She grabbed a small globe off a bookshelf and threw it at me.
I managed to block it before it connected with my crotch. “Fuck! Truce, okay? We want the same thing. You out of debt, and these assholes in it. We just need to find a way to work together without killing each other. Should be easy enough.”
“Easy enough?” she parroted. “That’s what I tried to do earlier, and how did you react?” She puffed her chest, arms flexed out wide. Her voice dropped an entire octave in mockery of me. “I’m talking scorched earth, Stella. Nuke you from the orbit, curse your entire bloodline, replace all the flooring in your apartment with Legos.”
Goddamn it, she wasnotfunny. “Can you blame me for not trusting you?”
“Yes!”
We eyed each other, clearly at an impasse. I’d done most of the damage tonight, and I had the most to lose if she failed to uphold her end of the deal, so it was on me to fix this. To get over my shit and do what I’d set out to do: work with her, even though I couldn’t stand her.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll try to be less of an asshole.”
She paced to the windows and threw open the curtains, staring into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for the flying pigs.”
“Stella,” I ground out.
She turned, smirking, and I realized it was the first time she’d come close to smiling in my presence. The sight was... fine. It was fine. That’s all.
“Oh, no,” she said, tone mocking. “What’s wrong? You don’t like it when someone is mean to you? Does it hurt your feelings? Make you angry?”
“No. It makes me hard,” I snapped.
That shut her up.
“Are you in or not?” I asked. “This will go a lot faster if we’re on the same team.”
Which means you’ll be rid of me sooner,I didn’t have to add.
She eyed me across the room. “I’m in. But you’re going to have to follow my lead tonight,” she said. “None of the stodgy old assholes here will take an invitation, at least not without immediately outing you and calling the cops. They’re too stuck up.”
I released an aggravated sigh. “Then what the fuck are we doing here? You said there would be plenty of targets.”
“Their children and grandchildren are who we’re after,” Stella said. “They’re the ones who are bored and depressed and looking for the kind of thrill you can provide. But first we have to get through dinner. Then we can follow the younger crowd to the afterparty, somewhere else in the house or on the grounds. That’s where therealfun will begin.”
16
Stella
The rest of cocktail hourpassed in a blur. We spent the entire time with my parents—no one else wanted to come anywhere near me. Eventually, Cordy, looking like a frogess in her swamp-green gown, invited everyone into the dining room, where there was no escaping the judgy stares cast my way. The upside was that I was so distracted by my lingering rage that they hardly affected me.
Theo better be right, and I better never see Maddie again. Because there was no way I’d be able to stop myself from attacking her. From ripping into her, tearing off entire chunks of her American Doll disguise to expose the ugly creature lurking beneath.
My fingers still trembled with unspent anger, and I shoved them beneath the dinner table to keep anyone from noticing. The nerve of that bitch, to stand there, looking me in the eye and lying through her teeth. It’d felt like an out-of-body experience, and even now, part of me still couldn’t believe it had happened. Who behaved that way? Who was that fucking manipulative and soulless?
A larger part of me recognized the behavior because I’d witnessed it from Maddie when we were younger—in smaller, less horrifying situations, when she tried to sway things in her favor. They’d been red-flag moments, but I’d brushed them off because her parents owned a media company, and she’d had PR training from a young age. She was just doing what she’d been taught, I’d told myself.
God, I’d been so stupid.
The chatter in the room seemed to fade as my thoughts backtracked to that awful night seven years ago. I would never forget what it felt like to kneel on the sidewalk next to Runa, watching Maddie flee into the darkness, her phone pressed to her ear as she sobbed, “Mommy,” like she was a child instead of a grown-ass adult, leaving me alone to deal with her crimes.
Theo’s hand landed on my thigh, large enough to completely envelop it. He squeezed, once, and then his scent filled my nose as he leaned in, something bright and clean, completely at odds with his personality.
“Fix your face,” he murmured, lips brushing my temple. “You look like you’re trying to set people on fire with your mind.”
