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“Wha—Wait!”
My heart was pounding.
This wasn’t the plan. Team Batt needed to have rules and guidelines and protocols so that we didn’t ruin the entire reason we were staking this lobby out in the first place. Like seeing our target and storming right up to them.
And then I got a good look at who was waiting for the elevator.
I ground to a halt.
Not Matt. Matt kept right on going, and the doors opened just as she looked over.
Blood drained from her face, but Matt grabbed her arm and stepped into the elevator with her. “Bailey!”
I pitched forward as the doors closed.
I thought it was Quinn. Same face.
It wasn’t her. It was worse.
Payton.
Maybe my first read on her was the correct one? She had been lurking, lurking and waiting, and what? She was here to report back to her sister about us?
Everything happened so fast that even the guards hadn’t gotten to us.
Matt had Payton cornered, and he was right in her face. “Is Quinn already in the room?”
“How did you…” Her eyes went from him to me, and back to him. “What? Yes. She’s up there.”
“How?”
“She—uh—” She was blinking, trying to think. “A back entrance, because of the press.”
“The million-dollar question…” He leaned down into her, getting in her face. She flinched. “Why thefuckare you here?”
Another eye dart from me to him. Her lips thinned, parting. “It’s not what you guys are thinking.”
“You don’t know what we’re thinking.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“That I’m here as her spy or something.”
Oh.
I uncrossed my arms.
Then, maybe.
She kept on, her voice rising, insistent. “She thinks I’m on her side, but I’m not. Honest to God. I love those children. Seraphina and Cyclone. It’s like they’re mine…” Her voice shook. “I meant what I said at dinner. I condemn my sister. She called earlier, in tears.”
She was lying.
“She told me what you said to her in the court building, and she asked me to see her. She thinks I’ll help get her back in her children’s good graces, and Peter’s.”
She was so lying.
There’d been no call. I had that data going to my own phone, so I saw that Quinn had placed calls in the last two hours, but none to Payton. The only correspondence had been the text, and once we got back to the house, I wanted to check the texting history between the two.
I had a feeling those would be enlightening.
