Page 95 of Taming Achilles

“When was the last time the prisoner had water?”

“Three days ago.”

Three days. He would die of dehydration soon.

“They always give the best confessions when their body is shutting down.,” Ajax said so casually.

“You’re okay with this?” I asked.

“It’s her choice,” Ajax nodded at the monitors. “She was the one who gave us that bit of insight.”

“Bet you didn’t know this about her.” A woman’s voice pulled my attention, and I swivelled in the chair. Lea wore a leather jacket, her blonde bob tucked behind her ear. That butterfly knife in her hand flew and danced in the air, as she twirled it between her hands. “You thought she was just some sort of ditz, walking down runways and wearing pretty clothes?”

I gripped the armrest of the chair, staring at the little angel of death. My best friend’s wife. My woman’s old rival.

“I call it my fluffy bunny act.” The knife twirled in the air, and she caught it mid-spin in her right hand, and clicked it shut with a small flick of her wrist. “She has a similar mask she wears for the world.” Lea tilted her head, her blonde locks teasing her shoulder. “You never saw past it?” She put her blade away into her back pocket and walked towards me. “The question is whether or not you love her as she is now, or did you only love her mask?”

Lea’s footsteps as she approached me echoed in the empty, sparsely furnished space.

She put her hands on her hips, and looked down at me. When I was seated, she was only a few inches taller. If I stood up, she was barely up to my chest. But at this moment, she was like the Goliath, looking down at me.

“That’s what she’s afraid of.” There was a glint in her eye that irritated me.

“You should leave the matchmaking to your mother.” I remembered that about her mum. She had pushed her kids into relationships, setting them on blind dates with gits from their church before Callum put a ring on it.

Lea pointed at the monitor, pulling out an empty chair and taking a seat.

“She’s my new friend.” Lea raised her brow.

“God save us all,” I grumbled.

I turned back to the darkened screen where a tired Pippa looked up to Jason with longing eyes. Eyes that should have only been for me. They were so convincing, that my jealous heart wanted to punch out of my chest.

“And … was he the one who told you to … did Alex …?”

Lea handed me a cup of coffee as my eyes grew bleary from watching the screens. I hadn’t torn my eyes off for anything but a bathroom break.

“Why is she stuttering?” I asked, wondering if the two-days in that cell with that ingrate was taking a toll on her.

“She’s doing it on purpose,” Brett said, bored, his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I asked, feeling the urge to grab a bottle of water and shoving it down her throat. I wanted to shove food down her gullet, and make sure that she was nourished. I wanted to go in and hold her to me. To kiss her.

“She’s acting like that on purpose, you Scottish moron,” Brett said with a roll of his eyes. “Do you really think she’s that delicate? You think she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing?”

Brett sat up in his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

I looked around me. Lea, Brett, and Ajax were all staring at me as if I was under a spotlight. Like I was the one being interrogated. Her allies.

Pippa had made an ally of her ex-fiancé’s new wife. The woman who had ruined her aspirations at a barony. How had this charming, ridiculous woman managed to pull that off?

“She’s just toying with him now,” Ajax said. “We know that Victor was the contact, and closer to the head of the snake, if not the head of it himself. She’s just having fun.”

“He’s a dead man,” Ajax threw the book onto the table and let out a loud yawn.

She loathed violence. Didn’t she? She hated guns. Yet I had found one in her bag. She was vapid, clothes-obsessed, superficial and incapable of understanding anyone, wasn’t she? It was slowly sinking in that the woman I had known for the past twenty years was … a lie.

And I wasn’t naive. When we were in St. Michael’s, I loved her for her mind, as well as the elegance that riveted everyone around her. In adulthood, she had fallen into the world of fashion and celebrities, red carpets, and magazine covers. And I had loved her, even as the quick-witted, loving woman I had known turned catty and snide. Because love doesn’t waver in the face of these failings. It remains true, like the Northern Star.

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