Although, if your positions had been reversed, mate… The voice in his head trailed off, leaving him to figure out what it was trying to point out.
Matt pressed his lips together. He could maybe understand why she reacted the way she had. To be honest, if he had caught Isla on some man's lap in the middle of a kiss, he probably would have reacted much worse. And the thing was, she hadn't even confronted him about it. He was the one who brought Corsa up in the first place. She was looking for clarification. He said he was confronting her but didn't fully explain how he was doing that with her on his lap and their mouths connected…
He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the locks, hoping the pain would bring him some answers. He needed to think. He couldn't dwell on his regrets. He couldn't think about all he had done wrong in order to inadvertently cause this mess. He needed to calm down and to think about how he was going to get out of this mess.
First, he needed to get out of this room. The problem was the room was locked. And no matter how hard he banged into the door, it wouldn’t budge.
Matt scanned the room, hoping for some kind of tool that would remedy his problem. He saw a vanity and walked over to it. When he reached the desk, he began going through the drawers, hoping to find some discarded pins. He managed to find three, and immediately pocketed them all save for one. As he headed back to the door, he bent the wire so it made a straight line rather than a smooth curve. He knelt on the ground and stuck the pin into the lock and very carefully tried to maneuver the pin so it would ease out the key on the other side, undoing the lock.
Matt furrowed his brow in concentration. He gnawed on his tongue gently, trying to keep himself focused. He had never been good at this; Malachite was the real picklock. But the man had taught him the skill and Matt thought he had been a capable student. For the most part.
It wasn't long before Matt heard the telling click of the lock and he knew he succeeded in his task. Still on his knees, he reached up and opened the door a sliver, mindful of the squeak that would have revealed his escape should Billy be close by. He pulled himself into a standing position and was about to dash out of the room when he stopped. He had no weapon; Billy took his pistol and his cutlass was in his room. He did have time to retrieve it, but any time dedicated to something unrelated to Isla just put her in more jeopardy. But he couldn't rush in there without a plan because that would just put both of them into a situation they probably wouldn't be able to get out of.
Matt took in a breath. He needed a weapon. And if he knew exactly where his cutlass was, he would get it as fast as he could. It wouldn't do anything against his pistol but at least he would be prepared.
As Matt made his way to his room on the second story, he took a moment to allow his body to fill with guilt. Billy forced him to pick between Sarah and Isla and he picked Isla. He didn't know if he was making the correct choice—was there a right choice and a wrong choice, really?—but it was the one he made and there was no going back. He hoped that perhaps he would be able to save them both. If he had the opportunity to kill Billy, he wouldn't hesitate. He would run his cutlass straight through Billy's gut and watch as Billy bled out slowly and painfully, staining the wooden floor with his pool of blood.
Sarah, he knew, could take care of herself. He trusted that she'd be able to weasel out of anything Billy put her through. Maybe he was putting too much faith in her, maybe he was trying to make himself feel better about his choice, but Matt knew Sarah could get out of anything. Hell, she might kill Billy herself once she was able to break free from all of this.
When he reached his room, he went to his wardrobe and grabbed the cutlass out of its sheath and hung it on his belt. It fit comfortably on his right hipbone. He pressed his lips together and sent out a little prayer, something he had never done before, that Isla and Sarah were both all right and that somehow, they would all survive this.
Once that was finished, he spun around on the heel of his boot, only to run into Sarah.
"Oh my God, Sarah!" he exclaimed. "You're all right. Thank God."
Sarah furrowed her brow, puzzled. "Why wouldn't I be all right?" She took a step back from her brother and her eyes narrowed on his weapon. "You look like you're preparing for battle, Mattie. What's happened?"
Matt tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. “You mean,” he said, “you don’t know?”
“Mattie, I’m going to throttle you!” She placed her hands on his shoulders and shook just to reveal her frustration. “What are you talking about?”
