Ida Marie peeked at my stitches. Her eyebrows crept up her head. “How are you doing that?”
I lifted my foot off the sewing machine pedal and hovered over her machine, skimming my eyes across her set up. “Your feed throw timing is off. You actually might want to adjust your hook timing.” I fiddled with a few buttons, my ass bent over—and I could feel Nash’s glare scorching it. “Here. Try that.”
“Thank you.” She inched her foot onto her pedal until she accustomed herself to the new settings. “I should have minored in fashion, too, instead of going all-in on interior.”
“I actually majored in fashion and minored in interior.”
“Huh. Why are you working interior then?”
I sat back down at my station, working the fabric under the needle. “No market for fashion designers in this part of town.”
I tucked my chin down and focused on my curtain, not bothering to elaborate. Talking about the way I had entered college with stars in my eyes and a dreamer’s mentality enforced Nash’s accusations that I had fucked up my ‘ten minutes as an adult.’
Fashion design made no sense to Virginia. Her argument hinged on my lack of style, but it never was about style for me. Fashion is showing people who you are on the inside because most of them never bother to look past the packaging.
Tell me another way to speak without speaking, and I’ll learn it, live it, breathe it.
From Cayden’s desk, Chantilly turned off her machine and stalked over to me. “Coffee, Miss Rhodes.”
“I’m in the middle of a stitch, and—”
“Coffee. I’m not asking.”
Unbelievable.
Chantilly had taken Nash’s demands as an invitation to order me around—more than she already had been. Yesterday, I dropped her dry cleaning off and picked the purple Skittles out of her family-sized bag.
“Actually, I think it’s time for lunch.” Cayden stretched his arms above his head before standing. “Anyone want to grab a quick bite to eat with me?”
Hannah and Ida Marie left with Cayden, but I stayed because I was even broker than usual. This morning, I had sent in the twenty-five-hundred-dollar donation to the Winthrop college fund.
I also didn’t want to chance leaving for the soup kitchen only to have Nash head there, too. Safer to suffer in hunger than risk another fight and be banned for life. Turned out, Nash funded most of the meals served there, which meant he owned me in more ways than I knew.
Chantilly hung around the office, waiting for Nash to invite her to lunch. He didn’t. She left soon after him, her head dipped down like a five-year-old who didn’t get the toy she wanted for Christmas.
My mind shot into overdrive. I fired a text to Reed once I was alone.
Emery: I have to be in Eastridge for the fourth of July. Please gag me and drop me off in the middle of the ocean.
Emery: Kidding
Emery: Sort of.
Emery: I need a ride… Haling Cove is sort of on the way from Duke, and I happen to know a blonde-haired, blue-eyed best friend who owns one hell of a Mustang…
Maybe Reed could come and be a buffer between me and Able. That scar on Able’s head had never faded. Our presence would probably throw him off balance.
Reed: Sure. I’m headed to Eastridge to go yachting with Basil and her family. We leave a few days before the fourth.
Fuck.
I had to go to the art gallery with Nash to view the Sisyphus sculpture and get his final approval. Another thing I dreaded. No way would I show him the triumphant Sisyphus now. He’d get the defeated, depressing one whether it’d been sold or not. I'd make sure of it.
Emery: Gahhh, no. I have something with work.
Emery: I’ll figure out another ride. Don’t worry about it. Hope you’re giving them hell in Durham, Reed.
I set my phone down when a wrapped lump fell to the desk in front of me. A sandwich. The label read Tuccino’s, the overpriced delicatessen a block over that catered to women of the Range Rover-driving, toy poodle-holding, flawless-credit-history variety.
Nash stood in front of me, that perma-bored expression glued to his face, staring at me like he expected a thank you.
I didn’t touch it.
Didn’t thank him.
Didn’t do anything but stare at him, face blank, a half-smile on my lips that I knew would taunt him.
In reality, I was flexing the hell out of my stomach, praying it wouldn’t growl at the scent of what smelled like pastrami on rye.
