“This is... interesting.”
“What is?”
“Bringing a knife to a gunfight.” Still twenty feet away, she opened her suit jacket, pulling a pistol from its holster. My blood ran cold. Dennis never told me she had a gun.
“Why don’t you set your weapon down on the table, and we can talk?” She raised her gun up and waved it from me to the table. Raising my hands slowly, I did as told. I’d have to figure out how to get the gun from her before I tried to kill her.
“Now come sit.” She pulled out a chair next to the one she’d been sitting in. “I’m sure we can figure out something that will benefit us both. I have lots of connections.”
That she did. Dennis had told me all about it. How when he did try to speak up about his assaults, she was able to silence him with payoffs. Maids, cooks, drivers, any staff member he told was given a heavy check to stay silent. That wouldn’t be happening tonight.
I sat, and she joined me, putting the gun on the table, facing me.
“You have pretty green eyes. And that hair, it’s striking. Women love you, don’t they? Have you considered escorting?” She reached for my chin, and when I pulled away, she reached for the gun and I forced myself to sit still. “You are so pretty,” she muttered. “We will have so much fun beforeI kill you.”
“No, you won’t.” The voice that I should have never heard came from behind me.
I was too slow to turn. Jessica looked up past me, and in a panic, I lurched forward, swatting the gun from her hand. It slid off the table, and she stood quickly. I tried to reach for her hand to hold her back.
“Daisy!” I screamed as I turned my head. Daisy ran forward, the knife I’d dropped on the table in her hand. In a flash, the blade plunged deep into Jessica Wolfsheim’s chest. The billionaire heiress stumbled back, her eyes wide with surprise. Blood bubbled up from her throat and spilled from her lips before she collapsed.
The room was silent, except for Jessica’s dying breaths and the crackling fire across the room.
I stared, mouth open and eyes unblinking, as the life left her eyes.
This was not how it was supposed to go. Daisy’s DNA—it was on the knife embedded in the dead woman’s chest.
Fuck.
Chapter 17
Daisy
I cuppedmy hands over my mouth. What did I just do? I stepped quickly backward out of the spotlight. I didn’t want him to see me lose it. Tears erupted from my eyes as I hit the curtains behind me and fell to the stage.
Gatsby gave me two things to do. Wait for him, and not tell anyone the truth about what happened that night. I’d now broken both promises.
“Are you happy now, knowing the truth?” I shouted through my choked back sobs at the man hiding in the balcony. I stumbled back to my feet. “An innocent soul is rotting in prison because of what I did. And one day, they are going to kill him, and that will be the day I kill myself as well. I only live because I still hope one day I’ll wake up and it won’t be true, but when that hope is finally taken, I’ll have nothing to live for.”
I blinked back tears, knowing I had to get out of there. Lowering my head, I moved toward the edge of the stage, leaped down, and ran up the ramp to the doors. As I reached the auditorium door and gripped the handle, a hand clasped my wrist, stopping me.
“Don’t go,” the man growled from behind me. He pressed his body to my back and wrapped an arm around my middle. I stared at the hand around my wrist, recognizing the tattoos. The man who’d texted me, the man from the shadows, had come down.
“I can’t be here.” I sniffled. “I’ve betrayed him enough.”
“Don’t move.”
Part of me knew I should run, but another part, the part deep inside of me that touched myself to his distorted voice the other night, listened. I relaxed, and the man stepped back, letting me go. A moment later, a blindfold covered my eyes. He tied it firmly and then reached for my hand.
“Let’s talk.” His tone was softer.
“Who are you? Why can’t I see your face?” I asked as he slowly turned me back around.
“Daisy, I find your silent devotion admirable. Not many would continue to love a cannibal.”
“That’s a lie. They wanted to make a lesson out of him. That woman was rich and important. With his good looks, they thought he’d start an uprising, a class war. They couldn’t have that.”
“So, you think they made it all up?”
