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“Which is nothing! We don’t even know Cato’s mother’s name, and we fucking watched her die!”
“What?” Minka’s voice softens. Her compassion, thick and sweet. “You watched it happen? That’s horrible.”
“We know basically nothing,” I brush past Minka’s deeply buried soft side to agree with Arch. “But we can start with what we do know. The end, then work our way back. Who knows, we might not find your mother or mine, but maybe we’ll figure out who Cato’s was. We can give that to him.”
“You wanna make friends with your kidnapping victim?” he groans. “The famous, sick one who’s currently unconscious in your bed?”
“I’ve done stranger things,” I chuckle. “And I’ve spent time with women not nearly as pretty.”
“You’re a pig.” Minka’s feet hit the floor with a thud, the impact receding only slightly as she gives up on me and stalks away from the phone. “I’m going for a shower, Malone. I’m done with today.”
“Okay,” Arch and I both answer at once.
Her footsteps fade from the background.
“You annoy the ever-loving shit out of her, you know that? You antagonize her on purpose, purely to get a reaction.”
I scoff. “If I didn’t, she’d ignore my existence completely. Negative attention is better than no attention at all.”
“And yet,” he drawls, “despite your bullshit, she stands up for you when you’re not around. She loves you. She just doesn’t have the words for it. She barely has the words for me.” He pauses for a beat, silence falling across our call before he adds, “Release the girl, Lix. Or get her a doctor. But dosomething. Because I really don’t want to find out she died while we sat here and chatted about her abduction.”
“She’s okay.” I study her angular face while she rests. Sun-kissed spots on her cheeks. Her lips are bowed and thick, though I’m pretty certain they’re real, since her father has a similar set. “If she’s not better by morning, I’ll call back and see what we can do.”
“And if she dies first? What then?”
“It’s a cold,” I mumble. “A twenty-four-hour bug or some shit. She’ll kick it by morning, then ravage our kitchen and eat three-days’ worth of food for breakfast.”
“Is that when you’ll discuss a business deal where she ruthlessly digs through our family’s history and ferrets out the identities of five dead, abused women?”
“Don’t you want to know?” I retort, though I frown when Christabelle’s face screws up in pain. Or sickness. Or something a doctor might better be able to distinguish. “Your mother was murdered, Arch. Tossed away like she didn’t matter. Aren’t you curious?”
“Yes,” he admits. “Though I’ve never been curious enough to kidnap an overeager journalist whose net worth makes us look like chumps. She could buy you, Lix. And me. She could buy the whole fuckin city.”
“Then I guess it’s good we’re not for sale.”
I push up to my elbow and swing my legs over the side of the bed. As I rise to my feet, Christabelle writhes on the mattress.
“I’m hanging up, Arch. But I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
He doesn’t bother with goodbyes. Or manners. He simply ends our call and, no doubt, heads off to join his wife in the shower.
But I don’t mind. For the first time, perhaps ever, I don’t begrudge my brother the woman he married, or the life he shares with her.
Instead, my mind focuses on Christabelle, even before my feet move me across the room to my office so I can snatch up a wine bottle bucket.
I check inside to make sure it’s empty, then I head back across the room and sit on the side of the bed. “Hey?” I set the bucket on the mattress by her legs and push her to her back, guilt lancing through my blood when she whimpers. “Wake up, Christabelle. Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“No.” She curls in on herself again, scrunching her eyes tight and hugging her stomach until she resembles a small child. “I don’t feel well.”
“I know, Darling. But you need to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.”
She heaves, her chest spasming and her skin turning a sickly shade of gray. I grab the bucket and place it by her face, but she doesn’t vomit. She doesn’t explode the way I know her body wants to. She only whines and somehow manages to sneak worry into my heart.
Two days ago, I might’ve paid for a bus to go rogue and take her out on her way to work.
Today, my soul aches at the sight of her in pain.
