Page 52 of Chandelier Enthralled
Everyone had sacrificed a part of themselves. It was my turn to do the right thing. Jake had removed Stella from a scene, turning heads and making enemies. Atticus had tracked Roper across the world and seen his reign end, and now, I was here to do what everyone had failed to achieve.
After I’d placed my own personal touch on Pendulum, I was the one who deserved to bow out of this life.
Not her, not Amelia. Not like that.
Being back here, I was wracked with memories of my time with her. Doubt and denial left a taste of bitterness in my throat for having failed the woman I had sworn to protect.
Amelia was lying dead in a cold deserted mortuary.
And I was to blame.
I was her guardian, meant to shield her from danger.
My friends, with their well-meaning words and their futile attempts at reason, couldn’t understand why I still cared about her. They spoke of Amelia as though she were no longer the girl I had once known, but a woman consumed by greed and sin.
Now, she was lost to me.
Yesterday, in Cameron’s office, both he and Atticus had offered their theories on what had gone down in my backyard, ranging from Amelia taking her own life to more sinister scenarios.
Either way, the guilt ate me alive, tearing me apart, cutting into me like a thousand blades, slicing into my psyche.
I should have escorted Amelia home from here that night. Personally packed up her apartment and ensured she left the city, not taking my eyes off her until she was on that plane and flying out of California toward her home state.
Instead, I’d placed her in a cab and sent her back to her lonely apartment, letting my feelings get in the way of dealing with a woman who was clearly troubled. Because she had so easily bent to Jewel’s persuasion.
I’d witnessed Jewel’s elaborate ceremonies. Her obscene acts of what she labeled as pleasure. Her house of cards would come crashing down by my hand.
This I knew for sure.
Amelia had seen too much. Perhaps that was why they’d murdered her. I needed answers, needed to know why Jewel had gone out of her way to kill her. I couldn’t bear the thought that Jewel had done this to Amelia as revenge against me.
Within minutes, I entered the lounge.
Jewel barely looked up at me. Even as I stood here, in the middle of the room, seething in quiet rage, my hands clenched into tight fists, formed in the silence of my thoughts, as though my body understood what had to be done.
I had always prided myself on my control, but control, like everything else, had its breaking point. She would come to know in the seconds that followed, that nothing goes unpunished, even she had appeared unstoppable.
She sat there, the Queen of Pendulum, cloaked in cigar smoke and the rich scent of cologne and leather, surrounded by men in tuxedos who carried their reverence for her like a burden.
She was the only woman in the room, but she ruled them. Her power crackled in the air, making them twitch, their expressions showing admiration and fear.
Her heavy perfume reached me as it mixed with their liquors, a hellish intoxication. The men shifted uneasily, their faces betraying the truth they couldn’t hide—they recognized something in her they couldn’t control.
Up until now, she had held the reins—and we were all at her mercy.
Time to finish this.
“Why?” I seethed, needing to know, suspecting the question of why she’d murdered Amelia would go unanswered.
I had a thousand questions. Why kill her? Why in my pool?
Why now?
Me spiraling, this gradual eroding of self, me losing all sense of reality, was Jewel’s latest achievement in a long line of cruelty.
She’d wanted this, wanted me to turn up here, knowing I would take revenge, knowing these men would witness me out of control, and therefore steal our chance of owning Pendulum.
She smiled and it looked ugly on her.
