Page 240 of Lau Ahi
I rolled my eyes silently tickled at how he was bragging. Yet another trait that Asha had unlocked in him. “Let my friend up for air, please.”
“She enjoys being too filled to inhale, Jem.”
My mouth gaped at the joke he was making followed immediately by disgust at his revelation. “That is information I didn’t need to know, Ori Nakoa.”
He didn’t bother to hide his laughter letting it flow as though I was going to join in. I didn’t want to think about him putting my girl through the mattress especially since I hadn’t had male attention in years.
“You would know that type of life if you stopped playing with my friend but that’s a different story. But jokes aside, what’s wrong?”
I waited knowing this would set off a firestorm I wasn’t sure I could contain but I knew I couldn’t handle this on my own. Despite the plotting I’d been doing for years, this was real life and it wasn’t just my fate on the line. TheConsortiumcouldn’t survive ifMaison Benoitcrumbled.
“I might need your help after all.”
He’d offered as soon as they’d flown out to Atlanta to free me. Wanting to immediately make right every wrong that had keptme away. But I knew I needed time and that assumption had proven to be correct. But now I was calling in the favor.
“What’s gone down?” His tone was harsher, hardened. I knew he was on the move by the sounds I could hear over the line. His chair creaking and a television that Asha had to have been watching booming louder and then quieter as he moved throughout the house. I was sure she was now walking with him the whisper of clothing coming in clear and then the metallic clicking of cartridges being inserted into guns.
They were in their safe room.
My heart swelled thinking that my brother and his wife were on the move with no questions asked.
“It appears I have a debtor and he’s coming to collect.”
They didn’t know the details of the contract with the St. Germaines. It was a deal done in secret and then long forgotten since I was gone so shortly after it was signed. I was sure that the elders, then still the heads of each branch of the family, had them under scrutiny for years, wondering if they had something to do with it. That was a cold case that now needed to be further explored.
“Collect what?!”
I sighed again because I wouldn’t be able to stop the fallout from what I was going to admit. I would have to apologize to Mother Nature for the large increase in emissions from the number of private jets that were going to be landing in Louisiana within the next forty hours.
“Me.”
The End
ROLES REVERSED
MARGO
This was hell.
The number of times I’d hit my head against my cell to wake myself up from this nightmare only to fail was innumerable. My face had been plastered on every station across the country and across the pond. My parents visited me only once. And that was to reinforce that they were disowning me and I shouldn’t expect any type of financial support from them. I shouldn’t have been surprised since it was their fault I was here. The lack of love and attention I’d received from them had warped something in my mind. Starved me for love and affection and once I got the smallest taste of it from Brandt I couldn’t lose it. No one cared that I’d met him in a chat room when I was underage. Where were the people who advocated for those who had been groomed now? Everyone wanted to have a perfect poster child before they would champion a cause but life and reality muddied the waters too much for that.
No one was coming to my aid. I was an outcast now. The blue-blooded daughter of a successful business executive and his model wife who’d turned into a serial killer. My only hope was to try to distance myself from all the evidence they’d found against me. The throwaway cell phone and basic tablet on which I communicated with Christopher. I’d taken it from him the second he’d killed Natalie and told him it was the society’sinsurance that he would stay in line the way her father no longer was. He didn’t hesitate to keep anything that would incriminate me and I was relieved when their investigation didn’t name me. I’d taken every precaution and told him this would be part of the process and he’d kept his mouth shut the entire time. I was thankful he’d killed himself instead of snitching. The threat for the organization to kill off his entire family ensured that.
The sound of my door being tampered with forced me to sit up in my bunk. This cell was meant for two people but I didn’t currently have a roommate. I was in a maximum-security area of the prison. The part reserved for the worst of the worst. I’d already been in two fights and I was begging for a transfer. But since my parents wouldn’t pull any strings for me I doubt I would get it.
The cell was so small I could touch both walls with my hands. The toilet didn’t always work and the walls were filthy. I wasn’t the tidiest person since I’d always had servants so a lot of the filth was because of my ignorance.
When the door of the cell swung open I felt my legs buckle beneath my weight.
She walked in looking similar to how she had the last time I’d seen her only this time she wasn’t alone.
I must be dreaming.
With a grin on her face, she entered my cell and her nose wrinkled as she took it all in
This can’t be real.
“Surprise, bitch!”
