by Jillian Dodd
“But it’s a ballgown. You’ve been trying on sheaths and mermaid styles.”
“Not Ty. Peter,” she sobs.
“Oh. You dreamed of marrying Peter in a ballgown, and since you’re marrying someone else, you don’t want that kind of dress with him?”
“Correct,” she says, dabbing her eyes with an embroidered hankie.
“We need to get you a new prince, so you can have your fairy-tale wedding. And you have to try it on.”
“Oh no, I can’t.”
I drag her in the boutique. “Yes, you can.”
When she comes out in the dress, she’s twirling around, face beaming so much that I half-expect her to start singing and for birds to flutter around her in happiness.
“This is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen,” she says to herself in the mirror, seemingly obsessed with how she looks. “I don’t ever want to take it off.”
She sits on a divan near me, glittering tulle enveloping her.
“You have to try something on here. A dress like this.”
“Oh no, this is your day. I’m barely engaged. Besides, Daniel wants to marry soon, so I’ll probably have to buy something off the rack.”
“Fine,” she says, getting up and standing on the podium in front of the mirror again. “We’ll have to stay here and admire me for a while longer.”
When the designer adds a headpiece and veil, Blair breaks down in tears, caught up in a bridal moment.
The designer lets Blair know she can customize her dream dress with different types of lace and beading. Things like adding color to the underlay or even using real gold thread.
It’s nearly two hours later before we manage to escape from the store.
“You know what?” she says. “I have somewhere I want to go just for fun. There’s this designer from Dubai who does crazy, over-the-top dresses. He just opened a boutique around the corner.”
And this place is different.
Every single dress is wildly extravagant.
Blair introduces me to the designer, who happens to be in town. He’s a bundle of energy, and he happily escorts us through the showroom where we ooh and aah over one dress after another.
Blair chooses a gown to try on.
While I’m waiting, the designer studies me and then finally says, “I recognize you now. You were dating the Prince of Montrovia when I was there for the race. I saw you at the Casino, although we never met.” He stands up and holds out his hand. “Come in the back with me. I have a dress you must see. A creation I’m working on. And I think I’ve been making it just for you.”
In the back room, surrounded by bolts of fabric and sewing machines, is a single dress on a form.
I can’t move. The dress is so beautiful, so ornate, so grand that I can barely breathe. I can picture the fairy tale in my head. Lorenzo and I standing on the balcony on our wedding day, waving to the crowd. Me in this dress.
Lorenzo is my dream that won’t die, but the possibility of us actually getting our happy ending seems more impossible with every day that passes. This dress though is giving my dream some serious CPR. Bringing life back into the dream, stoking the flames of wishes I carry deep inside.
“If I were to marry Lorenzo, this would be the perfect dress. But he’s engaged to someone else,” I say, tears slipping down my cheeks at the thought.
I rush out of the store, Blair yelling, “Where are you going?”
“I’ll see you at dinner,” I reply.
I don’t go back to Lorenzo’s even though I promised Chauncey. I just can’t see him. It’s too heartbreaking. Everything he said last night was sweet, and I know he means it, but it kills me.
It chips away at the tough exterior that I need to have when there’s so much at stake.
“What’s the matter?” Peter says when I get to his house.
I rush up to my room and break down in tears, babbling out everything that happened during the shopping trip.
“You mean, she pictured marrying me?” Peter says, grinning.
“We’re supposed to be talking about my heartbreak of finding the perfect dress to marry Lorenzo in.”
“You told Blair she shouldn’t marry Ty. I’m going to tell you the same thing. You can’t marry Daniel. Make Lizzie jealous if need be, but I swear, I won’t let you go through with it.” He sits on the bed with me, leaning his head against mine. “Although you could probably kick my ass. I can’t believe you shot all those men in Iraq.”
“I’ve been trying to forget about that. It was way too real compared to the video games I’m used to playing.”
“Well, whatever you did worked. We got out of there alive. You helped save my life. I’m not going to let you ruin yours by marrying someone you don’t love.”
“Everything is so mixed up. Blair is engaged to Ty but wants to marry you. I’m engaged to Daniel, who wants to marry Lizzie. And Lorenzo is engaged to Lizzie and wants to marry me. Would you marry Blair?”
“In a heartbeat,” Peter says.
“Considering she found the dress to do so in, tonight might be a good time to revisit the possibility of you getting back together.”
“It’s scary though. I do enjoy being single. Sometimes.”
“When you were with Allie, you were constantly looking for the next best thing. I think what you were really looking for was the last best thing.”
He nods as he heads out the door. “I think you’re right about that.”
As I’m considering what to wear for dinner, Peter pops his head in.
“After our talk, I decided to go a little fancier than the pub. Dress up.”
