I stepped back when he looked like some kind of weird art project, then I reached up and pulled on the duct tape covering his mouth.
His screams came louder, as did his pleas, but I ignored them.
I just had one thing on my mind. "If you want me to wash the sand away, you’ll tell me who sent you."
Fourteen
Savannah
Through the many and varied hangovers I’d experienced in my life, I thought I’d understood what the term ‘death warmed over’ truly meant.
Waking up feeling like shit wasn’t something that happened often, but I wasn’t a saint and I really loved a glass or five of red after a long, shitty day. My brain didn’t appreciate the tannins, however, and my bottle of Malbeck usually packed as much of a punch as a donkey’s kick to the pussy.
That, however, was nothing in comparison to the level of ouch that hit me when I woke up.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," I rasped out loud as I fell onto my back and starfished the space.
After a couple minutes, I groggily patted the nightstand, knowing I’d put my phone there after I’d showered and changed into a guest bathrobe. When I saw the date and time, my sleepy eyes bugged.
One AM on the 22nd?
Those were eighteen hours I’d never be getting back. Ugh.
There was no forgetting where I was or what was happening, though, just the when. Especially as I felt every single hit from last night’s attack.
Plus, my bed wasn’t a waterbed, and didn’t slosh every time I moved.
Neither was there a waterfall at my side, reminding me I needed to pee, nor did my room have such a perfect view of the terrace or let in this much light—although, why the hell the terrace lights were blaring at one AM was beyond me.
Was it weird for me to want to get up just to go and turn them off?
Then, of course, I thought about the owner of those lights and what his response would be to that.
Which led to thoughts on the brother of the owner of those lights...
As I peered up at the ceiling, gulping, trying not to feel like a girl about to ask a guy out for prom, I whispered to myself, "You’re in the same apartment as Aidan O’Donnelly."
The only man who I’d never give him shit over light pollution.
The only man who’d ever ghosted me.
The only man who... I sighed.
"Soul mates don’t exist," I told myself as I rolled onto my side, then edged off the bed. "And if they do, they shouldn’t be asshole mobsters."
Desperately in need of both caffeine and ibuprofen, I tightened the knot of the belt around my waist, grimacing when my wrists protested the move. Peering down at my hands, I saw that one was a little swollen.
Feeling worse for wear and sorry for myself to boot, I used the bathroom then trudged out of the bedroom after fighting with the doorknob to get out—because apparently you needed a degree in engineering nowadays for that small feat—then I stepped down the hall in search of humanity. Humanity who’d be able to get me my two drugs of choice.
I found a really wide and long room first. There were a ton of computer monitors on several different desks, each of them switched on and making me cringe at how much electricity they were wasting. At least they weren’t all showing screensavers, but appeared to be doing something. Only God knew what though.
There was a loud whining sound too, and I quickly sourced it as coming from Conor O’Donnelly. He had a pair of headphones on that was piping what I assumed was music into his ears. The volume was so loud that I could hear the whistling sound from over here.
Though I almost wanted to chide him for it, I left him alone, especially when I caught him digging deep into a pint of frozen custard.
A part of me wanted to ask him to split with the good stuff, but mostly, sugar wasn’t what I needed right now. It might solve the ache in my soul, just not the one in my body and head.
Then, of course, that was when I saw it.
I peered at the screen he was focused on and flinched.
Like that, my myriad aches disappeared, proving that mind over matter worked when you were embarrassed AF.
Unable to help myself, I stepped closer. One thing that hadn’t changed in all the years I’d been on TV was the strange compulsion to watch myself. That sounded super conceited, but it wasn’t. It was like I was preparing to watch myself fuck up.
I never did.
Somehow, the only time I’d ever messed up on screen was purposely.
And this was the one time I’d never watched myself back.
I hadn’t fucked up.
Everything I’d done had been with intent.
Every-damn-thing.
I wasn’t sure how he knew I was there, but Conor spun his seat around and grinned at me a second before he shoved a massive spoonful of frozen custard into his mouth.
He pulled off his earphones, placed them on the table, and with that, the sound boomed around the room.
Wincing, I asked, "Why are you watching this?"
"Because I like to know who we’re getting into bed with."
My lips curved. "You should be so lucky."
"Oh, I fear I’m taken," he declared, one hand flying wide in a grandiose gesture that was worthy of an actor in a Shakespearean play. "But I know someone who isn’t." He squinted at me a second, then turned back to face the monitors in question.
Yep.
Monitors.
He pressed a button and, suddenly, there were six of me in front of him.
Six of me sitting behind the desk, a smile planted on my face that looked innocent as fuck. I’d been practicing for this moment all my life. I knew how to be an airhead. I knew how to sell a look, to let everyone think there was nothing going on between my ears.
How wrong they were.
How fucking wrong they were.
It took thirty-four years to forge a reputation, and thirty-three seconds to destroy it.
"Wasn’t that fascinating?" I declared to the camera, just as it panned wide to Stewart Allsheim, my co-anchor. "Who knew a cat could knock on a door?"
"I can see why the video has gone viral," Stewart agreed, a smarmy smile fixed in place that he thought made him seem engaging. He was wrong. "But we’re going to look at a video that’s hit one hundred million views and its audience is already growing."
The screen cut off, and though it appeared to be a TikTok video fading into view, it wasn’t.
I’d cut through a Chanel purse for this, making a slit in the lining so I could place two phones there and have them record both of us throughout the entire interview.
Having positioned it on the coffee table, between myself and Derick Wintersen, the studio VP who was capable of making or breaking a career at TVGM, at the time I’d had to hope that I’d get us both at the right angle.
God had been on my side.
Wintersen was a fat fuck, who looked like Jaba the Hut on a good day, and had the worst breath I’d ever smelled in my life.
He’d also left me alone.
From the first day I’d shown up there to that very moment. I knew why too. Aidan. It wasn’t my daddy or my name, a standing in society that I’d always courted, it was Aidan.
The Five Points.
They’d protected me from this creep.
I didn’t know how, just knew why he’d never come onto me before.