Page 71 of Roark
“No. I’d rather go inside.” Tamika moved toward the door, and Lily stepped in front of her.
“No. You should stay out here,” Lily insisted.
Tamika had been through a lot these past weeks, staying in these estates, riding in private cars and limousines, but none of that dulled the street sense she’d honed while growing up. “I’m going inside. Now move out of my way,” she told her even though she knew the words weren’t going to be enough.
There was something different about Lily tonight. Her hair, for starters, was in one long braid down her back, and instead of wearing some combination of black and white like the rest of the staff, she was wearing jeans and a hoodie.
“I can’t do that,” Lily said.
“And why not?”
“Because this party was planned especially for you and the rest of the Donovan children. It’s my letter of resignation, so to speak.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Lily moved her arm so it was by her side, and for the first time since they’d been standing here, Tamika noticed there was something in her hand. “Did you think I’d just let you walk away? After all you and Roark have done?”
“We haven’t done anything.”
“Lies!” Lily screamed and shook her head as if Tamika were still talking and she didn’t want to hear what she had to say. “You got in his way.”
An icy tendril of dread rolled down Tamika’s spine, and then her survival instincts kicked in. She took a step back away from Lily, putting space between them. “We got in whose way?” Keep her talking, that was the plan until she’d cleared those bushes on her left and she could run back toward the party.
“My father’s.”
Those two words stopped her from taking another step back, and she stared at Lily closely. Of course, there was no physical resemblance, since his face had been burned off. “Kaymen was your father.”
Lily smiled brightly. “My mother found him and she took care of him, and he gave her me as a thank-you present.”
What kind of insanity ran through that bloodline? Tamika had to focus on the here and now. She took that other step back just as Lily lifted her hand to tuck wayward strands of her hair behind her ear. Tamika couldn’t tell what was in her hand, some sort of remote or… Dammit!
“My mother died two years ago and he took it very hard. After that, he said all he wanted to do was to find peace, and I was going to help him. That’s why I told Maxine Donovan he was alive. I wanted each one of his former friends to be afraid and wonder when he’d finally come for them. He didn’t tell me to do it, but I knew he’d like that they were scared. I knew everything about his accident and once I told Maxine, she knew I was telling the truth.”
And Maxine had tried to warn her friends that he’d come back for them.
“Okay, Lily. Well, I’m going to go back to the party now,” Tamika said and took another step.
But Lily moved, also closing the distance between them and getting in Tamika’s face. “No. You and all the children of the ones who hurt my father are going to die tonight. I think that’s only fair since I’m now left alone in this world.”
Lily’s voice held an eerie calmness, and Tamika wasn’t sure how to handle it. She dealt with arsonists for a living, not psychopathic lunatics. It was a risk, because if Lily was holding what Tamika thought she was, doing anything other than trying to kiss up to this crazy heffa was sure to get them all blown up.
“I tried to start with the other girl, Suri, but I didn’t make it strong enough. Tonight, it’s better, because I had time to work on it after I watched you kill my father. I guess I needed the extra motivation.”
“You let him in, didn’t you? You let him into the house that night?” Tamika asked the question but she already knew the answer.
Lily laughed as if Tamika had just told a corny joke. “Yes. He’s my father. I wanted him to be happy. I told him your mother was there and I left the window open on the pool side of the clubhouse when I went out to feed the guards dinner.”
“He was fucking crazy, and so are you!” The rage took over in that moment. Thoughts of her mother being taped to that chair and Kaymen holding that blowtorch in front of her exploded in her mind, and Tamika pulled her arm back and punched Lily in the face.
Lily stumbled back, but she never lost grip of what was in her hand, not even when she charged Tamika. She should’ve run then, she had that small window of time when Lily had been dazed by the punch, but Tamika didn’t move. Instead she stepped to the side and grabbed Lily in a headlock, squeezing so tight she could hear the woman wheeze. “You almost got my mother killed, you and that sick bastard of a father.” Tamika wasn’t going to kill her, but she’d put that bitch to sleep and then call the cops.
Lily had another plan, one Tamika hadn’t seen coming, so when the blade sank into her thigh she cried out in pain and released her hold on Lily.
Lily immediately got the hell away from Tamika, running out into the middle of the parking lot, where she held up her hand. “You can die with the rest of those rich, entitled bitches down there. All of you can join my father in hell!”
Tamika didn’t wait another moment but took the adrenaline rush of life versus death and yanked up that gown so she could run back in the direction of the garden. She opened her mouth and screamed for help as loud as she could while she ran, so loud it was almost heard over the blast of the explosion.
Almost.