Holy crap, I wanted that sandwich.
I also wanted to not be poisoned sometime this century, and I trusted Nash Prescott like I trusted the phrase, “just the tip.”
“Eat the fucking sandwich, Emery. You look like ninety-nine percent of your weight is in your tits, and a half-starved preteen under my employment is bad PR.”
My fingers pried open the wrapper, holding eye contact with him and loathing that smug expression. I took a slow bite of the sandwich, chewing with an open mouth before I spit it at his foot.
The second it left my mouth, I regretted it.
One, I was hungry. Real hungry. The type of hungry where it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself.
Second, wasting food made me feel like a shit person. Everyone I knew at the soup kitchen would kill for this sandwich, but my pride never let me back down.
Funny that Nash’s mom had been the one to tell me that pride changed angels to devils, and here I sat in front of her devilish son, turning into something that reminded me too much of him.
Nash ground his teeth together, his jaw so ticked, I couldn’t help but notice how defined it was. I had it in me to feel bad about wasting the food, but not about spitting it at his foot. He treated me like dirt, second only to Basil Berkshire.
I would not cower in front of him.
Not be his charity case.
Not walk into whatever trap he thought he was setting.
I. Would. Not. Lose.
“Thank you for the sandwich, Mister Prescott.” With a smile on my face, I took care in wrapping the sandwich up so the paper covered every inch and tossing it into the trash. “I enjoyed it very much.”
I’d enjoy it more if you’d bend me over this table and make me scream or turn around and leave. My grin never wavered. Take your pick, asshole.
Nash was wordless as he pivoted and left. As soon as I was sure he was gone, I fished the sandwich out of the trashcan, unwrapped it as carefully as I could, and scarfed it down my mouth in five giant bites.
I would rather choke to death swallowing this sandwich than swallowing my pride.
According to Greek mythology, King Sisyphus betrayed Zeus. In return, Zeus ordered Death to chain Sisyphus in the underworld. Sisyphus asked Death to demonstrate how the chains worked, then seized the opportunity to trap Death in the chains.
When he was caught, Sisyphus’ punishment was to roll a boulder until it reached the top of a steep hill. Zeus had enchanted the boulder to always roll away from Sisyphus before he reached the top. That condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration.
The moral of the story—no one is above penance.
Even kings can’t escape punishment.
Sisyphus’ eternal punishment is also why pointless, difficult, or impossible tasks are described as Sisyphean.
I imagined Sisyphus carrying a boulder in front of me, like I often did when I needed to remind myself penance required delivering. That I would be trapped in this Sisyphean task for life, and even when I accomplished it, I would always suffer knowing I could have prevented all this.
My penance was to deliver punishment to those involved in the Winthrop Scandal.
Gideon Winthrop for embezzling money.
Balthazar Van Doren for co-owning Winthrop Textiles and helping Gideon.
Virginia Winthrop, Eric Cartwright, and Emery Winthrop for knowing or worse—being involved.
The second Dad died, retaliation fueled my nights, turning dreams into
revenge fantasies and plotting into an obsession. The first nail in the head would be Gideon. He had been the ringleader, the main owner of the company, so he would be the first domino to topple.
I planned to acquire access to his fortune, then sit in front of him as he watched it bleed dry, knowing the son of a gardener had brought his deliverance. And like a sudden windstorm, he would never see it coming.
The others would suffer after, their penance easy to achieve. Virginia thrived on a life of luxury. Without money, she would wither to nothing. Balthazar and Eric deserved to suffer in six-by-eight cells, which would happen once I turned over the ledger to the F.B.I. or S.E.C. and testified to the two conversations I had heard the night of Emery’s cotillion.
The one before—where Gideon and Balthazar discussed embezzlement and the downfall of Winthrop Textiles.
The one after—where Gideon, Eric, and Virginia argued in the office, Virginia yelling that Emery already knew.
