Chapter Thirty-Two - Rory
I’m man-handled into a dark hallway, through a set of double doors, then another door that thunks closed so loud it sounds like it’s made of steel. My stomach is still screaming at me, but thankfully, I have not hurled again. Whatever they gave me must’ve been fast-acting, but short-lasting.
The bodyguard—because that’s totally what he is—practically throws me down into a chair. My head hits the metal table and everything spins for a few minutes.
When I look up, Blondie is sitting across from me, hands folded in front of her, resting on the table, like she hasn’t got a care in the world.
We’re in a dark room with a single spotlight shining down on a single table with two chairs, and two people, and only one reason to be here.
They are going to kill me.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with, little girl.”
No. I refuse to give them that satisfaction.
“Fair enough,” I manage to spit back at Blondie. “But neither do you.”
“Oh, I know all about you, Aurora.”
I scowl at the name and that makes her smile bigger.
“I know that the man you love thinks he can get away from us.”
“What?”
She chuckles. And if I wasn’t just poisoned, dragged into some kind of interrogation room, and loomed over by her menacing bodyguard… I’d think it was a good-natured laugh.
But it’s not.
“Honey, please. You come from—” She looks at her bodyguard. “What was it she told Frank?” But it’s a rhetorical question, because she looks back at me and says, “Her family is pretty much nothing but bikers and tattoo artists?”
“That’s right,” I say, forcing my bravado. “And you do not want to mess with us.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. We don’t even want you. We don’t want any of you. We only want the men you bring along.”
I can’t help it, my face scrunches up.
“Women are, for the most part, at least, the weaker sex. Don’t you agree?” She’s asking the bodyguard again, and again doesn’t wait for an answer. “But they are useful in many ways.” She appears to think about this for a second and then adds, “Necessary.”
“So you’re weak?” I ask, wincing as my stomach protests against the remnants of the poison.
“Oh, no. I’m not weak at all. But it’s not me Silver wanted when they invited me in. It was my stupid brother. He’s too young yet. I’m just an insurance policy. It’ll be a few years before they get their payoff. But by then, I’ll have climbed my way to the top. And I’m going to do that by using you to get your precious Five Aston to play along with our plans.”
“He won’t do it,” I seethe. “Not the way you think, at least. He will… he will…” But I cannot come up with a menacing enough threat to make her think twice about what she’s doing.
What is she doing? I try to look around the room better, but I can’t see past the bright spotlight shining down on this single table.
I swallow hard and say, “You’ve severely misjudged him if you think he’s coming here to make a deal with you.”
“He’s already here, dear. We’re about to get him right now. And we’re going to use you to do it.”
“I won’t,” I say, shaking my head.
“You will. Or,” she says, holding up a thin white wafer, “you’ll eat this and die before he finds you.”
I stare at her. Who the fuck is this lady?
“He’s quite a prize. Genius-level hacker. Old-money family. Company connections, I hear.”
I have to close my eyes to hold down the vomit when she says the word Company.
“He even builds robots.” She laughs at that. Like it’s absurd. “But the most interesting thing about your man, Princess, is that his grandfather tapped him to take over a prominent Chinese Triad. We already know he’s reluctant from our inside sources. But once he sees you… well…” She offers me a fake sympathetic smile. “He’ll get on board, just like all the rest.”
“I bet you never had a man love you like that, did you, Blondie?”
Her smile falters just the tiniest bit.
“No,” I say. “I cannot imagine a man giving up anything for a woman like you. Let alone his family name, and wealth, and his future. You’re all alone, aren’t you, Blondie?”
She blinks at me. Slowly. Smiling. Like she’s an overly patient pre-school teacher talking to a three-year-old. “Well, you’re wrong, honey. I do have a man. A very well-connected one. Jack Joseph. Five knows him well. And Jack knows all Five’s secrets. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
I look around the dark room, wondering who the fuck she’s talking to. But a man steps forward from the shadows and smiles at me. “Pleased to meet you,” he says in his typical British accent. He looks at his watch and then at me. “Five should be here soon. I hear he just broke into the building. You did call for him, Aurora? Like a good little helpless princess?”
Shit. They knew all along.
“We just killed Cliff Middleton, by the way,” Blondie says. “He came here tonight with silly notions of revenge for his pathetic little sister.”
“What?” I say, unable to hide my shock.
“Would you like to play who’s-got-more-power with me, Aurora?” Blondie says in her overly sweet voice.
“It’s Rory,” I growl, my anger back. Fuck these people. They killed both of my friends and I’m going to make sure that if I go down, it counts. Twice.
“Not anymore. It’s Aurora now. You will marry Frank Fulbright tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be Aurora Fulbright.”
Disgusting. I’d rather die. “I can’t wait to see the wedding pictures.” I laugh. It’s a forced laugh. But I don’t care. If taking down Frank Fulbright is the only thing I get out of this night… it’ll have to do. “I think I might’ve knocked out a tooth.”
Blondie’s smile turns into a frown. “I wish you had more control, Aurora.”
“Yeah,’” I ask. “Why’s that?”
“Because he’s gonna make you pay for that.”
“And no one”—I turn in my chair to find Frank coming through the steel door holding a bloody handkerchief to his face—“will give two fucking shits what I do to you, Aurora. No one,” he says, walking quickly over to me, so fast he startles me and I get up, but he grabs my hair, yanks it hard and puts me back in my place, “will come to your rescue. No one will ever take you from me. You’re mine.” He looks over at Blondie and says, “Do it. Now.”
Blondie nods to the bodyguard and he brings a small silver plate with one of those silver dome lids over it. He places it on the table and lifts the lid. Sitting on the plate is a single silver wafer, about the size of a half dollar.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“Kill yourself, bitch,” Frank spits. “Just like Tera did.”
I glare at him and steel myself. Remind myself why I’m here. For revenge.
Before they even know I’m moving, I snatch the silver wafer from the tray and pop it into my mouth. They tackle me, their fingers in my mouth as they knock me to the ground. All three of them, making me gag on the acrid-tasting wafer, until they scoop it out and fling the remnants on the floor.
“No, no, no,” Blondie says, tsking her tongue at me. “We tell you when you’re allowed to die, sweetie. Not the other way around. We control everything about your life from this moment on.” She stops her speech and looks up at the bodyguard. “Where is Aston?”
“The double doors,” bodyguard says.
“Good,” Jack Joseph says. “Right on time. Take her,” he says to Frank.
Frank, still tightly holding my hair and happy to get his chance to hurt me again, yanks me up until I’m standing. He squeezes me close to him, my back pressed against his chest. His blood-smelling breath seeps into my nose, making me want to puke.
My head is spinning. Not in a way I’ve ever experienced before. And my vision begins to blur as I lose control of my muscles and slump against Frank.
“What the fuck?” Franks asks. “Did she swallow some of that wafer?”
He sounds worried, but he’s not worried about me. He’s worried about losing his little reward for being an obedient, power-hungry lackey. His prize. His place in this… this… cult.
Five will never stop if they kill me. He will burn down the world if anything happens to me.
And maybe that’s better? At least they’ll be gone.
Everyone is up next to me then. Blondie is calling out instructions to someone. Jack Joseph slaps my face and screams, “Open your eyes! Open your fucking eyes!”
“Five,” I moan. “Get them all for me, Five…”
I spin, and spin, and spin, and then I realize they don’t want me dead, that I’m of no use to them if I’m dead. My impulsive final act of defiance might actually win this game right now.
My smile forms through the foam and saliva spilling out of my mouth until words turn jumbled and the world begins to fade into black.