Peyton and I were finally going to get to the bottom of this shit.

We needed to face Andreas.

I hadn't told anyone but Peyton about the altercation I’d had with him, and she hadn’t told anyone either, so I assumed he was still working at the Mirabella for now, thinking he was safe. I hoped so, because that was what our whole plan relied on. We were going to corner him and finally make him tell us the whole truth, because it seemed obvious that he was the one who held all the answers.

And as soon as he gave them all to us, I was probably going to beat the shit out of him for being such a slimy little prick.

I still couldn't believe it. He had us all fooled. He even had me thinking he was my friend when he'd only been digging for information the whole time. It was ironic, because I'd actually been doing the same thing. But at least I was trying to make up for my lies and wrongdoings, whereas Andreas didn't show a shred of regret for what he'd done, aside from a few empty ‘I’m sorry’ claims under duress.

I still couldn't believe that it might've been Allegra who was behind all of this. I couldn't imagine how Peyton's sister could be so evil, so intent on destroying my girl's life.

We knew what time Andreas finished his shift today, and Peyton and I waited for him in the employee parking lot a block away from the hotel. The hot sun beat down against our skin as we saw a figure approaching us.

Finally, the moment of truth.

I waited until Andreas was just a little way off from us before calling out his name. He turned at the sound of my voice, and for a second, he froze on the spot, utterly shocked when he saw that Peyton was with me.

I was almost certain he was going to run when he saw us, but he didn't make a move. He must’ve finally realized his lies had caught up to him.

Peyton motioned for me to follow her, and I fell into step behind her as we approached Andreas.

"We need to have a conversation," I said. He looked around as if trying to find a way out. "Don't bother trying to run. We want the truth, Andreas.”

Peyton and I each stood to one side of him, preventing him from making a run for it. He was trapped.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Andreas said. “You guys are being really weird.”

Peyton gave him a murderous glare. "Don't play dumb," she said. "Kaden told me everything. You’re the one who took the leaked photos of us."

"What, and you believed him when he told you that?" It was Andreas' one last, very desperate attempt to turn Peyton against me. "You know Kaden's a liar, Pey. Bianca told me how you had no idea who he was until a week ago.”

"Only my friends call me Pey," she replied coldly. "You’re not one of them.”

His face darkened. I stood in front of Peyton protectively, almost afraid he was going to make the huge mistake of lunging for her. But then he appeared to calm down a little, and I was grateful for that—for his own sake. I had no desire to knock his teeth out, much less watch him find them scattered all over the parking lot.

"You said someone hired you to essentially stalk Peyton,” I said. “If that’s true, then at this point, you're already in trouble for that. And you’re also an accomplice to whatever's being done here."

Andreas laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. "You have no idea what you're talking about. And you have no proof that I ever told you anything, Kaden. For all Peyton knows, you’re making this up just to get her attention. I never took the photos, and no one ever hired me. It’s your word against mine.”

I laughed too. "See, that’s where you’re wrong," I said. "Why don't you tell us about Allegra, Andreas?"

"Allegra?" he said, feigning innocence. "Peyton's sister? What about her?"

"I told you not to play dumb," Peyton snapped at him. "We know everything. We figured it out."

"Figured out what?" he asked.

"Still don't want to admit it?" I asked him. "Let's refresh his memory, shall we, Pey?"

Peyton nodded and went on. "Kaden and I think Allegra was the one who hired you to do this," she said. "She wanted to make me look as bad as she possibly could; I guess so she could be the famous golden child of the Cadwell family, now that she’s back. And she must’ve figured out who Kaden really was before anyone else. So when she got those photos of us together, she sat on them for a while, and then she eventually sent them in with some bullshit story about how I was helping his family and betraying the Mirabella.”

Andreas shrugged, still looking nonchalant. “I dunno. You’d have to ask her about that.”

Peyton rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot. You're pretty much caught, Andreas. We have proof.”

“Sure.”

She held up her phone. “You need to curate your old Facebook photo albums better. We managed to find a photo of you with Allegra, as much as you obviously tried to cut her out of all your albums just in case. Apparently, you two have known each other for quite some time. That’s enough to make anyone suspicious.”

Andreas’ demeanor of innocence finally began to crack, and he went slightly pale.

Peyton went on. “If we go to the police and tell them what we think you’re up to with her, you can bet your ass my father will make sure they throw the book at you."

She tapped her chin thoughtfully with her manicured nails. "Unless... maybe, just maybe, I could convince them that you helped us out by telling us the truth about why Allegra did this," she said. "Maybe I could tell them to be lenient."

At this point, Andreas was practically shaking. It was shocking to see the transformation of the guy I'd once considered a friend.