And Emery’s penance was supposed to be dismantling her trust fund… If she was to be believed, however, she had no trust fund. I believed her like I believed Mariah Carey sung without autotune.
I considered her involvement. She’d been young at the time, which was why I only intended to relieve her of her trust fund. But she was old enough to know better. To, at the very least, warn Reed, Ma, and Dad. That was all I expected. Instead, she’d kept her mouth shut, my parents lost everything, and Dad lost his life.
No, Emery Winthrop didn’t deserve my pity nor my futile attempts to feed her.
I chalked it up to habit. With Virginia forgetting to give Emery lunch money so often, it had become a habit to stop by Reed and Emery’s table at lunch and hand her the brown lunch sack Ma packed me.
Now, she was hungry again, and habit had taken over. Worse, she had met with Brandon Vu outside the tent city. A gilded snake in my stolen kingdom.
Maybe taking me down was her penance.
After all, she had led an S.E.C. agent to my family’s cottage the day of the F.B.I.-S.E.C. raid on the Winthrop Estate. I’d only seen the back of his head, but he wore a windbreaker with S.E.C. printed on it.
Either way, Dick Kremer, the private investigator Delilah hired for me, needed to deliver, or I would level the state searching for answers.
Dick popped a sugar-free Jolly Rancher into his mouth, and I already knew I would dislike him and anything he had to say. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Delilah.
Nash: Where did you find this guy? Last I checked, Craigslist shut down personal ads.
Delilah: Haling Cove Flea Market. He came with my used tea set. Be gentle. Neither is refundable.
The pad of Dick’s thumb swiped at his nose. He clutched the chair handles with that same finger before drawing his eyes away from my penthouse view. “Emery Winthrop has taken out, like, a ton of student loans. Before this, she had a job at a diner in Alabama near Clifton University’s campus.”
Fika hadn’t told me that.
Fika hadn’t told me a lot of things.
Dick continued, “She used all of that diner money to pay a company called Atgaila. It’s Lithuanian for penance. The company is registered under her name in Lithuania, and other than that, it’s like it doesn’t exist.”
Student loans.
Diner job.
Shell company.
Penance.
I had been given a puzzle with a million pieces, and the biggest one had been hidden. What I did know was, the word penance implied she had done something wrong to atone for. I latched onto that like fingers gripping the edge of a cliff.
“What does the company do?” I finally asked.
“Dunno.” Dick scratched his belly, the one he had shoved into an Ed Hardy tee two sizes too small, the gym rat muscles peeking out in a way that was very much obscene.
I rarely raised my voice. Speaking threats at a level volume always worked better than shouting them, but I upped mine a notch or two, because Dick was that type of person. The type that mistook aggression for strength. “How much is it worth?”
He withered in front of me. The two-hundred-and-seventy-pound boxer in the distressed True Religion douche jeans and hot pink Tap Out briefs peeking out actually withered in front of me. “I don’t know.”
“Where is its headquarters?”
“Um, I don’t know?”
I wanted to strangle him. “Dick—”
“It’s Richard.”
“Dick, take a break from your Jamba Juice green smoothies, extra-strength steroids, and failed super heavyweight career, and teach your concussed ass how to do its fucking job.”
First Fika.
Now Dick.
Un-fucking-believable.
Competence, it turned out, was the Lochness Monster—it never existed in the first place, but people sure as hell liked to say it did.
I pointed to the penthouse door. “Get out.”
“But—”
Sliding Emery’s wallet out of my pocket, I tossed a few hundred-dollar bills at Dick’s stunned face. “Buy yourself a new fucking brain, and get out.”
I ran a palm down my face as Big Dick scrambled out of the chair. The door opened but never closed. When I looked up, I caught Fika hovering near the entryway like a confused puppy unsure how to use the stairs for the first time.
Delilah Lowell.
She could never mind her own business.
“Delilah sent you here,” I stated, taking in the newfound weight Fika carried.
His tan had returned since I had last seen him. I’d never seen his eyes this crystal clear, too. He wore a fitted purple Henley sheathed over scraggy muscles, but his skin no longer glowed a shade of death.
