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Against my better judgment, I end up falling asleep. It’s uncomfortable as hell on the concrete floor and my hands are still zip-tied together. Somehow, I end up drifting off. But even when I do, I toss and turn and struggle to find any way to sit that doesn’t hurt like hell after a minute or two. Captivity isn’t supposed to be cozy, but the least Holly could have done was give me a damn pillow or something.
I startle as the door bangs open and Holly steps through. “Well! Don’t you look just so comfortable?”
I glare up at her. “You bitch?—”
“Ah, ah.” She holds up one hand; the other already has a gun aimed right at me. My face flares up, hot and afraid. I’m caught somewhere between being absolutely enraged by her audacity and the fear that comes with how brazen she seems to be with that gun.
“Now that I have your attention,” she continues on, “I think we need to set some ground rules. One: don’t you ever call me a bitch again. Are we clear?”
When she pauses, clearly waiting for an affirmative, I reluctantly give in. “Yeah. We’re clear.”
“Good. Two: you’re going to behave. That means no yelling, no fighting, no silly little escape attempts. I hear that my Reese had you on a little extended vacation there for a while and you got out. None of that here. You will get shot and I don’t think I have it in me to tell my guards to make sure it’s non-lethal. You don’t want that, now, do you? With your little one still inside you?”
I grit my teeth.
“Olivia, is that what you want?” she presses, eyes narrowed.
“No,” I snap out. “It’s not.”
A wide smile spreads all the way across Holly’s face. “Good! Then we’re in agreement.”
She leans back against the wall, gazing down at me. The superiority complex is etched all across her face in her expression—unmoving, unforgiving, and entirely uncaring. I’ve never met a woman quite so empty of a soul as her. You can see in her eyes that there’s just no light there. Nothing human. Nothing real.
“You know you’re going to be the first person Reese puts on the suspect list when he realizes I’m missing, right?” I say. “You can’t possibly think you can just keep me here and no one’s going to notice that I’m gone?”
Holly chuckles. “Aw. You poor little thing. You think that Reese is going to report you missing? Cute. It’s why I’m here, actually.” Holly reaches into her jacket pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper. She offers it out to me, then laughs when I glare. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot your hands are a little tied-up. How about I read it to you?”
When I don’t answer, she clears her throat and starts in. “Olivia: I know this is probably a weird time for you right now. I wish I could have said this to your face, but I would rather just have a clean break and be done. I’m leaving you for Holly. I realize that this is what I should have done when she came back in town. She’s Violet’s mother and I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to raise our daughter together with her. It’s only right since she’s my firstborn and I think I can make this work with her. Besides, we’re already married. I lied when I said the documents were fake. I just didn’t want to keep dealing with you being angry at me. If you and I were meant to be, I would have proposed to you before I knocked you up. But I need to let you go. I need to focus on my first family—my real family. And you were never it.” Holly looks at me, her huge smile made of all teeth like an alligator’s as she finishes, “Signed, Reese.”
My nostrils flare. I can feel the rage in me, boiling over, but what comes out is an incredulous laugh. “That’s not from him. He would never say those things. I saw the proof. You’re not married; you’re?—”
Holly holds up her hand, showing off a shiny engagement ring and wedding band set. “Is it a lie? I don’t think so.”
I shake my head.
No.
This isn’t real.
I don’t believe it.
I sneer, and before I have the sense to stop myself, I spit at her shoes. “You can make him write any stupid fucking letter you want, but I know Reese. I know he loves me. I know he loves this baby. And I know he would never, ever write anything like that unless you made him do it.”
Holly’s face turns sour. “You can’t just do what you’re supposed to, can you?” she growls in frustration. “You’re either too stupid or too fucking stubborn.”
“People aren’t puppets,” I snarl. “You’re never going to get him to love you. So why do you keep trying? Why is it so important to be with him? Are you just that obsessed? You’re fucking crazy?—”
My face stings and splits open when she backhands me with her ringed hand. “Just because you’re too much of a fucking simple little bitch doesn’t mean the rest of us are.” She sneers at me. “I’m not crazy. I have a plan.”
With an alien quickness, her feral grimace smooths over into a pretty smile once again. “You know, since you’re never getting out of here, maybe I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She clears her throat and rises back to her full height. “You think too small, little girl. It’s a pity. You think this is about love? As if. It’s about money. Fame. Being recognized. I’ve lived my life doing everything fucking right—just to always, always, be overshadowed by her.”
For the first time, Holly’s expression drops. I watch on in dumbfounded silence.
“Do you know what it’s like, being born a twin, being identical to someone and yet still seen as lesser than them? Not quite hitting the mark? Do you know how crushing it is to be passed up, looked over, berated, for not measuring up to someone who literally is you? Of course you don’t. Heh. Well, let’s just say, Little Miss Perfect, my twin, fucked up and got knocked up by the wrong guy. Or, rather, the right guy. There’s a neat little morality tale in here. It goes like this: my perfect, infallible twin sister—Hellen, that’s her name—decides for the first time to cut loose. Goes on a girls’ trip with some of her wilder college friends. The timing just so happened to fall after a certain someone’s team won that year’s hockey championship. Fun, huh? She goes out and has her once-in-a-lifetime wild night out. Things happen and she realizes that she’s pregnant. Oopsie! But she doesn’t want to ruin Reese Dalton’s career by bringing a baby he might not want into his life. Doesn’t want the spotlight.”
Holly rolls her eyes. “It was all incredibly silly and disgusting, honestly. She didn’t want the spotlight… please. She’d had a spotlight all her life! Perfect grades. Perfect at piano—that’s what she went to college for, you know. Music performance. I was a little freer. I didn’t want structure. I wanted the ability to do the things that made me feel good and that made me the villain in our family. Ironic, isn’t it? Because our mother and father always thought I would end up being the one coming home with an unexpected baby. But no… it was sweet, innocent little Hellen. And you know what they did? They treated her like she was still that sweet innocent little lamb when she came home in shame!”
Holly’s anger radiates off her body. She’s seething in it. Absolutely infuriated.
