Page 31 of Pretty Nightmare

So now I start there.

What am I looking for?

It took me a while to figure this out. And I’ve changed my mind several times over the years. But the secret I’m looking for has something to do with power.

Not little power, like that blackmailing shit.

Not little power like fifty million dollars in gold.

Power on a grand scale.

Power that upsets the balance of everything we know to be true.

Power that spells out who is actually running this show.

Because while I do have a pretty big ego—it’s actually quite massive—I’m am not under any illusion that I run the entire world.

And yes, I have been pretty much controlling my own destiny for nearly a decade now—thank you, Nick Tate. I truly owe you one—but everyone has a boss. I just don’t know who mine is at the moment.

It feels like we rearranged the power structure several times since I was born. That Santa Barbara incident did it. That FBI shit that went down while I was recovering from Indie’s candlestick hit did it too.

James, and Nick, and Sasha were all behind those. The kings and queen of the Company.

And then, of course, Indie going missing—that was another rearrangement as well.

But that was me. When she left I picked things right back up. She freaked me out. I’m not gonna lie. When your little assassin turns on you like that, you circle the fucking wagons and reassess all your life choices. So that rearrangement was me.

But here’s the thing that keeps me looking… Indie coming back? That wasn’t Nick. He’s possibly dead. Maybe not, but if he really did fake his own death, then he’s out. For good. You don’t put that much effort into an escape plan to just come back and start it all up again.

And it wasn’t James. He and I talked about it just before Indie went missing.

And it wasn’t Harper. She’s stuck to James’s hip like glue.

And it wasn’t Sasha. Because I found out one little secret no one wanted to tell me about. And that’s that Nick Tate had a daughter. A little girl very much like my Maggie. And he dropped that little girl off with Sasha to keep her safe. So Sasha is most definitely out.

Who’s left? Who sent Indie back?

Of course it was Carter.

But how the fuck is he pulling these strings? Who is on his secret team? Where the fuck is he and how does he stay hidden?

“It’s a goddamned circle.”

“What’s a circle?”

Oops. Said that out loud.

“What’s a circle?” McKay asks again.

I bump my head back in the direction of Maggie so McKay will take a hint and drop it. “Nothing.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket and when I take it out and look at the screen, I get that feeling again.

I sigh and get up, then walk away down towards the duck lake without saying a word.

When I’m nearly at the edge, and the phone is buzzing for the sixth time, I press accept.

“What is it?”