I blink my eyes open, and I find myself sitting in a chair in the middle of my apartment –my wrists zip-tied to the chair behind me. My head is throbbing, and a bit of blood drips down into my lap. Holy hell –what happened? Oh yeah, that’s right, I just found out my girlfriend is just a diagnosis away from being clinically insane.

I hear a clicking sound, and I glance over to see Sylvia typing away on my laptop –seated not too far from me on my couch. She glances up, chuckled slightly, and continues typing. “I was wondering when you were going to wake up,” she says, and I spot the bloody baseball bat lying on the floor under her feet. The bat has old blood stains that I know must belong to someone other than me –Eddie, perhaps?

“What happened?” I ask, my head bobbing slightly as I am coming to.

“You got caught, that’s what,” Sylvia’s demeanor is entirely different than what I am used to. I don’t know what to think.

“You’re real name?” I ask.

“I think you know,” she does not look up from my laptop.

“Suzette,” I say, and she nods along –clearly amused by my confusion. “You’re Éclair’s little sister?”

“Yup,” she says nonchalantly as though we are just having a casual conversation.

“And you and Éclair have been in on all of this together, haven’t you?” I grit my teeth at the thought.

“Oh, please,” Sylvia looks up briefly from her work. “Éclair is a moron. When I ran into her at the hospital she actually believed this bullshit story I spun her about taking physical therapy there. I haven’t seen her since I did that little modelling gig at her company almost two years ago. Éclair has no idea.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, “What do you have to gain from all of this if you weren’t trying to help your sister buy out my company?”

She turns the laptop around, revealing that she has my bank account pulled up. Shit. How did she get all of that? “I’m about to make a pretty impressive wire transfer to myself to an offshore account,” she says happily. “I knew if I stuck around long enough I’d get what information I needed. The plan was for me to buy out your company once the shit really hit the fan –and I was going to buy it out with your own money. The plan was to get you to trust me enough to start to do a takeover and we run it together with everything in my name until I could butt you out, but now I don’t see that happening, do you?”

“But why would you want my company in the first place?” I snap.

“Besides’ the fact that your company is worth billions? I suppose hearing about you from Éclair hit home. She told me about this sad little rich guy who couldn’t get along with big-brother after his brother got screwed out of his inheritance. I think Éclair missed the irony of telling me that story. Big sister got everything, and I got stuck doing grunge work for her just like Eddie. It’s too bad that Eddie caught me putting in a second round of rat poisoning into your supplements. I have to say, I relate to him a lot better than you. After I got a hold of your company, I might would have even considered keeping some of it in the Mont name –well, the Smith name, or whatever Eddie’s name is.” She turned the laptop back around and proceeding playing around on the laptop.

“So you’ve just been stringing me around and driving a wedge between Éclair and I, what, because you wanted to run your own company so that you could compete with your sister?” I shake my head in disbelief at this woman’s absurdity. I grit my teeth at her, “You know all that shit is password protected. There is no way my bank is going to let you transfer the amount of money you need to-”

“Let’s see, password protected,” Sylvia, err, Suzette, sings, “Password hint: first pet. Let’s see…. You told me that one! Bagel –your dad’s stupid dog that you just loved, right? Let’s see if that works… what do you know!” she smiles up at me. “You think I haven’t already slipped all of these password hints into our conversations? Lookie there, it’s asking for another one. Password hint: childhood best friend. Rodney, right? The guy you told me about that Eddie couldn’t’ stand? Awe –look that one worked too.”

Conniving little bitch. “Well your plan is not going to work,” I say, “my company is not for sale, so even if you have the money-”

“Well, when the owner of Shattered turns up dead like his big brother, someone is going to have to take over,” she puts the laptop aside, the transaction having already been made. She reaches down for the baseball bat and comes over to me.

“Sylvia-” I say longingly, hoping that she senses the desperation in my tone.

“Suzette,” she says and then starts swaying the bat at her side, “Do you have any idea how hard it was playing the part of your perfect little angel? It took months of following you around to prepare me for the role –to figure out what you liked. It sure did help that you had been crushing on my modelling job for so long.” She rubs her eyes, “Damn these things!” she removes her contacts, revealing big purple eyes just like Éclair’s. They look creepy on her.

I pull at the zip-ties, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to break free. “Suzette,” I say, correcting myself, “You’re telling me that all of this was fake? Nothing about what we had was real?”

She just laughs at me. “You really thought this was a match made in heaven, didn’t you? News flash, James, relationships are not ever that easy.”

I feel as though my stomach and chest have swapped place –if that makes sense. I just feel out of whack. Betrayed. Disappointed. And a little heart broken. Oh, God, Éclair! If what Suzette is saying is true and Éclair had nothing to do with this, she’s never going to forgive me. “So what’s your plan now?” I ask.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you like I did to Eddie, but this time I’m going to make sure you stay dead the first time around,” before I have time to doubt that this tiny woman could have possibly have taken down my older brother, she swings the bad into my shoulder, and I swear my arm is broken.

