“Not super nice?” Brooklyn filled in for her.
“Right. Plus, I thought it was so weird, like what cop takes someone for coffee and then arrests them?” She paused. “Unless he got a confession or something?”
“So, the guy she sat in here and had coffee with arrested her when they left?” I said, needing confirmation.
“Yeah,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself, I was staring like a total peeping Tom, but it was so weird, you know?” She shook her head. “He was holding her hand in here one second and the next he’s pushing her in the backseat of the car and taking her phone. He even used it!”
Brooklyn and I exchanged a quick glance. “He used her phone?” she asked.
“Yeah! He took it from her and then I saw him in the car using it. So weird,” she said.
Brooklyn yanked her phone from her pocket and swiped to a picture we’d taken at the pub the other night of the four of us. I was sitting and looking immensely irritated, Aiden was smiling like a fourth grade suck-up, and the girls were looking bright and pretty. Brooklyn stabbed a finger at Aiden’s face. “Was this the guy?”
Meryl’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that’s him!”
“Thanks,” Brooklyn said, pocketing her phone again. “You’ve been really helpful.”
“Sorry to be the one giving you bad news,” she said.
“Actually, you helped us more than you know,” Brooklyn said, and we rushed outside.
“Fuck!” I yelled when we were away from the windows. “He fucking arrested her?”
Brooklyn was already dialing the police station. “He must have fucked around with something. Not given her a phone call or something.”
“I’ll start the car,” I said. “We’re going there right away.” I ran to the car and got in the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition.
But when she got in beside me, her face was white as a sheet.
“What?” I demanded. “What’s wrong? Is she not in Hampshire?”
And when the words poured forth from her mouth, everything terrible that had been rattling around in my mind was confirmed.
“Jude, she’s not in the system at all.”
20
Lila
The worst part about being held captive is not necessarily being locked away somewhere. It’s not the fear, or the claustrophobia, or the lack of control.
It’s the boredom.
I had been sitting in this God-forsaken, dimly lit cellar for who knows how long, with literally nothing to do. Fear came and went in waves. The panic rose like the tide and then went back out to sea again. But, the boredom never left.
Like a pesky friend I didn’t want to have.
It took me only an hour to figure out why they had locked me in a room with such valuable inventory. Pulling a bottle from the shelf, I’d found it to be empty. The next was the same. And the next one. And the next. I checked every single one, and while reading the labels kept me entertained for a while, it only worked up until a certain point. Then, I noticed that there were only twelve different bottles, and they repeated. It was actually pretty brilliant. The pattern, one you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know it was there, gave the walls a satisfying look. To an untrained eye, or someone who wasn’t paying attention, it looked like a wall full of the most expensive wines this world had to offer.
But for me, it really sucked ass.
I was laying facedown across the table, hanging my head off the side and pretty well zoned out when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I bolted upright.
There were two sets of footsteps coming. I listened carefully, taking a seat at the table and folding my hands on its surface. Let them see me cool, collected. I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of seeing my fear.
Whoever they were.
“Mafia, my ass,” I whispered to myself.
Two men rounded the stairs: Aiden and a new guy. It was made clear who the boss was here when Aiden ran to get a chair and set it down for the other man. I watched all of this with interest. Focusing on the dynamics helped me forget about the fear.
And it told me who I really needed to address during all of this.
“Ms. Carlisle,” the man said, crossing his legs in front of him. I noticed how nice his clothing was, the slacks alone must have cost thousands.
“And you are?” I said, proud of how calm my voice was.
“I’m Aiden’s associate,” he said, though I would have thought ‘boss’ to be the more likely word. “And I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
I said nothing, just kept my eyes on him.
“I will keep this simple and direct, so we can all understand each other. It appears that you and your brother have decided to testify against your mother,” he said. “What I would like is for you to tell me what exactly you’d be testifying about.”
I thought quickly. That’s what he wanted from me? I had spent the last full day wondering why I was here. I figured it was some sick revenge wish bestowed upon me by a scorned man. However, this was much deeper and possibly much worse than I thought.
“Why should I tell you that?” I asked calmly.
I felt my way forward a word at a time. If information was my only bargaining chip, then I didn’t want to dump it all out at once. But, the man’s voice only hardened.
“Because if you don’t, you won’t make it back home to that nasty little apartment you’re staying in.”
Okay, I’d known those were probably the stakes. Hearing them out loud, though, was an entirely different ballgame. Manifesting something like that with words made it more real than any document or television show or even real-life experience I’d ever had with this kind of thing. And as I took a deep breath, I tried to keep my fear as discreet as possible. “I’ll tell you my information, but I want to know why you want it and what you’re going to do with it.”
He raised a brow so perfect it had to have been waxed by a professional. “Surely you see that you are not in a position to ask questions?”
I crossed my legs at the ankles. “Surely you can tell me at least that? Maybe it will help me frame my answer better.”