"Tell us the truth," I said in a gentler voice. "We know it was Allegra. So tell us why she put you up to this... why she asked you to spy on Peyton and take all those photos. If you're honest, maybe we'll tell the cops to focus on her instead. They’ll be way more lenient with you if they know you helped."

Andreas shook his head slowly. Just as Peyton had predicted, he clearly knew he was screwed, and the only option to save himself was ratting on Allegra.

“Fuck.…” he finally said, drawing out the word. He was silent for a long time after that, and then he finally sighed heavily and shook his head. His hands were trembling like mad. “It’s not what you think,” he mumbled, hanging his head in defeat. “Not really.”

“What do you mean?” Peyton asked sharply.

"She didn’t hire me just to try and make you look bad, Peyton. Of course that was part of it. You were right—she wants to be the golden child of the family and be famous like you. But she wanted it to be only her. So part of that meant making you look like shit. She realized who Kaden really was a while ago, and from the photos, she knew she could make up a bunch of lies about what you were up to, to turn everyone against you.”

“Okay… so what do you mean when you say it’s not what we think? Because what you just said is exactly what we thought it was.”

Andreas held a hand up. “Just… just wait. Wait for me to explain,” he said, his voice trembling. “There’s more. A lot more. But you have to promise me that you will tell the cops how helpful I was. I don’t want to go to prison. I can’t.”

I folded my arms across my chest, narrowing my eyes. How bad could it be? “Just spit it out.”

Andreas sighed again. He obviously didn’t want to be telling us any of this, but he knew he had to, because the jig was up.

"You were right. I've known her for a long time," he said in a small voice. "Back when she was DeeDee. I've known her since we were both kids. We grew up in the same neighborhood."

"Why didn't we know this before?" I asked. It was never once mentioned—or even shown by either of them at the Mirabella—that they knew each other. In fact, I distinctly remembered them introducing themselves to one another, as if their first day on the job was the only time they'd ever met.

"Because," Andreas went on. "DeeDee wanted to keep it a secret. We moved to the city together with a plan."

I watched the color drain from Peyton's face as he continued.

"You don't know her like I do," he said. "She grew up in a bunch of foster homes, all around the same area. It wasn't easy for a lot of foster kids. But DeeDee, she was always different. She wasn't like the rest of us."

He spoke of her with such admiration it almost felt like he had a crush on her. He must've looked up to her for the longest time, and she had wrapped him right around her little finger. I almost felt sorry for him, but remembering the scandal he'd put Peyton through, I knew I'd never be able to fully forgive him. 

"She's always been shrewd and calculating," he added. "Since we were kids. She always said she'd get out of the shitty city we lived in. She said she was better than it."

"Well, her dreams came true then," Peyton said. “Finally discovering that she was actually an heiress.”

Andreas looked up at her and shook his head sadly. "No. You don’t understand," he said.

Peyton and I glanced at each other before turning our heads back to him, urging him to go on. But Andreas had gone quiet again. That is, until I took an intimidating step toward him, reminding him who was in charge in the situation.

He shrank back a little before finally continuing. "Peyton, she isn’t really your sister,” he said, his voice barely above a mutter. "Her real parents didn’t want her anymore, and they left her on the edge of that road when she was five. It wasn’t kidnappers or anything like that.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“DeeDee isn’t the real Allegra. The real Allegra… she’s still missing. Or.…”

He stopped talking, and we were all quiet for a long, long time, unable to even form words after what we’d just heard.

Peyton’s hands curled into fists at her sides, and I wished there was something I could do to comfort her, make all the ugly things go away and let her be. But this new piece of information… it was too ugly, too shocking.

“What did you just say?” Peyton finally asked, her voice hollow.

“She isn’t your sister. It’s a scam. It always was.”

Peyton shook her head. “No. No… it’s not possible. I…” Her voice trailed off in confusion. Her face was pale, and she was obviously in shock.

Andreas nodded. “It is possible. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

I glared at him. “What the fuck? You can’t just finish there. Tell us the rest!”

He rubbed his temples and sighed. “A couple of years ago, they ran this true crime segment on TV about famous missing child cases. The Allegra Cadwell case was featured. We watched it, and DeeDee got this idea in her head. She thought she could pretend to be the missing heiress. She was about the same age as Allegra, give or take a year or so. And she’d never spoken to anyone about how she came to be abandoned when she was five—except me—so there was no one to say it wasn’t true or possible that the kidnappers could’ve left her there.”

He paused to take a breath, and I narrowed my eyes. “Keep going.”

“She came up with this whole plan. Dye her hair strawberry blonde, move here together, and scope out the Mirabella. Convince everyone she was Allegra. And me… my part in the plan was what you already know—to follow Peyton and try to get photos of her that might make her look bad. Like I said, DeeDee wanted to be the only princess in this castle, once she’d lied her way in. That meant taking Peyton down.”

