Page 33 of Crown Jewels
“Consider it done, but you owe me a favor.”
A favor for Preston Whitley, that wasn’t going to be good.
“Oh and Vahn…”
“Yeah?”
“Buy your bird a new cage, that thing’s too small.” He said and hung up.
Son of a bitch.
EMMA
When my dad was on the wagon, he would get all this self-help stuff. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit—he always went back to drugs. But because I wanted to support him in his venture for sobriety, I would go with him to seminars and read the same books he did.
Most of it was useless things that at first sounded empowering, but really wasn’t. Like say yes to yourself, and only you can find the light in the dawn. Yet, for some reason these words motivated people.
When I got dressed the next morning, I found myself thinking a lot about those seminars. Not because the advice washelpful in any way. It was the one commonality of all the self-help stuff that I kept thinking about.
Each and every motivational speaker had a moment of revelation that led them on their new life path. I was having a moment like that right now.
Don’t get me wrong, most of the stories I’d heard were probably bullshit lies that played into their self-help con—I had no plans to start a movement for the empowerment of women—but I felt more awake now than I’d ever been.
There were two things the attack made me realize. I had absolutely no idea how to read men, and Vahn Kessler was hiding something.
I looked over at the bottle of pills on my bedside table.
The medication in it was prescription, but we didn’t need a prescription for them. The doctor—who Vahn somehow got to come to the house—had them on him.
Now, I didn’t know much about the medical field, but I did know that doctors didn’t make house calls. Not unless you had a lot of power or money. As far as I knew Vahn had neither.
That led me to my internet search. I didn’t have much to go on, just Vahn’s name and his hometown. I found nothing. And I meant nothing. There was no online presence of the Kesslers what so ever. No mention in a newspaper, no pictures at any town events. Nothing. Vahn didn’t even have Facebook.
Everyone had some kind of online presence. Unless there was a reason that they shouldn’t. Criminal activity came to mind. Were we living with a mobster?
I couldn’t shake that thought from my mind. The look in Vahn’s eyes when he was beating on Professor Winston was something I wouldn’t forget either. Vahn would’ve killed him, and he wouldn’t have felt bad about it.
He would’ve slit his throat right there in front of me without a second thought. Who did that? Who could take someone’s life without feeling an ounce of remorse?
“Emma,” Vahn knocked on my door, causing my heart to jump. “Are you awake?”
I eyed the lock and considered clicking it. Not that it would’ve done any good. I locked my door last night, Vahn picked it and came in anyway. He kept checking on me.
If I hadn’t seen him almost murder someone, I might have found it sweet. Instead, I held my breath every time he came in, and pretended to be asleep. Needless to say, I did not get a good night’s rest.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” I called when I heard my doorknob jingle.
“Okay. I have breakfast ready for you. You need to eat something.”
The thought of food made me nauseous. But I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t play nice, then Vahn would know I suspected something. Every mafia movie I’d ever seen told me that was a bad idea.
So, I would have to act like everything was normal. At least until I found some evidence. Mitch would never believe me otherwise.
Speaking of Mitch…
I looked over at my phone. There was still no response, and I must’ve texted him fifty times last night.
That’s when a new thought occurred to me. If Vahn’s family was in the mafia or something, my brother might already know. They were really close, and Vahn had gotten my brother out of some bad situations…