“Mother fucker!” I shout and attempt to bounce out of the chair, but all I do is knocked myself and the chair over onto my side which hurts like hell with my arms wrapped around the back and tied. I suppose I just always assumed some big guy had taken down Eddie, but one would have thought being surrounded by extremely athletic women like Éclair and Suzette I would have not jumped the gun on that one. Nope, I just assumed a woman wouldn’t get her hands dirty like this. She had probably come up on Eddie and knocked him in the head like she had done me –except she had probably not waited around for him to wake up to finish the job.

I’m not really sure what hurts worse –finding out that this woman I had completely fallen for didn’t exist and is really just some psychopath out to one-up her sister or the beating I’m taking from said psychopath. The bat makes contact with my sides, hands, legs, and my skull. I am spitting up blood, still trying to pull at my restraints. I can feel the plastic ties bending, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to break them before she kills me.

The private elevator door opens. There are only three people who have access to my elevator. Eddie had been one. Suzette was the second.

Éclair enters into my apartment with this pissed off look on her face. Thank God! I’ve never been so relieved to see her in my life even with that sour look. When she spots me and Suzette her mind takes a moment to register what is happening. “What the fuck!” she shouts and looks directly at her sister. “You’re insane! Put that down!” she lunges at Suzette, but Suzette swings the bat in her sisters direction –so Éclair jumps back and holds up both hands, dropping her Gucci purse in the process.

“Are you kidding me?” Suzette hisses as she sways her bat around, “James, I thought you said I was the only one who had access to that elevator.”

I can only mumble my response as I spit up blood and, awe fuck –is that a tooth? She knocked one of my teeth out! “Why would he give you access to his elevator?” Éclair asks and then shakes her head, realizing that that is not at all important right now. “Suzette, what the hell are you doing?”

“I really wish you hadn’t come up here,” Suzette says, “I mean, really, Éclair. I really wish you didn’t see this. I mean, I can’t stand you, but I never would have gone out of my way to hurt you physically. But now you’ve seen this, so I don’t think you’re leaving me much of a choice.”

Éclair takes another step back. “Why are you hurting James?”

“She’s Sylvia,” I manage to spit out weakly, and I can see the gears turning in Éclair’s head as she pieces together the extravagant and mentally unstable plan Suzette had created.

“Oh my God, ewe!” Éclair snaps, “You’re sleeping with my sister!”

Not the part I want her concentrating on right now. The two of them start yelling at one another in French, and I am almost afraid to know what they are saying. Suzette lunges towards Éclair, her bat at her side. “Leave her alone!” I shout from the ground, pulling at my restraint with what little strength I can muster as Éclair makes a run for my kitchen to get away from her crazy sister. I hear crashing noises as Éclair dodges the bat and Suzette knocks a bunch of shit off my kitchen counter.

I look up to see Éclair diving out from around my kitchen island just as Suzette catches up to her, beaming her square in the back with the bat and knocking her to the ground. Suzette comes at her with the bat, and the zip-ties finally snap. I suddenly don’t feel my injuries as adrenaline flushes throughout my body, and I dive right into Suzette –tackling her like a damn football player. We go crashing back, and I’m fairly certain I’ve knocked her out after that impact. I stand up slowly, hardly able to hobble over to Éclair who is lying flat on her stomach moaning something terrible. I hope Suzette didn’t break her spine with that hit.

“Éclair-” I say, reaching out towards her just as Suzette awakens and leaps onto my back, the baseball bat pressed against my neck –choking me.

“Get off, you damn spider-monkey!” I shout and try to fling her off of me, but she’s got a grip like you would not believe. I suddenly can’t speak as she rears back, pulling the bat with both hands against my throat. I can’t breathe!

I fall to my knees, my breath becomes this raspy, desperate attempt to inhale as I reach around trying to pull her stupid ass off my back. I see Éclair moving on the ground, but I don’t realize what she’s reaching for until I hear the shot ring out. She pulled that damn pistol of hers out of her Gucci purse and shot Suzette right off me. I lean forward, gasping. I look back and see Suzette lying on the ground, a bullet wound in her shoulder.

I grab at my throat and glance over at Éclair as she struggles to stand. “Thanks,” I say as I rise.

“Oh my God, is she okay?” Éclair sounds legitimately distressed as she hurries to her sister’s side. She reaches down towards her, and it turns out the psychopath was playing dead and she snags Éclair’s gun right out of her hands. Shit.

I snatch Éclair back, and when Suzette shoots up she hits my ceiling fan –causing the lights in the apartment to flicker and sparks to fall down over our heads. Both Éclair and I bolt towards the elevator as Suzette struggles to stand up, the pistol pointed our way. I push Éclair in, and I receive a shot in the back. Just as the elevator doors are closing, I fall down to my knees. I feel Éclair grab hold of me. “Get up, she’s going to be coming after us. Do you have your phone? Can you call the police?”

“No. My phone’s back at the apartment. Where’s yours?” I ask.

“In my purse,” she says.

“And your purse?”

“In the apartment.”

“Fuck!” I snap, and she helps me stand. I have a fucking bullet in my back and I’m fairly certain I have a few broken bones as well. I feel around in my pockets. “I have my car keys,” I say.

“Good,” she says, “let’s get the hell out of here.”