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They weren’t normal ten-year-olds anymore. The rules about what was appropriate for children didn’t apply to them. I would have protected them if I could, but it was too late for that. I couldn’t be anything but brutally real with those two.
They’d see right through anything less.
I went into the corridor, staring at the phone in my hand as if it might blow up in my face. Ethan, Frey and Jed saw my face. They were on me in a hot second.
That was the downside of having a family who cared about your business. They were all up in your face and all over your shit. All of the fucking time.
“What’s going on?” Ethan said. “What’s with the phone?”
“Text message,” I said. “From Cass. A video.”
Freya gripped my shoulder. “Well?” she said. “Halliwell has already done his worst. He just wants to taunt us now. Let’s see it.”
I nodded. My voice wasn’t working, but who cared. There was nothing more to be said. I pulled up the video and set it to play.
There he was, that smirking son of a bitch. He was perched on the edge of a huge desk in a luxury office. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific. Next to him was Red. She wore a tight, high-necked, clinging black sweater dress with flouncy lace sleeves, and her hair flowed down around her, smooth and glossy and perfect. She, too, was smiling. That same cold, empty smile that I’d seen on the security camera.
“Hello, Shane.” Halliwell nudged Red. “Go on, my dear. Aren’t you going to greet your former flame? Where are your manners, Cassandra?”
She waved, flirtatiously. “Hello,” she said archly. “It’s been real.”
“So by now, you’ve figured out my plan, right?” His voice was jovial. “Let me introduce you to the woman of many faces… my beautiful and gifted daughter, who is now my sole heir, Cassandra Halliwell. The new CEO of Halliwell Enterprises.”
“Fuck me,” Jed muttered.
“Holy shit,” Ethan said.
Frey’s fingers tightened on my shoulders as she shushed them.
“… sorry to have inconvenienced poor little Regina in the process, very stressful for poor Cassandra. But it was a necessary evil, to inflame all your tender sentiments. Since you have such a pretty little one of your own. You really were primed to be manipulated. All of you.”
“Fuck you,” I burst out. “Asshole.”
“Shhh.” Frey’s nails now dug into my shoulder hard enough to break the skin.
“… see the family resemblance now, right? I bet you’re kicking yourself that you didn’t see it sooner, hmm? But one sees what one expects to see. I just wanted to thank you formally for your spectacular collaboration, both in the past, and going forward.” He lifted a bottle of champagne. Red held up two cups, which he filled.
He took one, they lifted the glasses, clinked them as the video ended.
I stared at the still video image of the champagne glasses touching, as the ground fell away beneath my feet into a yawning black maw.
CHAPTER26
Cass
Jana. Oh please, please. Be alive.
Hurry, hurry, hurry. If Halliwell woke up, vicious as he was, he’d kill Reggie on the spot, just for spite. But I couldn’t immobilize him, not without wasting precious time. The Bridge was an office environment, with nothing one could use to bind a man. No duct tape, twine, rope, electrical cord or plastic ratchet cuffs.
I just had to leave him as he was, unconscious and bleeding, and run down into the dungeons, praying to that benevolent mother goddess to do me one more good turn.
Just one. Please. For Reggie, not for me.
I pounded through the place, buzzing through doors with Halliwell’s stolen passcard. The place was so echoingly quiet. Also weirdly cold, like a meat locker. Or maybe that was just my own perception of Halliwell’s cold, dead heart.
Please, Jana. Hang on. Be there. Be alive.
Dread swelled in my belly as I held up the card to Level Eight. The light flashed green. I walked inside, slowing down as I walked past the glass-walled cells.
