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“Like I said, I’ll do my part because it’s what the fuck I do. End of story.” He froze and handed Ava back to her uncle before rounding the table and towering over me.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me everything.”
I looked up and saw the anguished look on his face before he closed his eyes, ready to hear the gory details of his wife’s death. As if he expected I would enjoy killing Bonnie.
Despite her betrayal, despite the fact that it was her uncle, Owen, who started me on the path that ultimately led to her death, I didn’t enjoy it. I did it because my family and my legacy were in jeopardy.
“Calvin,” I said.
“Tell me, goddammit!” he roared.
“There’s nothing to tell. After I got that flash drive back from Mueller,” I pointed at the evidence still on the table. “I went to the hotel. They entered his room, and I was already there, waiting for them. I raised my gun. A head shot…for both of them. They fell where they stood, eyes open, lifeless.”
His shoulders fell as the words left my mouth, devastated that the woman he loved hadn’t left this world with a mighty bang…but a pitiful whimper. One lone tear streamed down his cheek.
He turned from me, walked to Jasper, grabbed Ava Rose and exited the dining room, leaving a wave of devastation in his wake.
I stood, intending to go after him, to hash this out so maybe he wouldn’t hate me forever, but Jasper stopped me at the door. “Give him time to cool down, to think about everything you told him tonight.”
I nodded and took a step back, a growing sense of dread building in my gut. “Okay. Fine.”
A black cloud hung over the rest of Sunday dinner, and that one glass I’d been nursing turned in three or four before the meal was over and nearly a dozen before the clock struck midnight.
The night lingered, and I sat near the window in my bedroom, looking up at the stars, wondering if there were people in this world who were beyond redemption. And wondering if I was one of those people.
I called Thomas. “Yes, Sadie?” He answered.
“Get in here and fuck me. Fuck me good.”
“I’m on my way,” he said, and I pressed end.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Sadie
Karma, or rather the law, caught up to me a week later, on Sunday morning. Agents Beck and Marshall showed up with matching smiles, and Jameson was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t expect them when they knocked at the door, yet I wasn’t surprised when they came with the cuffs. Thankfully, I was wearing vintage pink and black Chanel when the cops came for me because the media had set up a circus just outside Ashby Manor.
News vans lined up on either side of the street, reporters in their carefully hair sprayed helmets stood in front of cameras, telling the story of my arrest in modulated tones. Above the manor, a helicopter flew, no doubt getting an aerial view of the takedown of Sadie Rose Ashby.
I smiled to myself.
None of that bothered me. I knew who I was, and everyone in this whole damn town knew it too. They knew not to fuck with me or any member of the Ashby family, whether or not they carried the Ashby name. I wasn’t ashamed of the woman I was or the path I had to take to gain my power. Nothing Agent Beck did would change that.
Ever.
Hours later, I was processed, fingerprinted, and put in a cell where I sat for hours. No booze. No cigarettes. Left with nothing but my thoughts, my regrets, and my deeds. Good and bad.
“Comfortable in there?” Agent Beck got her rocks off about once an hour, finding an excuse to walk by my cell to taunt me.
“So comfortable,” I assured her, my tone and expression bored. “Care to join me?”
“No thanks. You’re exactly where you belong.”
I smiled. “Easy to be a bitch with these bars between us.”
“Is that a threat, Mrs. Ashby?”
