Page 104 of Liars and Liaisons

It takes me a moment to recognize the person sitting there, slumped against the cabinets. Her white-blonde hair is soaked red, discoloring every inch, as if the sky opened up and just poured down on her.

There’s a hole in the middle of her abdomen, where her stomach used to be. Her innards are strewn about, haphazardly connected to her, like whoever did this got tired of removing them partway through and just left them.

And those beautiful blue eyes stare straight ahead, terror forever frozen in her irises.

Not a single ounce of life remains.

A muffled noise of despair escapes past my arm. Tears spill onto my cheeks, and I keep my mouth covered just to keep the retching at bay. My stomach flips violently, devastation wreaking havoc on my insides. Like a wrecking ball destroying everything in its path.

I slide my phone from my pajama pants pocket with trembling fingers; there’s no service, not even a Wi-Fi connection, and I swallow over the fear swimming in my chest.

When someone grabs me from behind, it falls from my hand and into Micah’s blood.

37

“I wantto go back with you.”

Kal exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. We were going to leave Violet’s mother at her home, after the very brief and unsettling revelation that she knew who we were. Or rather, knewhimdespite her daughter’s clear belief that Kal’s existence was a secret.

But she hopped in her own vehicle and followed us to the small airport and refuses to leave the runway.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Kal says.

The woman—whose name we’ve learned is Amelia, as evidenced by the ER badge she keeps strapped to her waist—crosses her arms over her chest. “I understand you’re… upset, dear, but that’s no reason to keep me from going to see my daughter. If you don’t take me, I’ll just get on another plane and show up anyway.”

Still, he stands in the jet’s doorway, barring her entry. Emotion, cold and distant, wars on the man’s face as he studies her.

“Violet’s going to want to know the woman’s safe,” I say from behind her. “Might as well cut out the waiting time and let her tag along.”

Jaw clenched, he turns that deathly-still stare my way. I just lift my hands, ready to get back home to my woman so I can drag her away from the estate until I end things with my family once and for all. According to Priya, she just spotted Nathaniel leaving DFA Records in New York, so I know I at least have a little time before he comes sniffing back around the property, trying to do more damage than he already has.

As if ruining Sydney’s life with his lies and empty promises wasn’t enough. Now, he’s stepped into full-on attacks, aiming to shut me down and take everything I love in the process.

But that’s okay because I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to strike. Those who enabled Sydney to abandon her music and craft have all paid for their sins; now, it’s time for Nathaniel and my father to take accountability for their roles.

She’d still be here if they hadn’t encouraged her to sign with one of their labels. Aiden barely got out himself when he left Symposium a few years back, and he has grit and survival in his genes.

They paraded her around at events, lauding her singing voice as a talent like no other, just to make the competition jealous. Her peers became envious, wanting the treatment she received from Nathaniel and my father, so they indulged her habits. The parties, the drugs, the sex.

All things I later forced them to indulge in until it killed them.

Sydney hadn’t been prepared. I’d failed to properly prepare her, and the world of the rich and the famous and the glitz it promised… it had eaten her alive.

It’s been eating me ever since.

Half an hour later, we’re taxiing off Goldengrove’s tiny runway, and then we’re thirty thousand feet in the air, heading back to Duris. I frown at the last three of my texts to Violet that have bounced back as undeliverable, but figure the internet connection is just poor this high up, no matter how luxurious the jet is.

Amelia sits toward the bar, chatting with Kal’s redheaded assistant. He sits in the chair across from me again, a tumbler of whiskey clenched tight in his fist. Glaring.

“You’ll get wrinkles that way,” I say, turning my phone in my hands.

“I’m almost forty. I’ll live.”

“Not interested in trying to look younger for the missus back home?”

He takes a sip of his drink, swallowing. “I don’t like you.”

Smothering a shit-eating grin, I lean my head back against the leather seat and shrug. “You’ll learn to. I’m an acquired taste.”

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