“Darling, you know better than that. You don’t think Uncle Richard doubled the size of our business by telling the truth? Honestly, you’re so naïve. It’s adorable.” She smiled and her teeth were so straight and white that they almost looked fake. “You’ll be perfect. I’ll have a car sent for you at 7.”
Perfect for what? “I won’t be home.”
“Yes, I’ll be sending the car to Tanner Rhodes’ apartment building of course. That is where you’re staying, yes?”
Fuck. She knew I was staying with Tanner? “That’s not…”
“Don’t play coy. It was smart to not go back to your house. Staying with a friend was the safer choice given the circumstances. At least for the time being. You won’t be staying there for long if I have my way though.”
I thought she’d meant because I was surely about to die, but then she gave me a salacious wink and lightly bit her lower lip. No. Good God, no. Did she think she was going to sink her claws in me and turn me into husband number two? Because there was literally no way that was fucking happening. I’d rather the hitwoman off me.
“I won’t take no for an answer.” She turned to Gigi and put her hand out. “Time to go.” The little girl ran over and slid her hand into her mother’s.
“Ugh. Gigi, your hand is bleeding.” Poppy pulled away from her daughter in disgust. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d made a mess?”
The little girl didn’t say anything. She just blinked even though there was blood literally dripping down her hand.
I looked over at the shattered glass. There was blood everywhere, like Gigi had been playing with the broken shards of glass, accidentally cutting her palms this whole time. How had she not screamed? I grabbed a tissue to hand to her.
Poppy snatched it from me and pressed it against one of Gigi’s bloody palms. “We’ll need to get that looked at. There goes my whole day. Follow me. And don’t touch anything. Especially my dress.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“See you tomorrow night, Matthew,” Poppy said over her shoulder, avoiding her daughter like the plague. Gigi looked down at her shoes as she hurried after her mother.
Yikes. That kid was going to grow up and be a real monster at this rate. Breaking things on purpose and not even caring when she got a cut? Scarlett screamed bloody murder whenever she got boo-boos, as she called them. I’d never seen a child not cry when they got even a little hurt.
Mary walked in. “Miss Cannavaro said to set up a dinner for the two of you tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, just ignore her. There’s no dinner.”
“She seemed rather adamant. Oh my, what in the world happened in here?” Mary had spotted the bloody mess.
“It was just an accident. Could you call someone to clean that up?”
“Um, yes, right away.” She walked over to the door, but then stopped and turned around. “It’s none of my business, Matthew. But that woman?” She shook her head. “No one’s ever spoken to me the way she does. I just thought you should know before your date.”
I stared at Mary. I hadn’t noticed that her eyes were a little glossed over like she was about to cry. “What did she say to you?”
“It wasn’t what she said. It’s how she said it. Like I was…nothing.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mary. But you don’t need to worry, I won’t be having dinner with her. And about whatever she said or how she said it? Ignore her. She’s the one that’s nothing.”
Mary smiled and nodded. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything else.” She quietly closed the door behind her.
I walked over to the window and looked out at the view of the city. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to have dinner with Poppy. But that depended on a few things. I needed to get those prototypes from Penny. And I needed to be able to corner the hitwoman and get a confession out of her. All without getting killed.
If I couldn’t do all that? I sighed. I’d have to go to dinner with Poppy. The thought of sitting with her through a whole meal made me feel queasy. But I wouldn’t have a choice. I couldn’t risk my friends’ safety by not going to dinner. Poppy having a child meant nothing and I knew it. She was just playing a game. If I crossed her, she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Scarlett or someone else. Or me. I had no idea what she really wanted. That was the whole problem.
I saw her and Gigi exiting the building onto the sidewalk below. They hurried over to a town car. She made the driver lift up Gigi and put her into the car. Probably so Poppy wouldn’t get blood on her dress.
What the hell do you want from me? It had to be something with the contracts I signed when I was 16. I didn’t know what else it could possibly be about. There were hidden clauses in them, I knew that to be true. But what did they say? What had I agreed to?
All I wanted was to be able to stand her up and not die as a consequence. But I wasn’t confident in my plan. Especially because Penny still hadn’t texted me back. I turned away from the window. I needed a backup plan.
Chapter 25
Tuesday
I climbed into my car and slammed the door closed. The hitwoman didn’t show up at practice today, which I was grateful for. But it was hard to be too happy when Penny was ghosting me. I pulled out of the Empire High parking lot and turned in the opposite direction of Tanner’s place.
Tanner thought I was hanging out with Penny, so he wasn’t expecting me until later. I had some time to stop by my house before heading over to his place for the night. He never needed to know that I’d put myself in danger. Besides, I was pretty sure Mr. Pruitt would have already had me killed if that was his intention. He’d had plenty of opportunities. And it really seemed like Poppy wanted to wine and dine me before murdering me. I felt safe enough for now.
I’d been researching tiny cameras all afternoon. Sure, I could just use my phone to record my upcoming encounter with the hitwoman. But it would just be the audio and not the video footage I wanted. Would that be enough? Probably not. I hadn’t found any suitable options yet. I needed to find an alternative soon though. Maybe I could just spend the rest of my night doing more research. There had to be something just as good as James’ stupid prototype.
Or I could just apologize to him. But for what? He should be apologizing to me, not the other way around. And I hadn’t heard anything from him either. Earlier today when I thought I might die, apologizing had been on my mind. But now that I was nowhere near Poppy? I was still mad at him. Yes, over the years he’d apologized a lot for what happened with Brooklyn. But I don’t think he knew exactly what he was apologizing for. He’d fucking ruined my life.
I turned onto my street and pulled into an empty spot along the sidewalk. Screw James. I didn’t need his stupid tiny cameras. I pulled out my phone and brought up a camera option on Amazon. Why were all of these so big? I had typed in discreet. I didn’t have the patience for searching for stuff like this. I sighed and climbed out of my car. If Mary wasn’t so nosy, I would have asked her to research them. But she would have had tons of questions. Maybe this was why all my friends had a staff. To do stuff like this. Maybe I could ask Nigel to do it…