Page 149 of House of Lies

I grab his hair and wrench back his head. “You there, old friend?” The bitterness in my voice is so strong I can taste it.

Angelo’s eyes roll in their sockets. When he focuses on me, his quivering lips jerk into a smile.

“It was worth it,” he rasps. “Fucked her right on your bed. She fought back—” he coughs, laughs “—but then she gave up. They always give up.”

They.

As I stare down at Angelo’s puffy, bruised, bleeding face, something clicks inside my mind.

“You were handling all my correspondence in April. When Rebecca contacted me to sell her jewelry, you thought you could set up a meeting with her and not bother telling me about it.”

Behind me, Cassidy gasps. She appears in the corner of my eye, face white with shock. “No,” she whispers, shaking her head.

But it’s all falling into place now.

When Angelo took over my clients, I gave him access to my laptop. I was so broken up about Becks running off that I didn’t care if I never closed another deal in my life.

Smith steps closer to Angelo, eyes narrowed. “Did she figure out you weren’t Ethan before or after the deal? That’s why you met her at Glenmont, isn’t it? So you could pretend to be someone you weren’t? Ethan was in no condition to leave his penthouse.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Angelo’s eyes flutter. He looks about to pass out, so I backhand him.

He laughs through the pain, then coughs and sputters into silence.

“We know you sold Rebecca’s earrings to Barrett,” Smith says. “Opals like that aren’t easy to forget.”

Angelo spits out blood. “I told you, I don’t know?—”

Cassidy lunges forward and drives her knife into the back of his hand. “Where is my mother?”

He screams and tries to pull his hand away, tearing the blade an inch through his skin before he realizes he’s only making matters worse.

“Okay, okay!” he shrieks. “I met Rebecca at Glenmont. Thought it would be more legit. Never told her I was you, the bitch just assumed.”

“Then what?” I growl. “She figured who you really were and wanted to leave so you stole her earrings? Is that why you never told me about the deal?”

“Like you needed the fucking money! I did all the work. Why the fuck would I give you anything?”

Cassidy twists the knife, making Angelo howl in agony as the blade carves through the flesh and tendons in his hand. “Tell me where she is!”

Angelo whimpers, then sneers up at Cassidy. “The whore thought she was better than me. They always do. Had to put her in her place.”

Cassidy plucks the blade free and holds it against his throat. “Where?” she whispers hoarsely.

“You won’t find her. She’s gone.”

She presses the blade against his skin hard enough to draw blood. He flinches when a swallow makes his Adam’s apple scrape against the blade.

“She was too old for me. No need to keep her around like I did Becks. I got rid of her.”

“How?” Cassidy’s voice breaks. “Tell me.”

“He ever fuck you in his bed there in Glenmont?” Angelo huffs out a laugh, and then grimaces as he tries to move away from the blade against his throat. “Room’s like a fucking ice box. Have to keep that fire going day and night if you don’t want to wind up with pneumonia. Thought, what better way to get rid of her?”

Cassidy pulls away from him like he’s possessed. “You burned her?”

Christ, maybe he is.

It would explain the malevolence in his eyes when he looks at me. “After I fucked her in your bed.”

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