He laughed. “Well, well, Aiden, you did not tell me she was so spunky.”
He shot a look at Aiden, who had been hovering behind the back of his chair throughout the conversation so far. But then, his gaze came back to mine. “I can see how you got into your trouble now.”
Aiden flinched, and for the first time in the fuzzy near-dark, I noticed that his face was shadowed more from just the lack of light. There was a dark spread of mottled bruising across his eye, and on his neck. I squinted and saw his nose and lips looked swollen as well. Trouble? Every time I felt as though I had gained some footing, I lost it.
“Now why don’t you show her that she should be taking this a bit more seriously,” he said.
Aiden whipped his phone out of his pocket and hit something. And a few seconds later, I heard it ring on speaker phone.
My shoulders tensed. Whatever this was, I knew it was not going to be good.
The call only rang once. There was a rustling sound, like it was being placed somewhere. And then I heard an ear-piercing scream.
“No!” I stood and flew to the grate. “What’s happening?”
“Again,” the man said, his face hard.
“Again!” Aiden yelled into the phone.
The scream started again. I put my hands over my ears, tears spilling out of my eyes. “No! Stop it! Stop hurting her!”
The screamer slowed, and then a groan. “Lila…”
It had just gotten worse. Because I knew that voice. Knew it almost better than I knew my own.
“Margeaux?” I wrapped my hands around the grate, getting closer to the phone. “Margeaux, I’m here! Are you alright?” I turned to the man, still seated and calm, and honestly looking just a little bit bored. “Make it stop!”
“I will,” he said. “Once you start giving me information.”
“Alright! Alrigh
t! We’re testifying about two things. Her character, the things she did to us growing up. And the murder. The helicopter,” I knew I was babbling, but couldn’t stop the flow of words. “We found the part. We will testify to that.”
He nodded slowly. Then turned to Aiden. “Again.”
“Again!” Aiden bellowed.
“What? No! No!” I screamed.
But it was too late. That horrific scream came through the phone once more, filleting my heart into pieces.
“What are you doing?” I shook the grate, glaring at the man. “I answered your question!”
“Is there anything else you’d like to add?” he asked calmly.
“No! I told you everything!”
“Hm…” he looked me up and down, and then shook his head. “I don’t believe you.” He nodded to Aiden.
“Again!” he roared.
That scream. I sunk down to the ground, my head cushioned by my arms.
“There’s nothing else!” I yelled over the sound of poor Margeaux’s screaming. “That’s it! I swear! I swear!”
The scream kept going, on and on, shredding my nerves and making my head pound. Tears fell down my cheeks fast, pooling into my bent elbows.
“Fine,” the man said calmly.
And then, everything stopped. The screams ended. Aiden stopped bellowing. All was silent on the snowy fronts, except for the sounds of my quiet sobs.
“Get the girl something to eat. Something nice,” the man said, and Aiden relayed the order.
“Anything else to say to your little friend?” he asked me.
“Margeaux, stay strong, okay,” I said hoarsely. “I won’t let them hurt you again.”
It was a promise I knew I couldn’t keep, but I said it anyway.
“Li…” the voice was weak, soft. “Do what they say. Please don’t let them do it again.”
There was the sound of soft, exhausted crying, and then Aiden hung up.
“What now?” I said as I lifted my head, not moving from my crouched position. I felt dead inside, defeated. This was so much worse than I could have imagined.
“Now we tell your brother and that redhead not to testify to anything as well. If they refuse, well…” he tisked, cocking his head. “Bad news for you and for your friend. To ensure their cooperation, you’re staying right here until all of this is over.”
“But that could be years,” I protested. “Trials take forever!”
“I am in no rush to send you home so you can ruin everything we have worked for,” he said, folding his hands in his lap.
A cold knowledge rose then. He wasn’t going to ever send me home. They wouldn’t bother to keep me locked up that long. And sending me home wouldn’t ensure anything. I knew then that whatever was planned for me, it was not anything good.
“I’m staying in the Putin suite. Have something nice sent up to me,” he said to Aiden, who nodded quickly, subserviently.
He stood, smoothing his slacks. “Now it is up to your brother and the girl he spends his time with. Will they cooperate to save your life?”
“They will,” I said dully. “I’m sure of it.”
“We will leave it up to them then, shall we?” he said with a little smile.
I watched him go, Aiden trailing behind like a puppy, with a sick pit in my stomach.
What in the absolute hell had my mother done?
21
Margeaux
I stared down at my cuticles. It was time for another manicure.
“Again!” I heard through the phone.
I blew on my nails, scattering the bits from my nail filer. And then I took a deep breath and belted out the best scream I could muster.
I knew what was coming next. I took a sip of water to make a choking, wet sound of pain and then begged Lila to do what they said. Her voice made it clear that she not only suspected something, but was positively ill at the thought that I was being hurt.
I smiled. That was nice. It was good to feel loved.
