AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A chill runs through me, even though I haven’t seen the woman’s face. I know that hair, though.
Lots of things haven’t changed in four years.
Jane tenses, then looks where I’m looking.
“No way,” she mutters under her breath. “Of all the places one of them could be today, she’s here?”
Drew looks over and goes rigid. Makes eye contact with Silas, who gives him a slight frown, trying to read Drew.
“Mandy,” Drew says under his breath. He looks at me. He looks at Jane. Then he leans over and almost bumps heads with Jane as he says, “You told Lindsay?”
She and I both nod.
“Got it,” he replies. “Let me handle this.”
Before I can ask him what the hell he means by that, he’s up and over to the bar, where Mandy’s settling in on a bar stool. He lifts one leg up and hops into the seat, thigh muscles straining against the cloth of his suit pants, his waistband exposed as his jacket shifts.
I see his gun.
I shiver.
“You cold, Ms. Bosworth? I can escort you out.” From the flared nostrils and clenched jaw on Silas, I am pretty sure he knows who Mandy is. It occurs to me that a network of people hired by Daddy have more knowledge about my own life than I do.
It’s scary.
Right now, though, it’s also deeply comforting. Mandy’s outnumbered four to one in this bar. My ex-friend can go to hell.
I haven’t even had time to digest what Mandy, Tara and Jenna did four years ago. Why they lied. What drove them to betray me. What on earth made them think it was acceptable to go to the press and say that I got drunk and high and asked those three pigs to rape and torture me. Jane’s memory of my broken cheek makes me touch it, fingertips seeking out the smooth contour of my reconstructed eye socket.
I see Drew watching me, puzzled, and then his face goes completely slack. A simmering rage is underneath, though, because he clearly understands what I’m doing. I haven’t seen him in four years and never, ever wanted to be this close to him again, and here he is, as empathic and intuitive as he was when we were together. When we were happy.
When we thought we had forever ahead of us.
He turns back to Mandy at the bar and brushes her hair away from her ear. His mouth goes toward her neck and I see his lips moving. As the words pour out, her entire back stretches up, like an invisible Puppeteer has a string attached to the top of her head and is slowly pulling it up.
Then she turns to Drew with a murderous look on her face and starts to look my way.
His hand snaps up and grabs her jaw. It’s not a rough gesture, but it’s a damn powerful one. Mandy’s bright blue eyes widen so much they look like billiard balls. Drew uses his other hand to reach into his jacket pocket and throws a twenty dollar bill on the polished bar.
Then he lets go of Mandy, stands up, grabs her forearm, and escorts her out of the bar.
I don’t watch once they’re out of my peripheral vision.
I’m sick to my stomach. Mandy was always the queen bee of the group, the ringleader, and the one you thought long and hard about pissing off. Watching her manhandled like that by Drew brings a certain kind of delicious enjoyment to a part of me.
The part that feels like I’m spinning out of control on a patch of ice in a car with no steering wheel is about to throw up.
“Drink,” Silas insists, shoving a glass of water at me. I look around, blinking, as if I’ve just teleported here. The world disappeared for a few seconds, like it was on pause. I look outside and can see through the glass windows of the bar that Drew and Mandy are having words. Mandy’s having more words than Drew, and he’s pretty much ignoring her.
Is he actually on his phone while she yells at him?
Jane takes in the scene and snorts. “Drew never was Mandy’s favorite person in the world.”
“I think Mandy is Mandy’s favorite person in the world. Always was.”
“It’s funny,” Jane says thoughtfully. “I always admired her. Thought she was so put together and pretty. And then after...you know...”
“My attack.”
