Page 100 of Tangled In Lies

Déjà vu hits me. How was it just a little over a week ago when we were in a similar situation after Eve’s music room episode?

“What’s going on? Is the princess okay?”

At first, it bothered me that Holden called her by a nickname like she was special. He did it as a joke at the beginning, but it didn’t take long for him to start liking her, not that I blame him. The two of them have been spending a lot of time together. And this is Eve, the girl I still call Angel, not only because it’s part of her name, but because she’s always been a genuinely good person. So good I didn’t want to taint her with my life, my family, and the cutthroat world I was always supposed to take over from my dad one day.

That’s why it hit even harder when I heard her voice on the nine-one-one recording. She was the last person I ever expected to stab me in the back.

Turns out, that might still be true, after all.

“Phoenix.”

“Sorry.” I blink at Holden. “Eve admitted Freddy had something to do with my prison sentence.”

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “What?”

“Yeah.”

He scrubs a hand roughly over his beard. “Fuck. Is that the connection we’ve been missing?”

I shrug. “It’s something.”

“She didn’t say who the guy was?”

After a glance through the gap in the door toward the bathroom, I lean against the hallway wall and close my eyes. “I don’t think she knows who it is either.”

Holden wraps one of his hands around the other, cracking his knuckles and filling the air with popping sounds. “Okay. Shit. I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. We knew something wasn’t adding up, but this?”

I exhale loudly.

“But why would she put you in prison just because someone told her to? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t.”

He’d hit the nail right on the head. That’s exactly where my brain is still stuck too.

“She didn’t explain anything? Didn’t say why she listened to some random person?”

I shake my head. “Trust me, I have a million questions and want answers to every single one, but she said she wanted to talk after her bath. I want to push her so badly, but the doctor said to keep things easy or the symptoms will get worse.”

“Fair enough.” Holden studies me for a long moment. “I bet she’s been feeling like total shit since the explosion, and not just physically. I mean, this person pretty much textedher that you’d die unless she saved you. How fucked up is that?”

My chest expands, but it feels like my lungs aren’t getting enough air.

He tilts his head to the side. “You know, there was no hesitation on her part either. She read the message and took off right away.”

“She told me at the hospital that she didn’t want me dead. She also apologized several times. I didn’t understand what she was apologizing for, but maybe it makes more sense now.”

“Man, I bet she feels guilty as fuck for everything.” He shifts closer. “We need to figure out who’s behind this before something else happens and they succeed with their murder attempts.”

I nod, entirely on board with it.

“I’ll hit up the other tech guys again that I know,” he says. “Maybe one of them will be able to help now that we have some more info.”

I push off the wall. “Thank you.”

“No problem. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.” He gets his phone out of his pocket.

“Hold.”

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