Page 78 of The Vipers' Vow

“Ah, look, Jarena, she’s all confused.” Angelica stands and walks to the kitchen area, where she starts to open some drawers, searching through them. “You know, you’re a little slow to catch on, Vani. Not very pretty. And not very bright. Some people have all the bad luck.”

She turns from the drawer, giving me her full attention. “The fact is, I can’t risk you still being around. I tried to speak to Saint a while ago, and he seemed very upset. I do believe that upset was to do with you. You’re in the way of my plans, the exact same way yourfucking sisterwas.”

The way she spits out the words as if they’re poison makes my spine crawl. I realize in this moment, with dreadful clarity, that Saint is right about one thing. Angelica did kill my sister. I’m sure of it.

In Angelica’s hand is a ball of twine and a bottle. Pills? What the hell do they have planned?

They made Reagan’s death look like she might have killed herself; will they do the same for me?

I glance over at Jarena. Not just Angelica, either. All three of the girls played their part. They all knew the truth about what they’d done.

Poor Reagan. Had she believed these girls were her friends, too? Had she been completely clueless until they’d turned around and killed her?

“What did she ever do to you?” I ask in a whisper.

Angelica lifts her chin and pulls back her shoulders. “Many things,Ivani. She didn’t respect me. She had Saint’s attention because of that damned play. But there were other things.”

“Like?” I demand.

“She found things out about us,” Jarena throws in. “Things we can’t have getting out, because they’d affect our future marriages.”

“You’ve slept with guys here,” I say, it all fitting together, “and she knew. You killed her to keep that a secret?”

Jarena licks her lips and shoots a glance over at Angelica. “It wasn’t that we slept with guys. We slept with each other, me and Angelica, and your bitch sister found out.”

I stare at Angelica, trying to take this in. “Wait, I’m so confused. I thought you wanted Saint.”

She glances over her shoulder at me. “I do. Reagan threatened that. She liked him, a lot. He didn’t like her in that way, or so he said, but he sure spent an awful lot of time with her, and then when she found out about me and Jarena, she might have told him.”

“Could have told everyone.” Jarena slowly shakes her head. “That would mess up our marriages. I won’t let anything or anyone get in the way of me marrying Sacha. He’s my soul mate.”

She’s moved away from the door but is still near enough to stab me if I lunge for an escape. My mind is whirring, trying to figure this out. Jarena seems more the ringleader here than Angelica, and it’s throwing me for a loop. How can I have gotten it all so wrong?

I try to think fast. “Saint wouldn’t have told your secret even if Reagan had told him.” My focus is on Angelica, but I’m keeping an eye on Jarena in my peripheral vision.

Angelica scoffs. “Stop talking about him as if you know him so well.”

“I know he likes you,” I say. “I expect he’d find the thought of you two together hot. He’s fucked up like that. He was only using me. You were right.”

It’s not hard to cry; I’m fucking terrified, so I let the tears come and hope she’ll believe they’re for Saint. “You and he are perfect. You said it. You manipulate us all like we’re little chess pieces on a board, and you two are the players.”

Jarena laughs, taking me by surprise, snagging some of my attention. “The ideas aren’t all Angelica’s. Like take all those notes we sent you.”

I gasp. “It wasyou!”

She glances over at her best friend and lover. “Well, Angelica helped decide exactly what to write, and we got Faith to slide them under your door. We particularly enjoyed all the photocopied ones we put into everyone’s mail slots.”

I blink back tears and think back to that day. It feels like a lifetime ago. I can’t believe I’d blamed the Vipers for that. Christ, I’d almost fallen off the tower because of that, but then I guess I’d have given these bitches exactly what they wanted. I’d have followed in my sister’s footsteps.

With the thought of Reagan, I decide I need to know everything.

“Tell me, how did you get Reagan to do it? To jump?” The longer I can keep them talking, the more I can think of what the hell to do.

Jarena smiles, but her blue eyes are as cold as ice. “Oh, she didn’t jump. Angelica and Faith lured her up there. Well, Angelica, mostly. Faith is fucking useless. It’s why she’s outside watching the door. And I pushed her.”

“You?” I stare in utter shock. “You did it?”

“She would have ruined my marriage. She was ruining my best friend’s life. All Angelica wanted was Saint. If she got him, she’d marry him, and I’d marry Sacha, and we could have carried on being married besties. It would have been perfect. Reagan threatened that, but we dealt with it, and then you came along and started poking around. Now, you know too much.”

---