I smile. There’s something hanging in the closet that I’ve been dying to wear since Dr. Kate delivered it. It’s a beautiful Marchesa tea-length gown in a beautiful smoky-blue ombré with floral print. The top features a plunging V-neck, trimmed in delicate black lace and velvet ribbons. The top is sexy, but then it has this voluminous tulle skirt that makes you want to twirl around.
Must be the aftereffects of seeing Blair in the dress she loved.
Viktor, Peter, and I hop in a black car and stop to pick up Blair on the way, and when we get to the restaurant, I’m shocked to find Lorenzo already seated and waiting for us.
“You look delectable,” he whispers in my ear, pulling out my chair after greeting everyone and being introduced to Blair.
I give Peter a glare, but he and Viktor just give me conspiratorial grins.
Viktor pushes the envelope even more. “Ladies, how was wedding dress shopping?”
Blair and I glance at each other and simply sigh.
Peter holds up his hand to summon the bartender.
It’s going to be that kind of night, I think.
Our dinner turned out to be really wonderful. Lorenzo is so charming. Peter is witty. And Viktor, who is starting to come out of his grief-stricken state, is a little goofy.
The dirty jokes he told had me in stitches, which, added to stories from Peter and Lorenzo, kept the conversation flowing along with the wine.
After dinner, Lorenzo pulls me aside. “Don’t think you’re going back to Peter’s. I was very upset you didn’t come home this afternoon.”
“I found a dress.”
“Oh,” he says, looking down.
“The dream dress,” I add with a sigh.
“Oh?” he says, his face brightening. “You must come tell me all about this dress.”
In the car on the way there though, he asks me about Peter and Blair, so I give him a brief rundown.
“Beauty awakens the soul to act,” he says. “Dante said that. And I find love to be the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“Well, Peter is hoping that his love will react with Blair’s soul in a way that will make her break the engagement.”
“I used to be like Peter,” he says. “They used to call me the Playboy Prince.”
“Oh, that I am well aware of,” I say with a laugh.
“But I realized that it wasn’t me jus
t wanting to be a playboy. It was that I hadn’t met anyone who made me not want to be one until I met you. Now, when I look at other women, I see simple beauty. An interesting feature. But all women pale in comparison to you. You are the only one I desire.”
“You know I’m not supposed to love anyone. I can’t have emotional attachments with my mission right now,” I argue, trying to convince him as much as myself.
He takes my hand and holds it to his heart. “Huntley, you were trained not to have emotional attachment, but I see evidence of you going against that. From a purely scientific perspective, you can see it, too. When I am near, your heartbeat speeds up.”
“That just means I’m attracted to you,” I scoff.
“No, it doesn’t because, other times, I have a calming effect. I see emotion in your eyes when you look at Chauncey. And I know, based on the fact that you didn’t kill his father, that you’re not a killing machine.”
“I just killed a bunch of men in Iraq. Thank goodness Peter and Viktor haven’t even asked me how I managed to do that. They are convinced it was from my video game playing and that I was able to sneak up on them because I’m a girl, you know. But, still, I killed.”
“You are a warrior for good. Plain and simple.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, moving closer and placing my lips on his.
He’s right. Beauty awakens the soul to act, and I’m acting by unbuttoning his shirt. Of course, Dante also said that the path to paradise begins in hell.
When we arrive at home, Chauncey greets us. He’s bouncing up and down. “Look what I got! I think it might be from my dad! I think he’s letting me know that he’s okay!”
He thrusts a stuffed dog in my direction.
The dog from the video game.
The dog from my childhood.
The dog my uncle Sam gave to me when I was ten.
The dog that should have blown up with my dad.
I take the dog and study it, noting its charred fur and loose tail—a product of my dad, Blake, swinging it around to make me laugh.
“I have to go,” I say immediately, grabbing my backpack.
“No, you just got here!” both Lorenzo and Chauncey exclaim.
“I have a hunch, but it’s an important one. We shouldn’t be seen together at the race anyway. You don’t want to cause trouble for Lizzie or with your mother right now.”
I give him a kiss, my heart pounding so loudly that I fear it might beat out of my chest.
Lorenzo’s hands tightly grip my waist, not letting me go, instead pulling me back for the kind of kiss that will linger on my lips for days.
MISSION:DAY FOURTEEN
The second I shut Lorenzo’s door, I am on the phone with my crew, telling them to meet me at the airport.
It’s close to midnight when we finally take off, but I can’t sleep. My brain is going crazy.
I think back to the video game. I was the only one who could win the key because I’m the only one who knew how my missions all went. Based on the game, their knowledge was pieced together from different sources.
Uncle Sam sent me to Blackwood Academy.
Uncle Sam’s loft, the TerraSphere, and Marquis Dupree’s homes were detailed in the game, meaning that the designer of the update had such knowledge.
