Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“You mean you’re going to investigate the very serious crimes committed against me. Everleigh Starling tried to kill me and covered it up. She’s extremely dangerous.”
“How did you manage to get away?”
“I was rescued,” I replied. “I don’t know by who. I passed out. But someone pulled me out of the fire.
“I lay low for a few days because I was afraid she’d come after me. Then, I saw on the news that someone named Connor Langston confessed to murdering me, and I had to do something.”
“I see.” The captain pushed her chair back, standing up. “I applaud your bravery. Thank you for coming in today, Miss Sinclair. You can leave the rest to me.”
I shook her hand and left without another word. Walking out, I’d describe my mood with one word: unsatisfied.
I thought it’d be a great moment when I went in there and ripped Everleigh’s sweet little heiress mask to shreds, but Captain Capaldi could not have been more obvious in her disbelief.
Everleigh wasn’t supposed to be arrested. I was very clear on this ending one way—with her dead and disgraced. The disgrace part started with openly revealing she was a murderer and psychopath. Even so, it was highly disturbing having a police captain blow off serious crimes.
It wasn’t that she’d eventually take the bribe to look the other way, like she did when William Burkhardt paid her to drive her son home instead of the police station. It was how obvious it was she wouldn’t even get that far. She wasn’t going to investigate. She wouldn’t talk to Everleigh.
Captain Capaldi didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth.
Plan B.
Hopping in one of my stepdad’s cars, I took off.
The night before, Alistair, Mom, Jack, and I had that promised talk. It all came out. My parents’ past. Their decision to split to keep us safe. Jack and Martha’s true arrangement. How sorry they were for lying to me my whole life.
It was a lot to take in, and I had four days to do it. Truthfully, I may never fully come to terms with everything that happened. It’d always be a wound in my heart knowing that if they’d been honest sooner, Winter might still be here.
I drove across town, lost in my thoughts. What did Winter think when she found all this out the hard way? Did she see a long, terrifying life where our father’s enemies used and abused her to get to him? Was that the life facing me now?
Alistair agreed that staying out of my life to protect me didn’t work, so there was no reason to keep doing it. He would stay as long as I wanted him to. And I did want him to.
Everleigh had taken enough from me. I wouldn’t let her take away the chance to get to know him and answer the questions that have been dragging down my heart my whole life. I wasn’t the dirty little secret of a married man. Our father loved us. He wanted us. Everleigh’s hate would not get in the way.
I arrived at the restaurant, parked the car, and climbed out. I didn’t have a network of T.O.D.ers to do my bidding, but I did have the Instagram-loving Katie and her minute-by-minute updates. She was currently at Toussaint’s, “finding her peace at the bottom of their endless grapefruit mimosas.”
I found her exactly where social media said she was, sharing a table with Dean, Piper, and the person in her background shot that brought me there.
“Hello, Everleigh.”
She froze with her saltshaker hovering over her plate. I rounded the table to see her—
I smirked.
—jaw-dropped, wide-eyed panic.
“Surprise, bitch. I’m not dead. You had your puppet confess to your crime too soon.”
“Wha— I— You—”
I said a while ago that seeing Gabriella tackled and arrested was better than sex. I was wrong. Looking at the woman who stood over me laughing while she shrugged off driving my sister to suicide—gaping and bug-eyed like a dead fish... I nearly came on the spot.
“Shocked to see me? You would be after you tied me up, set fire to the Gallery, and left me to burn alive,” I half shouted through the restaurant, snapping all eyes to me. “All this after you bragged about bribing Wesley, Levi, Giovanni, Ashton, and Owen to torture my sister and then killed Giovanni and Wesley before they could give you up.”
Everleigh tripped over her chair, scrambling up.
“Luna?” Katie said. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing! She’s spouting bullshit, as always.” Everleigh rushed me. She stuck her mouth to my ear. “You keep your fucking mouth shut, or I’ll—”
“Keep my mouth shut, or you’ll what?” I was practically screaming. I had the attention of the entire restaurant. “Try to kill me? Again. I’m sure you’re going to do that anyway, which is why I told Captain Capaldi everything. Enjoy those oysters, Starling. The food in prison isn’t made by a five-star chef.”