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She really is my mother.
Another piece of the puzzle slots into place. All this time, I’d been ignoring Ainsley Malloy as the clueless trophy wife under Howard’s thumb. But she had been forced to give up one of her children, and tricked and drugged in an attempt to stop her from making a fuss. So she hit Howard where it would hurt most – by taking his prize.
She was going to leave him. She was coming to get me.
But she never got to me. My sister beat her to death first.
My heart thuds against my chest. Conflicted emotions swirl in my brain. I can’t process this, can’t reconcile that this ugly woman might have loved me with such violent passion that she crafted this scheme to save me, and what my life might’ve been if she’d managed to pluck me from Julian August’s arms and make her escape. It’s too much. It’s too close to ripping my heart out and splattering it across the floral duvet.
So I focus on the tangible, the here and now. The treasure.
This explains why neither Howard nor Mackenzie knew where the treasure is. They both believe the other stole it when all this time Ainsley Malloy kept it hidden.
In this house.
Noah was right. The treasure is here.
I peer over at the open drawer, my mind reeling. If I’m right about this, the treasure should still be wherever Ainsley hid it, and Mackenzie doesn’t know that. My sister certainly believes the treasure is somewhere in this house. But she thinks her father hid it, and she doesn’t know where it is.
We’ve got to find it before she does.
“George,” I yell as I race toward the stairs, the diary clutched against my heart. “I’m going to need you to tear Malloy Manor apart.”
Mackenzie
I lower the binoculars and lean my cheek against the rough bark of the tree. This spindly bitch of a tree isn’t exactly designed for climbing, but I’ve been keeping up my gym training all these years and I’m still as sprightly and sure-footed as a spider monkey.
I’m not supposed to be here, climbing the trees surrounding Malloy Manor so I can see over the wall, watching my sister pulling something out from behind our parents’ marital bed. It’s a diary, hidden in the identical place where I used to stash mine. It figures Ainsley Malloy never had an original thought in her head.
I’m not supposed to be here, and that makes it even more delicious to raise the binoculars to my eyes again and watch my sister chew her lip in concentration as she scans the pages. She’s searching for answers. She’s so fucking clueless.
I’m not supposed to be here.
No one tells Mackenzie Malloy what to do, not when this bitch is the interloper in my house.
I touch the gun on my hip. I’m not supposed to have that or use it, either. I’m supposed to stay silent, sit back and let the men handle this. As if. I’ve been on my own, sorting my own shit out, since I was thirteen. Before that, even. I lived in that dilapidated castle in Germany and a bombed-out factory in Russia. I’ve done things that would blow my sister’s fragile little mind. I’m not taking orders any longer, not even from—
My phone vibrates against my leg.
As I shift my weight so I can reach for it, Claudia leaps up from the bed, her face white like she’s seen a ghost. I worry that she’s seen me, but she’s not looking out the window. Her little friend George comes running in. George is the real brains of the operation – she and Noah are the only real threat to me. Eli’s too nice and Gabriel is too drunk, although I am going to enjoy breaking him over my knee.
Claudia jabs her finger at the book and they start talking at each other. I wish I could hear what they’re saying, but I didn’t think to hide microphones in the house.
Actually, I did, but I was outvoted.
Certain people should just listen to me. I’m obviously right.
Claudia and George disappear down the hallway, but they’re back in view a moment later, through the French doors in Howard’s office. Claudia pulls out drawers and raps on the inside of bookshelves while George spreads out the house schematics on the desk.
They’re searching the house.
They can only be searching for one thing.
The treasure.
My treasure.
The diary must’ve had some new information. Interesting. I tortured Howard for hours and never got the location out of him. He claimed he lost it. What a joke. I knew he’d never tell Ainsley a thing, so I killed her in front of him to make him pliable, but maybe I should have leaned on her a little? I could have popped out her big, bimbo eyes one by one. Such a shame.
