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His shoulders fell as the words left my mouth, devastated that the woman he loved hadn’t left this world with a mighty bang…but a pitiful whimper. One lone tear streamed down his cheek. He turned from me, walked to Jasper, grabbed Ava Rose and exited the dining room, leaving a wave of devastation in his wake.
I stood, intending to go after him, to hash this out so maybe he wouldn’t hate me forever, but Jasper stopped me at the door. “Give him time to cool down, to think about everything you told him tonight.”
I nodded and took a step back, a growing sense of dread building in my gut. “Okay. Fine.”
A black cloud hung over the rest of Sunday dinner, and that one glass I’d been nursing turned in three or four before the meal was over and nearly a dozen before the clock struck midnight.
The night lingered on, and I sat near the window in my bedroom, looking up at the stars, wondering if there were people in this world who were beyond redemption. And worse, wondering if I was one of those people.
I called Thomas. “Yes, Sadie?” He answered.
“Get in here and fuck me. Fuck me good.”
“I’m on my way,” he said, and I pressed end.
Chapter Seventeen
Sadie
Karma, or rather the law, caught up to me a week later, on Sunday morning. Agents Beck and Marshall showed up with matching smiles, and Jameson was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t expect them when they knocked at the door, yet I wasn’t surprised when they came with the cuffs. Thankfully, I was wearing vintage pink and black Chanel when the cops came for me, because just outside Ashby Manor, the media had set up a circus.
News vans lined up on either side of the street, reporters in their carefully hair sprayed helmets stood in front of cameras, telling the story of my arrest in modulated tones. Above the manor, a helicopter flew, no doubt getting an aerial view of the takedown of Sadie Rose Ashby.
I smiled to myself.
None of that bothered me. I knew who I was, and everyone in this whole damn town knew it too. They knew not to fuck with me or any member of the Ashby family, whether or not they carried the Ashby name. I wasn’t ashamed of the woman I was or the path I had to take to gain my power. Nothing Agent Beck did would change that.
Ever.
Hours later, I was processed, fingerprinted, and put in a cell where I sat for hours. No booze. No cigarettes. Left with nothing but my thoughts, my regrets, my deeds. Good and bad.
“Comfortable in there?” Agent Beck got her rocks off about once an hour, finding an excuse to walk by my cell to taunt me.
“So comfortable,” I assured her, my tone and expression bored. “Care to join me?”
“No thanks. You’re exactly where you belong.”
I smiled. “Easy to be a bitch with these bars between us.”
“Is that a threat, Mrs. Ashby?”
I shrugged. “Step inside and find out, Addison. Or should I call you Little Addy?”
She tried to hide her expression, but it was impossible. That flash of recognition was gone as quickly as it appeared. Agent Beck stood taller and squared her shoulders, doing her damnedest to appear unaffected.
“So, you warmed my father’s bed on occasion. I’m sure you weren’t the only one.”
I let out a laugh that echoed in the small cell and the smaller hall that led to the main guts of the cop shop.
“Oh, that’s cute, honey. Your father warmed my bed for many nights. Many, many nights,” I added just because I could. “In fact, I was almost a stepmother to Little Addy. In fact, he offered to leave you behind so he could warm my bed permanently.”
There it was. The flash of anger I was looking for.
“You’re a liar. Why would I believe anything you have to say?”
“I don’t give a fuck if you believe me or not. But Jack made the offer, said he could leave you with your aunt in Florida so we could be together full-time.”
Jack had been a good man and an even better fuck, but father of the year, he was not. Apparently, I had a type.
“But a man so quick to leave his child, well, he’s no man at all as far as I’m concerned. A little girl needs her daddy, or who knows where she might end up.”
“Running a criminal organization,” she shot back with a derisive snort.
“Or simply working for one,” I shot back. “But hey, some of us are leaders, and some of you are meant to be nothing more than…mediocre.”
Another flash of anger flared in her big blue eyes, and Beck stepped forward, lips pulled into a thin white line. “You’re going down, bitch.”
I laughed. “Better women than you have tried and failed, dear.”
