My fingers tighten on Noah’s arm. He lets out a strangled yelp and tries to pry my nails from his skin.
“What was that?” Cleo asks.
“It’s probably nothing. Just let me get this knot secure and I’ll check it out… there, now you’re all tied up.” Gabriel flings open the door. “Hey, I’ve got her ready for you.”
“Wow.” Yara steps into Cleo’s obscene Egyptian-themed room and fingers an inlaid wooden chest. “Cultural appropriation, much?”
“Gabe, what’s going on?” Cleo’s eyes narrow as she sees me. She’s lying on the bed, tied to the posts, wearing pale pink lingerie and a golden mask with wings, a mockery of an Egyptian goddess. “Why isshehere?”
Gabriel passes something to me. A flogger he took from the gym and no doubt convinced Cleo would bring her untold pleasure. Instead, the one taking pleasure in this room tonight will be me.
“Hello, Cleo,darling.” I trail the flogger over her breasts, feathering it lightly against her skin. She’s breathing hard, her chest heaving. “We’re going to have some fun.”
“I’ll scream,” she hisses. “There are hundreds of people downstairs. You’ll never get away with this.”
“Go on, do it. Scream the house down. But remember, we’ve all watched the YouTube walkthrough of this clout house. We know the bedrooms are designed with industrial-grade soundproofing. Between that and the raging party downstairs, you belong to us.”
Cleo rolls her head back and lets out an ear-piercing shriek. I’m not keen to test my threat, so I bring the flogger down on her inner thigh. Her scream turns into a pathetic whimper.
“Now that you’ve calmed down, we can talk as grown-ups.” I draw out my phone and flick through the stills of her drug deal. George comes up beside me and shows her the photos of her drug supplies. “This is all the evidence we need to destroy you. Forget your sponsorships, you’re looking at jail time, especially since we can place you in the hotel room where Dylan O’Connor wasmurdered.”
Cleo’s eyes widen with panic. She throws her head to the side. “Gabe, call off your bitch. You can’t believe I’d do that to you—”
He shakes his head sadly. “I’ve seen the tapes, Cleo. You were in our hotel room, but you never came out. You took Dylan from me. Nothing will save you now.”
“Nothing except me,” I grin. I snap a picture of her all trussed up, red welts forming on her thigh from the flogger. I know I’ll want to remember this moment for the rest of my life. “I may be the Ice Queen, but I’m merciful. I’m willing to overlook all this. I’m willing to let you walk away with your life and your little side business intact. And all it’ll cost you is a little information.”
“Bitch.” She tries to spit on me, but she can’t move her head and her saliva ends up dribbling down her chin.
“That’s right, I’m head bitch of Stonehurst Prep, and you’re about the rue the day you tried to usurp my crown. If you tell us what we want to know, we won’t hurt you… much.”
Cleo strains and kicks against her restraints, but Gabe really is as good as he claims. “Let me go.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Noah growls. He looms over her, his eyes burning with a rage that makes Cleo retreat into herself.
“He wasn’t supposed to die,” she cries. “I was just supposed to get you both off your faces and plant the rest of the Grey Death in the room. The drug scandal would convince your label to drop Octavia’s Ruin. But then Dylan had this weird reaction, and you were comatose in the shower, no fucking help at all. So I arranged the body and wrote the note, wiped my prints off everything, and left it to the police to sort out.”
“But why would you do that?” Gabriel’s fingers dug into her skin. He shakes her arm so hard she winces. “Someone put you up to it. But who?”
“Who do you think?” she laughs. “Your father.”
42
Claudia
Gabe’s face goes white. I want to run to him. I want to cradle his head to my chest and kiss away the darkness that clouds over him. But I won’t give Cleo the satisfaction of seeing how her revelation affects me.
With a strangled cry, Gabe tears himself away from Cleo and crosses the room. He stands by the windows, taking in the view out across the harbor to the cemetery on the tip of the peninsula. To the graves that house my darkest secrets. Stars dance across his cheekbones, and he appears at once a remote, untouchable god and a small, sad boy.
It takes all my self-control to turn away from him, but I do it. I do it because he needs answers, and I will drag them out of Cleo at knifepoint if I have to. “Why would the duke want to do that to his son?”
“He wants to destroy Gabe’s career,” Cleo says. “He thought that if Gabe didn’t have Dylan or his music, he’d have no choice but to return to Blackwich and accept his title. But the duke couldn’t risk doing anything himself. Imagine if he was seen in the types of places Gabriel hangs out. The scandal would kill him before the cancer takes hold. So he hired me and he used his power to cover everything up. And then when it didn’t work, he promised that if I could destroy Gabriel’s life in America, he’d give me his son’s hand in marriage.”
“But why did the duke come to you?” I ask.
She sighs, as though I’m inconveniencing her.
“The duke didn’t come to me,Iwent tohim.” She twists her head to the window. Her voice rises with urgency. “Gabe, I’ve been in love with youforever. You’re amazing. Your music speaks to me in a way nothing else can. I knew from the moment you first showed up at school that fate had thrust us together. But I had to get you away from all the bad influences of the music scene, so you could see what was right in front of you.Whowas right in front of you. You were too besotted with Dylan to pay attention to me. So I went to your father and offered myself to him. I said I’d do anything if he gave me Gabriel. He needed a business partner he could trust, so he promised me as your wife if I could move Grey Death into Emerald Beach.”
