Page 43 of Keep Me (Rebel Hearts Heists 2)
“I don’t blame him. I’m tired too. Let’s call it a night.” Sloane drapes a blanket over Royce as I turn the TV off. There’s no way we’ll be able to move his huge frame to his bedroom and he looks too peaceful to wake him up.
I follow Sloane to her bedroom, happy to have some time alone after the hectic week we’ve had. She sits at the vanity on the opposite side of the big four post bed and begins to remove her makeup using a cosmetic wipe after changing into one of our oversized shirts.
I stand a step behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror and placing a hand on her shoulder when she throws the wipe into the little bin under the desk. She covers my hand with hers, smiling tiredly at me.
“This wedding thing is exhausting. I always thought that I wanted a huge wedding, like the one my sister is planning for next summer. Like the one Alicia is having.”
I smile back at her. “My little sister did too, all the time. At least with her Barbie dolls. I think it’s a girl thing?” I offer and she nods.
“Probably. We’re all raised to think that’s the climax to everything in a woman’s life. Even in this day and age. You know? We might all brag about girl power, but deep down it’s all bullshit. Deep down, we’re still raised to believe that a woman is worth only the marriage she makes. And there’s this stupid rivalry between girlfriends. Who marries first, who has the biggest wedding, the richest husband, the most exotic honeymoon, the biggest house. It never ends. It gets even worse when you have a sibling who gets engaged to the star quarterback for the Giants. Not that Sasha ever rubbed it in my face, you know?”
She begins taking out the bobby pins that secure her updo, making a couple of glossy, dark brown strands of her hair tumble down on her shoulders.
I nudge her to the side, sitting on the huge, plush ottoman next to her and making her twist to face me. “Let me, baby,” I whisper and reach up to continue freeing her hair, pin after pin.
“That’s why I got involved with Pierce, I think,” she muses with a sad sigh. “He was a catch on paper and I felt this pressure. My mom was so proud of me. Sasha’s fiancé might be a star NFL player but Pierce comes from old money. There are senators and governors in his family. I guess this was part of why I refused to see the warning signs that he was a psycho at first. Not because of the money and the lavish lifestyle, but because he looked so perfect on paper and he was so adoring, at least at the beginning. By the time I realized who he really was, he started threatening me and my family if I left.”
She shakes her head and then continues. “I’ve never felt so relieved than when I learned that he was dead. Even if he tried to make me look like the reason why he took his own life.”
I don’t say anything, trying to find the best way to tell her something I’ve been keeping for the last few hours but she speaks again. “I know I’m gonna sound crazy, Kades, but it doesn’t feel real. I think I might be even more fucked up than I thought I was,” she admits.
“What do you mean, baby?”
Sloane gives a shrug, making her soft hair shake as I free the last strand. “Even if he’s dead, I still feel like he’s here. Like he’s watching me.”
I open my mouth to say something but she charges on. “I mean like, physically here. I thought I was being watched a few times, as if someone were staring at me. Obviously when I turned around, there was no one. Certainly not Pierce. Then I thought I saw him at the masquerade ball. I must be going insane,” she bites out, quieting down.
Yeah, I don’t like that shit about her doubting herself at all.
Fuck. If she saw him then … I ask her to tell me more about the time at the masquerade ball and she says that she never saw the guy clearly. “There were always people in the way. It was always just a glimpse. But it wasn’t just the fact that the guy had the right hair color, the right height and build. I don’t know, it was also the way he moved. I kept telling myself that Pierce is dead and that I was going crazy. Even now, in this room, I have the constant feeling someone’s watching me.”
“Right now?” I ask and she nods.
“I know, it’s impossible. You guys checked everything and—”
I rise from the ottoman and look around the room. Not that I think that spotting a bug would be that easy. At the very least though, the guest rooms don’t have security cameras, unlike the casino floors, the private game rooms and the restaurants. I keep turning my head, looking at the expensive furniture and I think it’s more dumb luck than anything else but a small flicker catches my attention. I almost think I’ve imagined it but I walk toward the nightstand anyway. The top drawer has a lock and it doesn’t budge when I try to open it.
“Baby, did you put anything in here?”
Sloane shakes her head. “No. It never really opened and I couldn’t find the key anywhere. I was supposed to ask the concierge but with all that’s been going on I completely forgot.”
Right. I walk back to the vanity and grab a metal nail file.
“I’ll buy you another one.” I promise as I jam the nail file in the almost nonexistent space between the drawer and the rest of the nightstand. The drawer slides open with a little scraping sound and sure enough, there’s a tiny bug installed in the keyhole. What I saw must have been its ‘on’ light.
“Motherfucker!” I mutter under my breath and unceremoniously use the pointy part of the nail file to dislodge the device from its hiding place.
I walk to the en suite bathroom, drop the bug into the toilet and flush.
When I walk back into the bedroom, Sloane is still sitting on the ottoman but she’s as white as a sheet. “It could be VDB, right? Or Kronin? He’s dead, it can’t be him. And he can’t be here anyway, right?”
I surround her shoulders with my arm, drawing her closer to me, until her face is resting on my shoulder and I use my calmest, most reassuring tone. “It could be VDB or Kronin, yes. It could even be Interpol or the FBI itself, trying to make sure that we’re playing by the rules of our agreement with them. It’s probably very unlikely that it’s Pierce, but for as small as that chance could be, it isn’t completely impossible.”
She gets paler. “How? If he’s dead—”
I deliver the piece of information I got from Walker this morning. “Look, it doesn’t mean anything, ok? But they never found a body. And the forensic experts highlighted some stuff that didn’t quite add up. Look, that doesn’t mean that he’s alive, but—”
Sloane lifts her gaze to meet mine. “If he isn’t dead, Kaden, there’s only one place he could ever be. Here. Waiting to make his move.” And for as much as I really don’t want to think that Pierce Hunter might still be alive, I know that Sloane is right.