That leads me to wonder if Uncle Sam works for or is possibly the leader of Black X. I mean, he gave me the dog.
But Uncle Sam was not at Blake’s office before we got into the car. He couldn’t have known I had the dog with me, and there’s no way a stuffed animal could have survived the blast.
Unless someone else did.
Someone who saluted me in the Iraqi desert and is probably the person who has been following me.
That leads me to one conclusion.
Blake Cassleberry is still alive.
But if Blake is a part of this, why wouldn’t he tell me? Why would he make me believe he was dead? Why make me believe I was working for a covert agency? And if he knows about the rings and about the group Ares joined, why is he making me figure it out for myself?
Because he doesn’t know who the men at the table are or what their plan is, flits through my brain.
I do finally doze off, but I wake, bright-eyed and with a thought in my head. I pull the trust documents out of my backpack and scan through it to find the addresses of other two places Ares Von Allister owned in the District of Columbia.
It takes me a while to find them, and even though I sort of expected it, I’m still stunned I’m right. Ares Von Allister owned both the house my mother was killed in as well as Uncle Sam’s loft apartment.
Granted, he could have purchased our house after my mother’s death, but why would he own Uncle Sam’s loft?
As soon as we land, I hop in the pre-arranged car that is waiting for me and consider where to have the driver take me. I should probably just go to Ares’s house. With the eight-hour flight and the time change, it’s three in the morning here. But my dad’s words play in my head.
“Get out of the car and run, and no matter what, don’t stop running until you get to Uncle Sam’s.”
That’s where my gut has been telling me to run since I saw the dog.
So, that’s where I go.
The loft is just as I remember it. Still the same gold plate with a doorbell, but then I notice something new underneath it. A keypad with the distinctive Von Allister logo, a V and A layered over each other in a circular monogram.
Installed by Ares when he purchased it? Did he buy these for me before he passed to give me some kind of comfort?
I’m sorry, but I have no desire to ever go back to the place where my mother was killed.
I press the code that controls everything else in Ares’s world, which causes the door to click open.
I take a deep breath, go into the entry, and up the stairs. When I get to the landing portion of the wide open space, two men are standing there, waiting for me.
“We wondered when you’d finally come back here,” Blake Cassleberry says.
I’m torn between running into the arms of the only father I’ve ever known or punching him in the nose.
But then he turns, and I see the scars running down the side of his face and neck.
“I thought you were dead,” I say instead. “Why didn’t you come for me?”
“I had a trusted friend who was going to follow us to the train station and make sure we didn’t have a tail. After we made our getaway safely, he was going to stage our deaths. You were younger, faster. I got out but was too close when the bomb went off. I was badly injured. Burned. Clinging to life.
“My friend managed to clear me from the scene and get me on a plane with a medic who took me to South America to recover. Only recently was I well enough to leave, well enough to continue this fight. It’s what drove me to survive. To get better. To go through the pain of the burns healing. The numerous surgeries. The excruciating rehabilitation. Once I was whole, this is the first place I came.”
“And you’ve been following me. I couldn’t see you, but I felt you. You saved my life from the car bomb six years ago and again this week in Iraq. Thank you.”
He nods solemnly.
“And, you,” I say to the dean, “now that I know the truth, I do see your resemblance to Ares.”
“Can I get a hug from my granddaughter?” the dean asks sincerely.
“Not just yet. We have more to discuss first. Are you two really all that’s left of what was Black X?”
“Basically, yes,” the dean says.
“Basically, no,” I reply. “Guess I should have listened to my grandfather’s advice because, when he tells you to trust no one, he’s referring to himself.” I let out a sigh. “I’m here to see my uncle Sam.”
A noise from behind me draws my attention, and I turn around as the man steps into the room.
He’s tall and broad and hasn’t seemed to age a day.
“You’re the leader of Black X,” I say. “You created Blackwood Academy for me
. You created Battleground for me. And you created the update with the key so that I would finally know.”
“That’s correct,” he says, except something is off with his voice.
I’ve heard that voice before. In the game.
“What I don’t know is if you killed Ares Von Allister in the process,” I reply, although the second the words come out of my mouth, my brain figures it all out.
I already know the answer. I can’t believe it’s been staring me in the face this entire time. From everywhere at the lab to the brake calipers on the Ferrari, from Malcolm’s marred gold gun to The Society phones, and everywhere in between. The Von Allister logo literally forms a Black X. They didn’t kill Ares Von Allister because he’s—
“Not exactly,” Uncle Sam says, pulling off a latex mask, the kind I’ve seen only in Mission: Impossible movies, and revealing his true identity.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I tell him.
“We’re all supposed to be dead, Calliope,” Ares Von Allister says to me.
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BOOKS BY:JILLIAN DODD
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