Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Fuck. Fuck.
I thought we were on to something. I sit back down in the driver’s seat, keeping the door open, and clunk my head against the steering wheel.
“Maddox, it’s all right,” Alissa says. “I thought we might have figured it out, too.”
“No. I think I did figure it out. But the message was clearly alluding to something being in this pocket. I would have cleared out everything that was in it when I inherited the car. I wanted to rid the car of any evidence that my father ever owned it. Expel all the evil.”
“And you weren’t on very good terms, right?”
“Right.”
“So he might have foreseen that you’d throw all his trash away. If he even left anything in the pocket. Do you remember throwing anything away?”
I swallow, bite my lip. “Honestly, I don’t remember. It was so long ago. I had just gotten dumped by Laurie. A lot of the time after my father’s funeral is a blur.”
Alissa drops her jaw. “Laurie broke up with you right after your father’s funeral?”
“At my father’s funeral, actually.”
She winces. “That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, but she’s forgiven after last night.”
Alissa taps a finger against her cheek. “I suppose… Still, just leaving something right in the driver-side door pocket, where anyone could see it, seems a trifle irresponsible.” She kneels, places her hand in the pocket, feels around. “Aha!”
“What?”
She beams as she pulls out a small gray piece of flat plastic. The exact shame shade as the rest of the car door’s interior. “A false bottom!”
“Holy shit, Alissa.” I jump out of the car. “What’s in there?”
“It seems only fair that you do the honors.” She grabs her phone out of the pocket of her sweatpants and shines its flashlight into the pocket. “Look inside.”
I reach inside. There’s something small, cold. Metal. Covered in small studs. Round on one end and pointed in the other.
I pull it out and I drop my jaw.
It’s a key.
A key encrusted in rubies.
Rubies, which I associate with one person and one person alone.
I hold it in front of me, catching the light off Alissa’s phone. “This must be a key to something Rouge owns!”
“What makes you say that?” Alissa asks.
“Who else do you know who would take the time to glue precious stones to her personal effects?”
“Good point.”
I pace outside the car, completely ignoring the rain as it pelts against me and soaks through the T-shirt and sweats I’m wearing. “This means that we can finally end this. That we can—”
I shut my mouth.
The fireworks of joy that have been exploding in my brain from the unraveling of this decade-old clue from my father are snuffed out in an instant.
Because those little plans Alissa and I bandied about just now? The little trip to the UK to visit her father?
Those are going to have to be put on hold.
“Alissa,” I say, turning toward her slowly. “We have to go back to Aces. Tonight.”
32
ALISSA
I take a step back from Maddox, my eyes wide. “No. No, no. If we set foot inside of that club, we’re history. We’ll end up in that back alley right next to Bill’s body, our throats slit. Or our heads removed. Or both.”
“Technically, you do slit the throat when you remove a head,” he says.
“This isn’t funny!” I stomp my foot on the ground. “I can’t allow the man I love to go into that dreadful place. Not now, not now that we know that we love each other.” I grab his arms. “We could go far away from here. You can fly anywhere from O’Hare direct. It doesn’t even have to be London. We could go somewhere far away, where Rouge will never find us. Live out our lives in peace.”
He darts his gaze around. “A fair point.”
“At the very least, we could go away for a short while. Come back when things have calmed a bit. When Rouge’s guard is down.”
He sighs. “Alissa, I don’t think Rouge’s guard is ever down. If someone is on her shit list, they’re not long for this world. As far as we know, she still has no idea that we know about May. All she knows is that I might have an inkling that my father’s death was not entirely by natural causes. Half of Chicago thought his death was a conspiracy when it occurred. He was massively unpopular because of that legislation he ran through.”
I bite my lip. “And the longer we wait…”
“The more time we give her to strike.” He massages my shoulders. “Rouge is extremely well traveled. She goes to all corners of the globe to find servers for Aces. And not just servers. Bar staff, the dealers in the Diamonds section. It might take her some time, but she’ll find us.”
“And who knows how many more people she’ll have killed by then,” I whisper.
“Exactly. We know she’s had May and Bill offed just in the last week. Probably Svetlana, too. At that rate, we could be talking about dozens of lost lives. It seems like Rouge likes to pick off anyone who doesn’t follow her rules to the absolute letter.”