“Billy, he—”
“You know where Billy is?” Sarah took a step back, running her fingers through her red hair. Matt didn’t want to admit it, but his older sister appeared tired. Vulnerable. “I’ve been looking all over for him. He disappeared after Isla made her rather baffling appearance.” She turned back to regard Matt with a questionable stare. “What was that about, anyway? She seemed a bit off, did she not?”
“Actually, no,” Matt said. “Sarah, Billy is the murderer. I believe Isla went to tell you, but Billy was there as well.”
“Billy…?” Sarah still looked confused before she shook her head. “No. Billy can’t be—”
“He can, and he is,” Matt said. He didn’t intend for his voice to come out harsh, but it did, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it. Instead, he cleared his throat. Perhaps he could be direct without being mean. “He had an affair with one of your girls—Stephanie—and seeing as how she was young and naïve, she told her friend, Briyella. Karina caught them together, which is why he killed her. Stephanie didn’t know any better and ran away.”
“That’s why she disappeared,” Sarah said. Her eyes found her brother’s. “I assumed she killed the two.”
“So did I,” he said. “Apparently, Isla knew for a while. Said she ran into Stephanie during the girl’s departure.”
“But why didn’t Isla come and tell me about it sooner?” Sarah asked. “Why wait until now?”
“Come on, Sarah,” Matt chided gently. “You know why. You’re intimidating to say the least, and she wanted to be certain before going to you, out of respect to you. Billy is your husband, after all. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to go to you in the first place. It wasn’t easy for her to tell me when she did. I didn’t believe her.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Besides the fact that she would have no reason to lie to me?” he asked. “Besides the fact that I should have trusted her?” He shook his head, clenched his jaw, and crossed his arms over his chest. He was still so angry with himself. There was a chance that if he gave Isla the benefit of the doubt, things would still unfold the way they had, but at least they wouldn’t have been on separate sides. At least they would have been a cohesive unit. “Billy showed up here himself, told us everything. What Isla told me was fact and Billy confirmed it himself. The man killed those girls and was going to kill Stephanie before she decided to leave. Isla essentially gave herself away and that was why he came—to make me choose between you and her.”
“And you chose me?” Sarah sounded genuinely perplexed, not touched.
“Isla took that choice away from me,” he explained. “The stubborn fool chose to go with him so I wouldn’t have to choose at all.”
“She must care for you for her to put herself in such danger,” Sarah said, but it sounded as though she were talking more to herself than to Matt.
For some reason, Matt felt compelled to answer. “Of course, she cares about me!” he snapped.
“There’s no need to get defensive about it,” Sarah said, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “Getting on me about it isn’t going to bring her back.”
Matt clenched his jaw to keep from responding. He knew Sarah was right, but it felt good to let go of his frustration, even if it meant taking it out on his sister. Then again, it wasn’t Sarah’s fault. None of it was. If Isla had told him sooner, if he had immediately believed her, if, if, if. This was doing him no good. He needed to solve this, and he needed to
do it now.
“Sorry,” he said finally. It took a lot out of him to say even that. “Sorry.” The second time came easier and it sounded as though he actually meant it. “I just…” He ran his fingers through his hair. He had never felt this helpless before, not even when Sarah had been taken by the Navy. He had a plan for her. With Isla, he had nowhere to begin. “I’m just…”
“I know.” And then Sarah’s hand was clapping him on the shoulder, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I know. We’ll find her, Matt. I promise you, we’ll find her.”
A scream ripped through the air and every single hair on Matt’s body jumped to attention.
“I think we found her,” Sarah murmured to herself.
“She’s still here,” Matt said. His eyes went wide, and he could feel the color drain from his face. “Billy might do something to her for that stunt. Sarah, I have to go to her.”
“Wait, Matt, wait,” she said in a rush, tightening her grip on her brother. There was no way she could overpower him, but she needed him to listen to her before he rushed into something he didn’t have a plan of attack for. “We have to think of something before you rush off.”
“Sarah, she just screamed bloody murder,” Matt said, his eyes blazing. He was pulling away from her but resisting just enough where her grip was not yet compromised. “I can’t wait.”