Peyton’s knuckles were white now; she was squeezing her hands into fists so hard. “How did she do it, though?” she asked. “How the hell did she fake the DNA tests? That’s not possible!”

“Like I said, she wanted to scope out the Mirabella… for two reasons. She wanted to steal a hotel keycard from someone and also find out where your suite was, Peyton.”

“Why?”

“So that when she got the maid job, she knew exactly where to sneak off to during orientation. She used the keycard she stole to get into your room. Then she went into your bathroom, rubbed a wet Q-tip all over your toothbrush, and put it in a standard sample tube she ordered online. And then, she faked the whole fainting flashback thing.”

Peyton shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

Andreas lifted a hand, obviously not done explaining. “When she faked the flashback thing and said she thought she was Allegra, obviously they wanted to take a DNA sample from her to compare to your parents. She knew that would happen. Hence the Q-tip in the tube with your DNA all over it. She kept it on her, hidden,” he said. He took a deep breath, then went on. “The nurse who took her sample at the hospital got a new Q-tip and swabbed the inside of her mouth, then put it in a sample tube which would be sent off to the labs. As soon as she put it down, DeeDee distracted her by knocking something over. The nurse turned around for just a few seconds to pick it up, and DeeDee quickly switched out the tube with her own one.”

I nodded slowly. “So the DNA they sent to the lab was Peyton’s all along. Of course the results showed that the sample came from Vincent and Francine’s daughter, because they were just testing for a familial match. And Peyton is their daughter.”

“Yup.”

“Jesus Christ…”

Andreas nodded. “Like I said, DeeDee was always different. Smart. Very smart. She researched it all for ages; the procedures at the hospitals and labs. She knew they’d take a cheek swab, rather than blood or hair. Apparently it’s called a ‘buccal smear’, which I’d never heard of. But she knew it all.”

“No shit.” I shook my head, unable to believe that DeeDee had gotten away with this for so long.

I hated her for it, but fuck… I had to admit, it was a genius plan, and it worked. Not only had she convinced everyone in the world that she was the long-lost heiress, she’d also successfully messed with Peyton for weeks in her quest to bring her down. She’d driven her half-crazy with her mood swings and weird behavior (knowing everyone else would simply accuse Peyton of being jealous), and then she’d let loose a scandal which nearly destroyed Peyton’s reputation and even threatened her position within the Cadwell empire.

Bitch.

I stepped to Peyton’s side and pulled her against me. She was shaking, and I couldn’t blame her. “I was right,” she muttered. “I thought something was weird about her when she first arrived, and I thought she wasn’t my sister….but everyone told me I was wrong. Everyone told me I was just being a bitch. They even ended up convincing me that I was wrong! But I was right…”

I pulled her closer. “I know.”

“She even called my bluff when I accused her. She cried and said she would go and get more DNA tests done. But of course I felt so awful that I didn’t take her up on it.”

I sighed and nodded. "You're going to be okay," I said softly into the shell of her ear.

She was stronger than she gave herself credit for, so I knew she would be, even though this new development was awful for both her and her parents. And the drama wasn't even over yet. Not by a long shot.

We still had to face the mastermind behind this whole plan—DeeDee. There was no point calling her Allegra anymore. The name was stolen, just like the money she'd spent and the precious moments she'd shared with Peyton and her family, pretending to be their missing loved one.

"Can I go?" Andreas asked, looking completely miserable.

I glared at him. "I wouldn’t leave town if I were you," I said. "You’re an accomplice to major fraud."

His whole face blanched again, but I was past the point of giving a shit about him.

"It was all DeeDee’s idea," he said.

“But you went along with it. And you knew it was wrong.”

“I…” He trailed off, clearly unable to think of a single thing that could excuse what he’d done.

“Give me your phone,” I said.

His eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

“Just do it.”

With shaky hands, he pulled out his cell and gave it to me. I immediately threw it on the ground and stomped on it, shattering the screen and rendering the phone useless.

“Now he won’t be able to warn her that we’re coming for her,” I said to Peyton. “Not before we get to her.”

We turned away from Andreas and began to head back to the Mirabella.

"I'm sorry," Andreas called out to our retreating backs, but neither of us graced him with a response. He didn't deserve one after everything he'd done. The only response he’d be getting any time soon would be from the police when they arrested him.

"Are you okay?" I asked Peyton, and she nodded, sniffling a little. "I'm so sorry, Pey, I knew something was going on with Allegra…I mean, DeeDee… but I never expected this to happen."

"It’s not your fault," she said, a grim expression crossing her face. "There's only one person to blame for all of this—DeeDee. And we’re going to make her pay….”