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Venomous little snake. I’m going to snap her neck before the day is through. And I’ll make her watch as I bleed her daughter dry. The rage inside me builds as I think back to all the conversations Lucy and I had. All the times she asked me about Georgina, and I unwittingly told her about our routine. I thought that somehow I was helping her feel safe and part of our lives again by sharing meaningless crumbs. Except that it all amounted to enough for her to know that I cared so much for Georgina that I would become distracted by my need to protect her instead of continuing to focus on where she came from and what happened. In the midst of everything that happened, I took my eye off the ball.
She played me.
It all hits me at once with that concrete realisation. Everything that happened was to her advantage at the time. The flowers Georgina received were enough to distract me from looking into her shit. It wasn’t until I sent her away that an actual attempt was made on Georgina. If by some wonder she was taken from the high-security clinic as we started digging into the properties that Leo found…
“Kingsley was warning us,” I blurt, looking at Lucian as I ask, “His final word. What was it?”
Not that I need reminding. It’s something that’s been churning in the back of my mind non-stop since that night. I should’ve fucking beat the answers from her instead of making promises.
Lucian looks at me, confused, and before he can answer, Christopher says, “Petrushka, or whatever the fuck you’ve been obsessing about.”
“He was warning us that it was her. That she turned on him. The doll on your dad’s desk—” I look up at Laura. “—was it always there?”
“No. He kept a photo of our family on his desk, a biro and a fountain pen to sign documents with. Apart from that, his red box never left his desk unless he put it in the safe.”
Motherfucker. “That’s her signature.”
“What are you talking about?” Christopher frowns at me.
“The fucking coyotes…” I tell him. “That’s what I’m talking about. Coyotes and puppets, and all this fucking shit that never fucking ends…”
“Max liked to call her a pretty doll, and I should’ve known that he was going to use her. His own granddaughter was too precious. Not my baby though.” Sarah turns to look at Francis.
“What does Maxwell have to do with this?” Francis barks at her. Something about the way he’s looking at her doesn’t seem right. It’s almost like he’s as enraged as I am and struggling the same way as me to keep it under control.
“It was his plan. Send her in and make sure that she got insight on the Russians before they came in and saved the day. It was meant to be Harry’s crowning moment. A legacy that would keep him in that office until his grandson could take it, but Charles went rogue. He got a better proposition. He told me Lucy was dead. All these years and she was alive.”
“Where. Is. She?” The question grinds past my clenched teeth as I round the desk and stalk to her. “You’re going to tell me where she is, or I’m going to beat it out of you.”
“Fred.” Francis tries to grab my attention as he comes closer.
“Did you know about this?” I ask him without taking my eyes off her.
“If I did, we wouldn’t be where we are.”
“You wouldn’t have cared, regardless. The only time anyone gave a shit was when your daughter became a target and Max figured out that Lucy was alive. You ever wondered what was so important that he had to get in that helicopter out of the blue? What was so urgent that he had to meet with Kingsley and Charles at the same time?”
“How do we know you’re not lying?” Christopher asks, bringing the desk chair around and sitting it behind her before I push her down into it.
“Because it’s all there,” she spits with curled lips, nodding at the desk.
“Where?” Laura asks, pulling out the drawers of the desk. She gets to the bottom one before she asks, “Where’s the key?”
“I don’t have time for this shit!” I thumb my phone open to the tracker app again and refresh, trying for luck or maybe a small miracle.
Nothing. Desperation claws harder and deeper at my chest the longer we stand around waiting for her to give us something. A crumb that we can trail to the only thing that matters right now—Georgina.
“You’re right, Sarah—I’m crazy. I’m a motherfucking psycho, and there’s nothing stopping me from letting it all loose on you apart from the fact that you might know where Lucy is. If you can’t give me that, I’ll have no use for you…” Pulling my knife out from my pocket, I flick it open to a body-racking shudder from her. “I’ll have no use for your tongue—” I tap her lips with the flat of the blade, pushing between them until I pry her teeth apart. “—and you’ll have no use for your eyes—” I press a thumb to her eye, grinding it into her socket until it’s bulging back. “—or your ears.”
“Where’s Lucy?” Casper asks her from behind me at the same time as there’s a loud crack of wood and a gasp from Laura.
“I don’t know,” she answers, tipping her chin up in that arrogant way of hers.
Visions of my knife sticking right into her throat drive my need for blood to a craze that’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
“Yes, you do.” Laura pushes between us, hands grasping either side of her mother’s face as she grits out, “You knew exactly where she was all this time. Didn’t you?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