“You also can’t rush to her, knowing absolutely nothing,” she said. “We have to come up with something together in order to assure her safety as well as ours, or this will all be for naught. Please.”
Matt bit his bottom lip to keep from letting out a growl. He didn’t want Isla to stay any longer with that son of a bitch bastard, especially when he had no idea what Billy was doing to her. But Sarah made a compelling point. He couldn’t rush blindly in, either.
“What is it you have in mind, then?” he asked through gritted teeth, turning his eyes on her.
She gave him a small smile and loosened her grip on his frame. “Well, I took a page out of your book, brother,” she said, and then proceeded to give him a rundown of her idea.
And it was bloody fantastic.
Chapter 22
“You’ve ruined everything.”
I look up from my lap, trying not to notice how uncomfortable my butt is, sitting on this hardwood chair for the couple of hours I’ve been here. Billy has been silent for the most part, probably because he’s keeping me in the storage room in his wife’s brothel. You know, his wife, the one he’s cheating on with one of her working girls after he thought she’d be sentenced to death? Except her brother ended up rescuing her without said husband’s help and brought her back to the establishment that she created by herself.
How could I have ever thought Billy was clever?
Because, quite frankly, he’s an idiot. And that’s being nice.
“I’m sorry?” I ask, quirking my brow. Certainly, he’s not blaming me for the predicament he’s currently in?
“You heard me,” he says again. He’s not aggressive about it, but he is firm, his eyes narrowed on my face.
He could have been handsome, I suppose, if his terrible personality didn’t get in the way. I honestly wonder what he was like before all of this. He must have been different, because Sarah does not tolerate fools. Or assholes.
“Can I ask you something?” I say. I don’t wait for him to answer before I go ahead with my question. “Why are we still here? You know someone’s going to find us, right? And if not, Matt won’t stay in that room forever. Someone will eventually let him out. I can hear him pounding on the door from here, and we’re three stories below him. Did you think about that in your grand scheme? What are you even going to do with me? I’m no one. I’m unimportant.”
“I beg to differ,” Billy says, cutting me off. I’m trying to distract him, trying to ramble and keep him going so I can figure out how I’m going to get out of here. The problem is, Billy tied my wrists pretty tightly together so even though I’m trying to be subtle in my struggle, nothing seems to be working. “You are incredibly important.”
I give him a face that basically says he’s an idiot for thinking so. I don’t mean to, but it’s difficult for me to keep my face from reacting. It just happens. I don’t think about it. I don’t think about how that will affect me or anyone else.
“Don’t look at me that way,” he says, and I can hear the subtle offense gathering in his tone. His brow wrinkles as his eyes narrow further. “It’s the truth. Shall I explain?”
He likes talking, doesn’t he? It’s another issue idiots have—they don’t think they’re as dumb as they are, so they never know when to shut up.
“You probably should,” I respond.
“Do you realize Matt Scott is not the sort of man to fall in love with anyone, let alone some young woman from…” He squints his eyes as a thought occurs to him. “Where are you from, anyway? You have a funny accent and an unfamiliar dialect.”
“The Americas,” I say, because it’s the truth and I can’t think of anything else to say.
He doesn’t look like he believes me, but he doesn’t argue either.
"How is it that Matt found you?" Billy asks me. He steps in my space, which I don't appreciate because I can't deal with people in my space unless I specifically have okayed them to get close with me. Like Matt. Like my parents. Not like Billy. "A girl like you. From the Americas. How is that he fell in love with you?"
"I don't understand your line of questioning," I tell him. And honestly, I don't. "Why are we here? Matt is going to find me. You know that, right? If you want to get away and—"
"Why would I want to get away?" he asks, looking at me like I'm a fool, like an idiot. He takes a step back and I feel my shoulders sag with relief. "Matt is going to be blamed for the murders, you see. He's going to get caught. I'm going to set up this one as well. You'll be dead just as Matt walks in. At that point, I'll have wakened Sarah and told her everything. She'll rush down and see Matt, caught with your blood on his hands." He smirks at his plan because he thinks he's clever and, I will admit, it's not a bad plan. Except for one hitch. "It's hard to rinse blood off."
