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I guess I’m not the only one with secrets in this room.
Noah nods. “Look, my father and Brentwood have some legitimate business dealings, so I never thought much of their acquaintance before, but… the last time that guy came to our house was shortly after we lost our case against the Malloys, and then Mackenzie and her family disappeared. Yesterday he was there again, and today someone shot at Mackenzie.”
“Bloody hell.” Gabriel’s given up all presence of mixing drinks. He takes a swig straight from a vodka bottle, cradling it in his arms like a baby. A storm of conflict brews in his eyes, and I see a glimpse of that strange moment in the Midnight Grotto, when he said I remind him of his dead drummer. A glimpse of the true depth of his fractured soul.
I wish I could feel like Gabriel feels, but someone has to sing the blood and the rain for those of us who live in the ice palaces. I’m the Ice Queen now, all the warmth Noah had stoked inside me frozen into hard, bitter truth.
Antony looks unconvinced. “Did you overhear any of their conversation? I find it hard to believe someone with as much to lose as Senator Marlowe would want to get his hands dirty going after a seventeen-year-old girl.”
Noah nods again. “My father said Brentwood had fucked something up, and he has a chance to put it right. Brentwood seemed… angry. But also scared. He said, “I’m not going near that house again. That’s no sweet-sixteen beauty queen you’re facing off against. She’s a cold-blooded killer.”
“That’s what he said?” Antony sneers. “He never said Mackenzie’s name explicitly?”
“No, but—”
“And you believe if this Brentwood – the most highly trained expert in his field in all of Emerald Beach – refused a job from your father, his only remaining option would be to hire a shooter so incompetent he let off several rounds at relatively close range and managed to miss you both?”
“I don’t know what I fucking believe, except that bullets sailed past my skull today and I need to know if my father’s behind it. There’s only one way to know for sure.” Noah meets my gaze, and the fire in his coal-eyes isn’t hate this time, but need. “Mackenzie, you have to tell us what happened four years ago.”
Eli
Noah’s words hang in the air, like icicles formed under the porch railing at our family hunting cabin. I feel them now – the cold biting my flesh, a thousand needles piercing my heart.
Cold-blooded killer.
Killer.
Killer.
Mackenzie’s cheeks burn with color. I can’t decide if she looks furious or terrified. Maybe a little of both. She exchanges a look with that guy – her cousin, I can’t remember his name (since when did Mackenzie ever have cousins?) – but I can’t infer anything from it other than he knows whatever secret she’s hiding and he doesn’t think she should give it up.
Killer.
Killer.
Killer.
Mackenzie turns to me, and her eyes are pure ice and malice. The change in her is quick and so profound I gasp out loud. It’s like a magician snapped his fingers, and I’m looking at Mackenzie’s face – the same heart-shaped face and perfect nose I fell in love with as a kid – but behind her frosty eyes is a completely different person.
“I told you my one condition,” she says, her words calm, measured. And all the more chilling because they no longer sounded like Mackenzie’s words. “I won’t dig into your secrets, and you wouldn’t ask about mine. If you don’t trust me, there’s nothing else to say. Get out of this house. All of you. I never want to see you again.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Mackenzie spins on her heel and storms off.
“You heard the lady.” Antony stands, reaching into the inside of his jacket. I see an outline of something beneath the fabric. A gun? The huge guy cracks his knuckles again.
“Fuck this, and fuck you,” I spit.
“Eli, wait.” Noah reaches for me. He smells like her, and I hate him, I hate him more than I ever thought it possible to hate, more than Gabriel because he at least never pretended to give a shit about my happiness. I duck under Noah’s grip. If that fucker touches me right now I’ll flatten him.
I fly out the ballroom door, darting a look left and right. She’s disappeared into one of the endless rooms. I’ll never find her without a map and a summoning spell.
I have to try. I need to know.
Killer.
I pick left. I’ve barely gone three steps when—
CRUNCH. My foot lands on something, and I feel it snap under my heel. I bend down to examine the twinkling pieces of metal I’ve ground into the Persian rug.