The call ended, and I stretched. It was too bad I couldn’t forgive her for what she and her brother had done. It was more Jude’s fault, but she had to pay as well. These were the facts of life. When someone wronged you, they had to pay.
“That was well done,” Daddy said, poking his head through the door. “You had me really scared for a minute there.”
I beamed. “It’s the master class I’ve been taking online. Acting for Horror 101.”
He nodded approvingly. “You’d make a fine horror actress, sweetie,” he said, and came to kiss me on the top of my head.
I was already dialing my manicurist. “Sammy? I need you here today. My nails are atrocious.”
I couldn’t wait for all of them to pay.
22
Brooklyn
“Detective McNamara? He’s actually out sick for a few days,” the guy at the counter was telling us. “Want me to leave a message for you?”
“Can we speak to his boss, possibly? We’ve got an issue here,” I said.
The guy’s face closed off at once. I guess he thought we were here to make a formal complaint about Aiden. Which we were.
“The chief is out today. Leave your number and I’ll have him call you,” he said, pushing a pad of paper across the desk.
I scrawled my name, number, and “urgent” in capital letters and passed it back to him.
“Please, it’s really important,” I said.
He had already lost interest in me. “Got it.”
I made Jude wait at the apartment because I was too worried about his reaction to the bureaucracy we were sure to encounter at the police station. And now, I was glad that I had. Because I knew that if Jude had born witness to this asinine event, he would have surely done something to book himself his own murder trial right next to his mother’s.
Still, I texted him as I got in the car.
3:16 PM
Aiden called in sick. Left a message for the chief. On my way back now.
I got home a few minutes later and I could feel the tension even from the other side of my apartment door. I opened it, a bit hesitantly, just to peek inside and see the damage. Jude was a bull in a pen. He roamed the apartment, end to end, face locked in a twisted frown. And I knew at any second, his head would either blow through the roof or he’d cave in a fit of tears.
I knew it would be the former, too.
“We have to do something,” he said. “We can’t just sit here and wait.”
“I know.”
I wanted to touch him but had a feeling he wasn’t in the mood for comforting at the moment. He needed action. I was debating what we could do next when my phone rang. And with an unknown number, to boot. Normally, I would have ignored it. But given the current situation, it seemed worth the risk of talking to a telemarketer.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Is this Brooklyn James?” The voice on the other end was low and deep, and one I didn’t recognize.
I blinked. “Yes, who’s asking?”
“Are you with Jude Carlisle?”
My heart sped up. “Yes.”
“Put the phone on speaker. I have a message for both of you.”
Something in my face must have alerted Jude that something was up. He rushed to my side, his face asking a mute question. So, I did what was asked of me and I put the phone on speaker before holding it in the air between the two of us.
“Go ahead, I have him here,” I said.
“We have your sister, Jude,” the voice said, an edge of taunting coloring it now.
Jude’s face went blank with panic at once. I grabbed his hand, holding it tightly in mine as the voice continued.
“And we’re going to keep her. Call it insurance. What we want is simple. No more cooperation from you with the police. That includes your little redheaded girlfriend as well. No more chats, no more working together, and certainly no testifying.”
“How can we be sure you actually have her?” I asked, worried about the look on Jude’s face.
<
br /> “I thought you might say that.” There was a soft clicking sound and then we both flinched back when we heard screaming.
“Make it stop!”
The voice clearly wasn’t Lila’s. My body turned ice cold as we heard the female voice responding to the screaming, begging them to stop, and then a soft voice that most certainly was Lila agreeing not to testify.
“Who was that screaming?” I asked, a tremor in my voice.
“Not Lila, that’s all you need to know for now.”
“You can’t keep her that long,” Jude said into the phone. “There has to be another way. Let’s make a deal.”
He sounded much calmer than he looked. All of the blood had drained from his face and his fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides. But, his voice was oddly calm.
And that worried me even more.
“No deal. You do what we ask, or we kill her,” the voice said silkily. “That is the choice.”
“Trade me,” he said quickly. “Take me instead. I’ll sit wherever you have her and won’t make any trouble, I swear it. Just let her go.”
“I think not,” the voice replied. “We feel we have made the correct choice. Do as you’re told, and your sister will come home to you.”
Then, the call disconnected without so much as a goodbye or any sort of proof of life.
“FUCK!” Jude slammed a fist into the door. “They have my sister, Brooklyn. What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
I got a frozen bag of peas for his fist and placed them against it, considering our options.
“Want to know what I think?”
Jude didn’t answer, so I continued. “I think we don’t go along with this.”
He looked up at me in surprise. “What?”
“Like what the phone call said. They’re going to keep her there for years? That doesn’t make sense. We can’t trust that. That was clearly a recording they played for us. So, what if they plan to get rid of her but still use her to keep us in line?” I shook my head. “No, we need to take matters in our hands.”
VENGEFUL ROYALS | A DARK COLLEGE BULLY ROMANCE: HEIRS OF HAVOC Page 14