I give him a look. "You would know," I say. "There's one little problem in this grand scheme of yours."
He perks his brow, a condescending smile on his face. "Oh?" he questions, and it's pretty obvious he doesn't believe me. Which is fine. He will after I say what I'm about to say. "And what would that be?"
I smirk and lean back against the chair. "Sarah," I say simply and shrug.
"Sarah?" He barks out a laugh. "How would Sarah be able to stop me?"
"You misunderstand me," I say. The smirk is still on my face and I feel so cool and calm on the outside that it's easy to ignore the erratic pounding of my heart. There's a really good chance that I'm going to die in the next few hours or moments or whatever timeframe is in Billy's plan and it scares the shit out of me. It really does. But as long as I play it cool and keep talking, keep Billy talking, maybe that'll give me enough time to figure out how I'm going to get out of this one. "Sarah's not going to buy that Matt killed the girls. She's not going to buy that her brother would betray her. You know that."
"I don't, actually," Billy replies, but his eyes darken a fraction because he realizes I've made a point, a point that hadn't yet crossed his mind. He looks dangerous. I tense, waiting for him to lunge at me, waiting for him to attack me, but he doesn't. Not yet.
"You said so yourself," I try to explain. "The reason you and Sarah don't feel married is because she goes to Matt rather than you. She holds Matt higher in regard than you, her own husband."
"Exactly," he agrees with a quick nod.
"Right. So, if she trusts him more than she trusts you, what makes you think she's going to believe Matt betrayed her? She won't. You know it. I know it. This plan of yours, while clever, isn't going to work out, Billy."
It's a weird sight, watching the exact moment when someone goes from confident and secure to furious, knowing the plan they've
slaved over to ensure its success implodes right before their eyes. I can tell the exact moment when Billy realizes that I'm right, that Sarah will never believe Matt would kill those girls and then kill me. I can't describe the way his face changes, the way the light leaves his eyes and wrinkles permeate his face and how everything in his body seizes up with tension.
Before I can blink or take a breath or even scream, Billy lunges at me. I flinch away, turning my face as far away from him as I can. I'm pretty sure I'm going to bruise from that slap he gave me upstairs; I can't afford any other damage done to it. At that moment, the door bursts open and there's Matt, standing with his cutlass poised, ready to take on an entire army let alone one man. I let out a sob of relief. It's weird and I've never made a sound like it before, but I'm just so thankful that Matt is here. I guess I didn't realize how much emotion I was pushing down while with Billy. I was scared shitless and didn't realize it until after the fact. I don't know how I'm feeling right now, in this moment. I don't even care. All I know is that Matt's standing in front of me like a beautiful god and now everything is going to be all right.
"I'm surprised," Billy says. He's stopped himself from touching me—I have no clue what he would have done if Matt hadn't shown up—and turns his body to Matt, covering the majority of my body so Matt can't see much of it. "You chose her."
"Sarah was never in any real danger," Matt says and he sounds like he knows that as fact.
I don't know if it's because he somehow rescued Sarah in the couple of hours of our separation or if he has confidence that Sarah is able to rescue herself. I'm not even upset about it, if that's the case. I can't rescue myself and I'm not deluded to think I am. I have the ability to talk myself out of situations, but I can't fight my way out. And I'm hoping that once things settle down, Matt can help me remedy that.
"I hope you're right," Billy says but he knows, he's not an idiot. He knows.
"She's sleeping, Matt," I tell him. I don't know why I feel compelled to say something when it's clear Matt isn't worried about Sarah right now, but I do know how much she means to him and I want to put his mind at ease and let him know that he's right; that as far as I know, Sarah is okay. "She doesn't even know what's going on."
To Ruin a Rogue: Page 18
