Page 120 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“That’s impossible,” says Connor, his body still, his ruthless gaze on Tabby. “Everything checked out, right down to her birth certificate. Her entire background checked out. It was spotless.”
Tabby lifts her chin, gazes down her nose at Connor, and sniffs. “I said you weren’t the best in the business, didn’t I?”
My heart is doing something unusual. It might be trying to rip itself out of my chest. “What’s her real name?”
Tabby looks at me. “Fuck you, Parker Maxwell. Fuck you and your pretty face and your prettier lies. I’m not telling you anything.”
My mind is going a million miles an hour. My hands shake. I feel a bit dizzy, so I pull out a chair and sit.
“Darcy,” I say hoarsely, looking at her. “What’s Victoria’s real name? And why does Tabby keep calling me a liar?”
“If you tell him, I’ll push you into traffic,” snaps Tabby.
“Pipe down, woman,” says Connor, rising to his feet. He puts his hands on his hips, towering over Tabby. Unintimidated, she rolls her eyes and turns her back on all of us.
I reach out and touch Darcy’s arm. “Darcy. Please. I have to know. I have to find her. I need to make this right.”
She looks at my face for a long, silent moment, her large dark eyes sizing me up. Finally she exhales and shakes her head. “Sorry, Parker, but after everything you’ve put that girl through—”
“Darcy, if you don’t shut up, I will personally ensure that you’ll never walk again!” yells Tabby.
My fingers tighten around Darcy’s arm. “What did I do? Tell me—help me understand!”
Tabby glares at us. Connor folds his arms over his chest and steps in front of her like a barrier. Darcy simply shakes her head again, mute.
I set my elbows on the table, drop my face into my hands, and emit a noise of frustration that sounds like a cross between a gorilla giving birth and a berserker battle cry.
They’re not going to tell me anything. I’ve hit a brick wall. There’s something else at play here that I can’t fathom, and probably never will, because Tabby and Darcy are too busy protecting Victoria…from me.
Why are they protecting her from me?
What did Victoria tell them about me
?
I think of the trip she took to Laredo—which I stupidly neglected to ask her about during our stint in St. Thomas—and wonder for the hundredth time what that was about. But there’s no way I’ll ever find out now. Unless they’re willing to give me something, some detail of the underlying plot that I’m missing, I’ll never…
Hold on. What if I give them something first?
It comes to me as if I’ve been slapped upside the head; I’ve got to tell them what happened that night. I’ve got to tell them the truth, the whole truth, dangerous as that might be to my reputation, my career, and everything else. It’s the only card I’ve got left to play. It’s the only way I’ll get them to trust me.
I’ve got to put my future into the hands of Psychotic Redheaded Goth Barbie and her sidekick, the Stress-Eating Bloggess.
I’m fucked.
I lift my head and stare first at Darcy, and then at Tabby, who’s still glaring at me from around Connor’s shoulder. Because Tabby seems the more furious and emotional of the two, and I suspect she knows more than Darcy does, I address her first.
“My father was a drug lord.”
Connor swings around and barks, “Fucking shit, Parker! You high?”
I don’t even bother answering him. The look of shock on Tabby’s face tells me I’m headed in the right direction. “He imported cocaine from Mexico by the truckload during the eighties and nineties—”
“Jesus Christ,” Connor groans, lifting his hands to his head.
“—and when I found out about it, I blackmailed him into stopping by telling him I’d turn him in to the police.”
Darcy says, “Huh. And I thought my family was interesting.”
