Page 74 of Twisted Enemy
“You can barely stand.”
“I can drive my fucking car.”
She holds up her hand, flashing me a peace sign. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Eight.” I make my way around the car, supporting myself heavily with one hand on the hood.
“Cole…” she says.
Part of me notes she hasn’t asked a single question. She hasn’t challenged anything that’s happened. She hasn’t pointed out that I’m the one who made my fucking bed and now I have to lie in it. She’s loyal despite the fucking mess I’ve made.
“Let’s go,” I say. “I’ll call Nilsson as soon as we get past the gate. He can start researching transport logistics. I need you on the phone with my tax lawyer. We need whatever tax breaks he can come up with in the next twenty-four hours.”
It’s a good plan, as far as it goes. I just don’t take into consideration how much a human body has to bend to get into the driver’s seat of a Mercedes.
“Jaysus!” Kate shouts, twisting to catch my weight.
I’m halfway in the car as she stretches for my far leg, trying to lift it into the vehicle. As she contorts her body in the tight space, something falls out of her pocket.
It’s a handful of fur, dirty white and orange and black. The fabric is crushed into a weightless ball. One green eye dangles from a few threads. Whiskers splay like they’ve been electrified.
It’s Kitty Mew-Mew. Megan’s favorite toy.
“Where the fuck—” I start.
Kate picks up the mangled kitten. Shoving it deep in her pocket, she reaches for my other leg.
I grab her wrist, holding on like a drowning man. “When did you see Megan?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?”
“No. When did she give you that toy?”
Kate glances over her shoulder at the freeport office building. I can just make out bodies standing behind the glass, their faces too blurred to distinguish. “I think we have more important?—”
“When thefuckdid you see my sister?”
I can’t undo the auction, make peace with Prince, or apologize to Alix. I can’t preserve the privileged freeport statusI’ve enjoyed for years. There’s no way to stave off the economic disaster that will consume me in the next twenty-four hours.
But I can sure as hell find out why my wife saw the one person in the entire world I’ve forbidden her to see.
“She reached out to me,” Kate says. “She wasn’t safe.” When I growl, she says, “You don’t know what it’s like to be woman in a world run by men. You don’t know how it feels to live without power, to fight without protection, to try to get by on your wits.”
This isn’t the argument I expect from Kate. When she feels trapped, she goes wild. She calls names and throws wine and punches hard below the belt.
But the Kate standing beside my car is someone new. She’s calm. Measured. She’s telling the truth, the one she’s lived on a daily basis for her entire life.
I should admire her. Tell her I can see how much she’s grown, how much she’s learned.
But I have rules about Megan for a reason. My sister is the reason Tarasov made it past my gate. She’s the root of the disaster that just unfolded inside the freeport—she and her goddamn forged paintings.
I. Have. Rules. I maintain control. And Kate consciously and purposely did exactly as I warned her not to do.
I reach out with both hands, dragging my left foot into the car. When Kate tries to help me, I push her away. “Get back,” I say.
“Let me?—”
“You’ve done enough.”
