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Kai came around the glass panel, hands on his hips, while I squirted shampoo into my palm.
“Where did you—oh,comeon, Scar.”
He spotted his phone in the toilet.
“This is my last chance,” I told him. “It’s a bitch move to destroy your phone, I know, and I promise I’ll get you a new one. But if I don’t find out what Gordon wants with me, if I don’t get to see Theo ever again...”
“DonotRomeo and Juliet my ass while you’re naked.”
I stepped forward just enough for the spray to hit my lower back, keeping my expression free and clear. “My world stopped spinning when my sister died. It restarted again when I found Theo. Then ran into another wall when he left. My life’s trajectory has been fucked up ever since I was seventeen years old, and for once, a clear path has been laid out in front of me. I need to get him out, Kai.”
“Even at the expense of your friends? Verily? Your family?”
“If I don’t do this,” I said, tipping up to wash the suds out of my hair. “There will be nothing left of me to give.”
Kai grew serious. “You’ve sold so much of your soul to the Saxon dynasty already, Scarlet.”
“Yeah?” I turned the tap off, wrung out my hair. “Then what’s a few threads more?”
* * *
It waswith great reluctance that Kai said good-bye to me at his door. I wasn’t escaping entirely, as Kai made me agree to wear his necklace as he monitored me on his computer, ready to call in the cavalry at my barest touch.
He was a true friend. While Kai didn’t agree with my actions, he also knew that I’d jump through the fire escape if I had to, and it was with the path of least resistance in mind that he shook on a plan.
It was inescapable destiny. Once I had eyes on both Trace and Theo, I was to press the necklace and bring the FBI in. It was the only way Kai would let me go without following, as well as the only reason why Chenko wasn’t standing in the doorway blocking my way out.
I wasn’t going in alone. Technically. I had the necklace, an item that wouldn’t be confiscated by Gordon Saxon’s security team due to its innocuous appearance. I didn’t take Kai’s gun, as I barely knew how to shoot, and my confrontation with Bo remained on traumatic repeat in my mind.
You killed someone.
There wasn’t time to dwell. I rubbed at my eyes, essentially pressing the memory out of existence until it would pop up again, likely at night, during the moments between awake and rest, those crucial seconds where all regrets changed to vivid flashbacks that wouldn’t recede, no matter how many sheep were counted.
Well, I wasn’t going to sleep, anyway.
This time, there was no formal gown adorning my body, no diamonds, or pearls. It was simply my denim shorts, which I washed in Kai’s sink then blew dry with a hair dryer, and one of Kai’s obscure rock band t-shirts. My hair was tied back and I wore minimal make-up.
As I took one last look in the entryway mirror, I thought this was a person I hadn’t seen in a very long time. The maintenance, primping, and couture I’d become accustomed to were long discarded, and I was back to myself, a girl from upstate who moved to the city with little to no dreams, but nowhere else to go. I’d been lucky to find Verily, and through her a waitress job which ultimately led to an uncanny talent of playing with cards. Everything I’d been through culminated to this point.
There was nothing left to lose. I’d been labeled a fugitive, or at the very least a person of interest, in the United States, along with Theo. I was too pragmatic to believe we’d be sipping Mai Tais in a country without extradition, living out our lives under different names, never to be seen again by the Saxon family or the FBI. In order to get us out, I had to bring the FBI in. Complicated, fool-headed, but true.
“You’ll be careful,” Kai said as I entered the floor’s hallway. It wasn’t a question.
“Always.”
To his credit, Kai didn’t roll his eyes. “I won’t take my attention off my computer screen. Not for a minute.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Scar.”
At the emotion in his voice, I went into his arms and said close to his ear, “I love you, too.”
“I’ll see you again.” There wasn’t as much inflection in his words this time.
“Of course.”
Without looking back, I descended the stairs.
It wasn’t necessary to reply to Gordon Saxon’s text asking for an address. His townhouse was well-known and ultimately impenetrable by any one layman. One had to receive an invitation in order to pass through the iron gate, and that included police, dirty and clean alike. No one crossed into Saxon territory without extreme vetting and specific intentions. It was a feat similar to an FBI agent’s wet dream to see the interior of the home, never mind Papa Saxon himself. He kept himself carefully apart from any crimes, questionable deliveries and inflated payrolls. In the words of Chenko himself, Gordon Saxon was a slippery son-of-a-bitch who the government had spent a decade trying to collar.
As I walked toward the subway, conscious of any eyes on me, I hoped I’d have the chance to talk to Theo before I pressed the necklace’s button and fucked him over a second time. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. I could look Theo in the eye and say,thanks for risking everything in an attempt to save my life, but I’m having you arrested. Enjoy your foreseeable future behind bars. Oh, by the way, I’m still in love with you.
The mere thought of it had me missing a few steps. If I could get a chance to explain before the walls come crashing down, if he’d be able to look at me…
The only way. It’s the only way, Letty.
And maybe it was. I traversed the lingering crowds poking around Chinatown, the cacophony of voices and cars rising into a cloud of white noise. Once I reached the subway entrance, I descended into the ultimate underground.
When a rat scuttled across the platform and down onto the tracks, it was too close an analogy to my journey to Gordon Saxon and I focused on the incoming lights of the subway train instead.
