Page 83 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
It was too honest.
Too real.
Too raw.
Nash had it wrong.
I wasn’t the broken.
I was the breaker.
Emery’s sudden reentrance into my life reminded me I needed to get more hands-on with my approach to revenge. Fika had disappeared, and I was no closer to finding Gideon than when I’d hired him four years ago.
Worse—Fika knew where Gideon was, and I had wasted four years trusting the wrong guy. Again. Who knew what else he had kept from me?
“Did you hire a private investigator?” I asked Delilah, pulling up my correspondence with a Singaporean diplomat on my laptop.
I’d never actually wanted Prescott Hotels. It was a responsibility I’d taken on because I needed the money to fund all my other projects. My penance. The charities. The revenge. I created Prescott Hotels with illegal money, building new hotels and buying and remodeling old ones across the world.
But this project—Singapore.
I wanted it.
Badly.
Two years ago, on a scouting trip in Asia, the plane made an emergency landing in Singapore. Delilah and I ate dinner on the top of the highest building. Feeling like a god staring at the specks of cars and buildings below, I decided I wanted it.
I wanted to buy the building and remodel it as a hotel. Even as a bidding war began against Black Enterprises and I knew it would get expensive, I didn’t back down. We greased palms, exchanged emails with all the top contractors in Asia, and set up meetings with dozens of local vendors.
I felt the project within my grasp, and if I could feel happiness, I would have.
“Did you hire an investigator?” I repeated when it became clear Delilah had ignored me.
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She paused in front of my desk, a small container of Greek yogurt in her hand and a biodegradable spoon in the other. “Yes, Master. He’ll update you when he finds something, Master. Anything else I can do for you, Master? Massage your hands, Master? Spoon-feed you lunch, Master? Schedule your annual prostate exam, Master?”
“Point taken and ignored.” I minimized the Singapore files and pulled up my folder on Gideon. My eyes skimmed the trade data for Winthrop Textiles, trying to pinpoint what didn’t feel right.
Delilah returned to her desk, an oversized Parnian we’d had shipped here a few days after the design staff meeting. “Chantilly asked for a sit-down, and before you ask me to relay any messages, no. I am not your assistant.”
Ignoring her last sentence, I ground out, “Tell her no.”
I exited out of the document, knowing I’d find nothing if the S.E.C. couldn’t. Before I could stop them, my fingers pulled up Emery’s Insta account. She had three followers, @TheInaccessible as her handle, a feed full of words I was sure didn’t exist, and a bio that read, Scratch here to read my status.
Other than that, no pictures of herself. The only twenty-two-year-old to roam this Earth without ever having taken a selfie.
Fucking perfect.
It occurred to me that I had nothing to gain from playing friendly with Emery. Nothing I could say or do would make her quit. She wasn’t built to back down from a challenge. She would cut out her liver and sell it on the black market if it meant she’d win a bet.
Delilah snapped the lid off the yogurt and pointed her spoon at me. “I’m starting to think the words ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘not’, ‘your’, and ‘assistant’ are not in your vocabulary. Also, she’s outside.”
“At this point, I’m convinced you’re making up words to fuck with me. Fucking hell.” Scrubbing at my face, I eyed my watch and exited out of the dictionary disguised as an Insta account. “How long has she been out there?”
“Fifteen minutes? I wanted her to sweat.” D shoved a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth with the grace of a hog. “She’s dressed like she wants something from you, and it isn’t a promotion.”
“Wait fifteen minutes and let her in.”