He paired the same distressed jeans he always wore with Nike slides and red and gold tube socks with the number seven stitched on the sides in white. Even the sallow cheeks I’d gotten used to had filled out.
“Delilah called me last night and said I might wanna make a day trip to Haling Cove.” Fika rubbed the top of his head, brushing four strands of stringy blond hair to the side. The Jonas Brothers wig no longer covered his scalp, but he had the same amount of hair as Rosco. He also didn’t look tired. “Not much to do for me in Eastridge, so I said, yeah, I’d make the trip. Saw your Ma at the supermarket the other day. She said Reed is coming back to town soon.”
I ignored his last comment, slid Emery’s wallet back into my pocket, and gestured to the chair opposite of mine, wondering if I had any cigarettes in my desk. I didn’t smoke, but I used to keep them around for Fika’s visits. “You look like shit, but less shitty than usual.”
“The tumors in my lungs are basically gone.” He rubbed around his ribcage before taking a seat. “Hopefully for good this time.”
I booted my laptop up and searched for Emery’s shell company. “Why are you here?”
“I know you paid off my medical bills.”
Fika looked two seconds from thanking me, so I cut him off, “It was anonymous.”
If I wanted his gratitude, I would have cooked him dinner and complimented his eyes. Never happening in the next ten lifetimes.
“What do you know?” His shrug emphasized how much he had filled out since I’d last seen him. “I’m a good P.I. I’m good at following clues.”
“Funny, considering you haven’t clued in on the fact that I want you out of here.”
I didn’t.
Not yet.
I had questions.
He had answers.
“Fine.” Fika held up both palms in the universal sign for surrender. “I was only here to say thanks.”
I let him walk to the door, searched for any signs of exertion, then stopped him. “Wait.”
He did. “Yeah?”
“Emery Winthrop—”
The few wisps of hair on his head flopped forward as he shook it. “I already said I ain’t sharing more about the Winthrop family, Nash.”
“Let me ask the fucking question first,” I bit out.
In front of me,
my search for the shell company had come up empty. It would always. Unlike her pigeon-brained mother, Emery had a head on her shoulders. Fika, on the other hand, possessed answers. I needed them.
Fika heaved a sigh before returning to the seat and crossing his legs at his ankles. “Fine. Make it quick.”
“Look at you, Fika.” I toyed with the business card Brandon had left me a while back. It laid at the edge of my desk since. “Did your doctors swap your chemo drugs with something to grow your spine?”
“You’re an ass. You know that?”
Original. I’ve only been asked that by literally everyone I’ve ever met.
“Shocking revelation. No wonder you’re a P.I.” I cut to the chase, “Emery Winthrop is paying a Lithuanian shell company around $20,000 a year.” My eyes inspected his face, taking the time to search him for signs of distress, a spark of knowledge. Anything. “Do you know where the money is going to?”
He did.
It was obvious.
Stiffened shoulders.
Heavy sigh.
Resignation written between the grooves of wrinkles across his face.
“Yeah.” He paused and scrubbed his eyes, aging again before me. “It’s for a scholarship fund at Wilton University. The only recipient is this kid. Demi Wilson.”
“Who is she?”
“Angus Bedford’s daughter.”
I leaned forward in my seat until the edge of my desk pressed hard against my abs. “Angus Bedford didn’t have any kids.”
“He did with his first wife. They divorced while she was a couple of weeks pregnant. She put her last name on the birth certificate over his. He didn’t learn until later in life. His ex-wife passed away, and the kid lived with her uncle but went searching for her Dad.”
“She find him?”
“When Angus figured it out, he started making trips to New York every weekend to meet with Demi and help pay the bills. Had to stop after he lost everything he invested in Winthrop Textiles. Didn’t have the money for the trip or the bills. Life kinda spiraled for him. Then, he…”
Devious Lies: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Cruel Crown Book 1) Page 25