“I’m assuming you need to be invited to join?”
“Yes. Only an existing member can invite new ones. You have to pass background checks and pay fifty grand a month.”
I balked. “Fifty grand a month?”
Scarlet nodded gravely.
“So Mal was paying that much money?” I whispered.
The fee itself didn’t surprise me. Mal had always been a big spender. I’d never judged her for it, but she certainly judged Livie when she talked about possibly joining a sorority. She’d said, “I didn’t realize you needed to pay for friends, Olivia.” By then, Mal was … different.
Scarlet nodded and looked around quickly, as if trying to make sure no one could hear us. The only reason we were meeting there to begin with was so she could introduce me to some of Mallory’s “friends.”
“The group is small, from what I know, and they’re allvery high-profile people who would rather not have their business out there.”
That made sense.
“John should be here. He’s the one I think you should meet,” she said. “He liked your friend very much, so I think he might help.”
Unless he had something to do with it. I don’t say that, though. Scarlet already knows I don’t think what happened was an accident, and she understands why I’m digging.She introduced me to John and an older man named Leo, who happens to be friends with my stepfather.God, what a mess.I should just give all of this information to Finn and call it a day, but what information? I don’t think it would be that shocking to him that Mal was in some sort of sex group. I take a deep breath and exhale shakily, just as my phone starts to ring with a call from Olivia.
“How’d it go last night?” she asks, the moment I greet her.
“It went.”
She exhales. “I figured it was bad when you said you weren’t coming out with us afterward.”
“It wasn’t bad,” I say. “It was just weird. Did you know she was in a fifty-grand-a-month sex club at Onyx?”
She’s quiet for a beat. “Like a kink club?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe? It sounds like a very expensive hookup club.”
She sighs. “Are you surprised?”
“I mean, you knew her much better than I did,” I say.
“Yeah, but toward the end…”
“Yeah.”
Toward the end, Olivia had all but cut Mallory out of her life. Their entire friendship had been rocky. When Livie introduced me to Mallory, they were on the mend from a major falling out, so I wasn’t surprised when that cycle continued to repeat itself. Livie didn’t like Mallory’s mean streak, and Mallory didn’t like the way Livie called her out on her shit.
“Anything else?” Livie asks. “Did she mention anyone specifically she was hanging out with a lot?”
“Not really.”
“I take it you haven’t asked Tiago anything?”
That makes my back stiffen. “There’s nothing to ask him. He went there once, and gave me way too much information about what they did in there.”
“What a mess.” She exhales. “Are you ready for tonight?”
“I guess.”
“Want to do my makeup?”
I laugh. “Sure. Come over soon, though.”
