Jozef took one last aim at Marnie's stomach, and this time we all heard her ribs crack. She wheezed, face soaked with tears, mascara streaming like a morbid watercolor down her cheeks, and I looked at Benny sat at the far end of the table. He looked grim, his usual cheerful persona stripped from him after the last week.
Vladimir clicked his fingers and the three men opposite me, or the triplets as they were also known as, stood in unison, grabbed Marnie from the floor and hauled her broken ass out a room at the far back of the library. A room I didn't know existed. I tried to spy on how they opened a door that had no damn handle, but Jozef stepped into my line of sight.
“Jaxon, I assume you knew nothing of this?” He asked, sliding the other photograph across the table towards me.
I picked it up and studied the image. From what I could see, it had been taken at The Warehouse, where drugs were first delivered to be weighed and cut. From there, the packs ready to be sent out were loaded on to our truck, guys from different towns would begin distributing.
“No, sir. Not a damn fucking thing.” My mind whirled. Both Amy and Carter shitting on each other, it made no sense.
“Well, what's done is done. But can I trust that everyone else left here today can keep their shit in their pants?” Vladimir eyed me as he asked this, but it'd take a hell of a lot more to spook me, especially knowing he was guilty of shit he was trying to stop. Practice what you preach, right?
Heads nodded in agreement.
“Good. Then, you're all free to go.”
Thank fuck.
Despite the bruises, I hurried my ass back to my room. Needing a quiet moment to take all this in, being out of work, I found myself with a lot of damn time on my hands.
Closing the door, I hobbled over to the window, opened it at the top, and took a cigarette from my pocket. Vlad had ripped into me for smoking in my room, but I physically couldn't keep trekking across The Mansion when I need a nicotine fix.
The smoke filled the air, and I made a point of hanging my arm out the window and blowing the smoke away before it had a chance to come in. When I'd started to feel a little better, there was a knock at my door. The person didn't wait for a response, and when I turned to see who it was, I saw Edith's face, her hands clutching the necklace as she sped towards me.
“Jax, oh, I've been looking for you.”
“What's up?”
“Look.” She thrust the necklace into my hand and pointed to the bottom of the heart. “You need to let the light hit it just so, but it's there.”
I flicked my smoke out the window and done as instructed, following Edith's finger as a guide. But as sure as shit, I spotted the writing.
Engraved into the silver were the words: To, my Angel, love always, Carter.
“He fucking gave Marnie this?” I asked.
Edith shrugged her slender shoulders and pulled out her phone, her fingers tapped the screen a few times and then she showed me a photo. “I looked it up online to see how much it cost and whether anything would help me figure out why this is so special.”
“Well?”
“The wings unclip. It's a locket.” She showed me the tiny clip that you wouldn't be able to see unless you knew it was there. “I haven't opened it yet - I came straight to you.”
And like a gunshot, a firework exploding, a punch to the jaw it all clicked. It. This is what it was. The same fucking It Carter had lost. It wasn't Marnie's necklace; it was Amy's.
“Where did Ella get this?” I asked Edith.
“I have no idea, my dear. All I know is what I've told you.”
We were quiet for a moment, sitting at the edge of the bed next to each other. A smile played on my lips as I thought about the old woman next to me, helping me. I'd come to grow quite fond of her over the week.
“Right, well, let's do this then,” I said, and I flicked the clip. The wings opened up, creating four instead of two, and a tiny piece of paper fell into my lap. Placing the necklace down, I looked at Edith and unfolded the paper.
In a blood-red ink was a small paragraph.
A small paragraph that destroyed the world beneath me and every single lie and truth came crashing together.
“What? What does it say?” Edith breathed.
I gave the note for Edith to read, and it seemed as though her world reacted precisely the way mine had.
Fuck.
This changed absolutely everything.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Then.
It was the morning after the party, and I'd woken first. Carter and Amy were curled into each other's naked bodies, with me next to Amy, Mila lay peacefully on the edge of the bed. My head pounded, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my stomach churned.
With as much care as I could muster, I crawled from the bed, sliding off the end, mindful not to wake anyone. My body craved coffee or something with sugar, and I couldn't face the three people in the bed.
Stepping over clothes and underwear, I cringed, thinking of the night we'd spent together, of how fucking incredible Amy had been. I hated myself for thinking more of her more than my girlfriend, my girlfriend who'd trusted me enough to go through with last night. She'd let me pop her sweet cherry, and all I had wanted were Amy's plump little lips wrapped around my dick. I'd wanted that, and I'd gotten it. And now I felt like shit. I didn't deserve Mila and her sweetness, and as I grabbed myself a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, I felt resolved in making it up to her. In being the boyfriend she deserved.
I stepped out on to the balcony after shoving my legs into a pair of jeans and pulling on a t-shirt.
“Hey, you,” purred a voice from behind me.
I rolled my eyes. “Can I not have ten minutes to myself?”
“Jeez, someone's still pissy then?” Amy said, sliding up beside me, copying my pose against the balcony wall.
I felt bare skin touching mine, and I sighed on seeing her still bare ass naked. “Can't you put some fucking clothes on? Game's over.”
She stuck her tongue between her teeth and grinned at me. “I never pegged you as a prude, Jax, especially not after last night.”
I gulped down some water. “Let's just not talk about last night, Carter likes you, that's the end of it.”
She pouted. “But what if I like someone else? Someone more of a man,” her hand slipped between my crotch and the wall and she grabbed me.
She wanted a reaction. I was beginning to learn something about this new girl: she wanted to be the center of attention at all times. Last night had been proof of that. Having Carter worship her body hadn't been enough, and even when Mila had, rather bashfully, taken a hard nipple into her mouth, she'd begged to me to fuck her, too. Anytime Carter kissed Mila, she'd sat back and watched, but when Mila captured my mouth with hers, Amy had wanted in.
“I'm not playing your stupid games. I've got Mila, and I'm not about to fuck that up for you.” For a split second, I saw a look of defeat in her eyes, mixed with sadness, and I felt fucking bad. “Look, we can all be friends, despite the fact that you're a raving bitch, I think you'll fit in well with us.” I smiled, and so did she, releasing my overused dick.
She moved away, tucking her long hair behind her ears, and sighed. “I guess I should apologize. I've never really had friends. My dad moved us around a lot, and I’ve never stayed in one place for too long.” She looked at me through thick lashes. “I try to overcompensate.” She shrugged.