mad, but I had to—”
I jerk to the left. “Don’t touch me.”
He blinks, startled.
Behind him, Maggie’s jaw clenches. “Unbelievable,” she mutters. “Even now.”
The bite in her tone borders on hatred. My brain stalls, refusing to make sense of it all.
“Maggie,” the name tastes like ash as everything finally clicks. “You… you’re behind this?”
She smirks, stepping into the light, and bows. She freaking bows. “Took you long enough.”
“Why?” The question trembles with disbelief. “Why would you do this?”
Maggie catches the way my expression crumples, the way realization hits me like a blow. She sees it.
And she’s enjoying it.
A cruel little smile twitches at the corner of her mouth as she takes pleasure in the damage she’s caused. “Because I hate you,” she spits, the words cutting like glass. More shock. More confusion. “I always have. You had it all. The attention, sympathy, love. Even my parents liked you better.”
I watch her, stunned. “Your parents? What are you talking about? Are you high? On drugs? Maggie ... it’s me and Mom,” I plead, hoping to snap her out of this and bring back my Maggie.
But the words don’t register. “Don’t act shocked,” she sneers. “You know what they did. You just don’t know why. They were taking what they deserved. Your mom ruined them.”
Denny was right. Maggie’s parents were thieves, stealing people’s identities. And my mom figured it out and confronted them that tragic night.
I glance at mom, ready to ask what happened, but she’s zeroed in on Maggie. Her voice quivers from across the room. “They ruined themselves, Maggie. How many more times do I have to say it?”
Maggie whirls on her. “You took everything from me!”
“They did that to themselves! I tried to save them. They wouldn’t listen.”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, Diane. It won’t be enough or bring them back!”
My attention pings between them, trying to keep up. The animosity is thick, heavy with something that feels old. It’s clear this isn’t their first fight.
What happened in this room? It’s obvious something awful has already taken place, and I’ve been dragged into the aftermath. The weirder this gets, the harder it is to piece it together and the more everything slips through my grasp.
Niko stands abruptly, facing Maggie. “This isn’t helping.” He rests his hand on her shoulder, then his thumb rubs against her shirt. The gesture is almost sweet.
Caring.
My glance darts from him to her, the realization cutting through me like a knife. “You’re working together.”
Maggie’s lips curl into a cold smile. “Oh, we’re more than that.”
Bitterness reaches my tongue. “What?”
Niko’s guilt-ridden eyes say it all.
“You,” I snarl to Maggie. “You’re the one he cheated with.”
This cannot be happening. Maggie. My cousin. My best friend. The one person I trust more than anyone … slept with Niko. Why? Why would she do that to me?
I dig my heels into the hard floor. God, I need Cal right now. Where is he? Is he okay?
Maggie doesn’t deny it. Only smiles. “Of course you didn’t notice. How he looked at me. How bored he was with you.”