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Let them search. It’s about time my sister did something other than lie around wasting precious oxygen and getting cat fur all over my clothes. She can find my treasure, and then I’ll take it from her.
My phone vibrates again. I stare down onto the back patio. No one’s outside, so my voice won’t carry. I pick up the phone and jam it on my ear. “Yes?”
“Where are you now? Please tell me you’re not at the house.”
“How little you think of me. Of course I’m not. I’m at a cafe, having a Danish. It’s terrible. Americans can’t do pastries like Europe.” I hold the binoculars up again. George and Claudia are inspecting a china cabinet in the dining room.
It’s not in there, you fools. I already looked.
“Good,” the deep voice on the other end says. “We can’t risk her seeing you. There’ve been too many close calls. I’m on my way to your place. Can you bring me a Danish when you head home—”
I hang up the phone. I’ll go back to my place when I’m good and ready. I hate the way he calls it home. The dingy one-room apartment in the worst corner of Tartarus Oaks isn’t my home.
My home is right here – Malloy Manor.
My home is in the arms of three beautiful, utterly clueless princes.
My home is Claudia August’s life.
I let the binoculars drop against my tits. I blow a kiss in the direction of my clueless sister. “See you soon, Claws.”
Gabriel
“Hello, Your Grace. It’s lovely to speak again.”
I stand behind Claudia as she sits at Howard’s desk, making sure my father can see me in the shot. He frowns at us from behind his enormous inlaid desk – the monstrous piece of furniture apparently used to belong to Winston Churchill. Even though he’s thousands of miles away, just seeing him on the video sucks the air from the room.
The duke steeples his fingers and peers at Claudia over the end of his nose like she’s a curio in his private museum – something to be put behind glass and admired for its beauty, but too old-fashioned, too obsolete, to be any further use.
He underestimates her.
That will be his downfall. And I can’t say I’ll cry when she finally spills his blood.
“You say you will marry my son and provide me an heir,” the duke says. “But I’ve had word from my people in California that you’re to marry the heads of the Lucian and Dio families. Which is it to be?”
His people.
My father has people in this city of sin and depravity, a city he would never deign to visit because the very idea of it offended him so.
I came to California to escape the Duke of Blackwich’s poison, and all this time, he’s had his talons sunk into the very fabric of Emerald Beach.
I can’t escape my father. He’s in my blood, my marrow. His poison eats away at me from the inside out.
Claudia twists a lock of hair around her perfectly manicured finger. “If you’re referring to Cleo, I know she’s with you. The silly bitch has been posting on her social media. You should probably tell her to stop, lest my people figure out where she’s hiding. Don’t think the walls of your castle will protect her from my wrath.”
I watch the duke’s face carefully. He remains perfectly stoic, refusing to give anything away. But I think I can just see the vein above his eye throb with rage. I bet he didn’t know about Cleo’s post.
But all he says is, “Your authority doesn’t stretch across borders.”
“Doesn’t it now?” Claws smiles. From the outside, she appears a glamorous Emerald Beach teenager, all golden hair and Ice Queen eyes, but I see she’s in scorpion mode. She has her pincers bared to distract her quarry while she raises her poison tail. “Let me get straight to the point, Blackwich. You know who I am, and I know who you are – you’re the one bringing Grey Death into Emerald Beach. You were also the one who had Dylan O’Connor killed. Did Cleo tell you that she gave away that little nugget? I have enough evidence to go public with Dylan’s murder – what a fun scandal that will be for your gutter press.”
His nostrils flare. “It would be unwise to threaten me, Claudia August.”
She smiles at his use of her real name. “You may be right – I have secrets that can destroy you, but you hold my secrets, too. What happens next is up to you, and what you believe I’m capable of. Perhaps I’m just crazy enough not to care about our stalemate. Perhaps I have the police in my pocket, and I’ll get off scot-free if you try to dob me in. Perhaps no one will believe you that an eighteen-year-old Valley girl is the head of a crime empire. You’ll have to take your chances. Or, we can accept our mutually assured destruction and reach an amicable agreement.”
The duke steeples his fingers once more. “I’m listening.”
“Nero Lucian has been funding your expansion into Emerald Beach. Don’t deny it – Cleo told me everything. Nero had been using his chokehold over my predecessor, Brutus, to muscle in on the drug trade, which is Lucian territory. That’s over now. Here’s what’s going to happen – you no longer deal with Nero. If you want to sell in my city, you go through me. My cut is fifty percent of profits. I won’t accept any less, and I’ll need to have my accountant look over your books. If I find out you’re short-changing me, my vengeance will be swift.”
