Page 69 of Montana Falls
The neon lights of my nightclub flashed and pulsed in time with the music, bathing everything in shades of electric blue, magenta, and green. My stomach churned, the nervous energy sitting heavy in my chest as I stood just inside the entrance, watching the party unfold in front of me. People danced in the sea of light, their bodies moving in sync with the music that vibrated up through the floor beneath my favorite heels.
A killer pair of stilettos, a shade of blue so light they were almost white. With a silver floral heel, and covered in various gems and vines wrapping around my feet, up my leg a little. But the best part of all had been the delicate wings on the ankle that shone under the lights. I felt like a fairy princess. Even more so considering I wore a long silver dress made of such a soft silk that it looked like water clinging to my skin, with a split oneach side to my hips, showing off my legs and shoes each time I walked.
My mama had worn this dress to her engagement party. My daddy had gotten it altered to fit me a year or so ago. He’d bought me the shoes for my eighteenth birthday.
They were the only things I wanted to wear tonight. The only thing that felt right.
This was supposed to be my engagement party—a celebration of everything I had with the men I loved. But that wasn’t the only reason we were here and so I had to make do with just my outfit as the way to feel like I was celebrating such an important thing.
To help me pretend that I was here for something other than luring out Cassie O’Malley.
Her name alone made my skin crawl, and I had half a mind to not bother with my ruse anymore. The need to lure her out, make her think she had the upper hand, and then take her down was entirely pointless. She was a dozen steps ahead of me and she always had been. She’d had her claws in everything, and I had been far too blind to see that before. But now that I knew her true identity—now that I knew she was much more than the enemy we thought we were dealing with—I had to adjust my approach.
I wasn’t entirely sure it would work anymore. In fact, it wasn’t even a guess. I was positive my original plan to simply bait her into coming was ruined. I was going to have to change tactics, and I was going to have to do the one thing she couldn’t predict.
It was time to channel my daddy and do something he would have done to win against our enemies.
I took a breath, trying to calm the racing of my heart as I looked around the club and stepped inside for real, taking everything in. The walls were drenched in neon light, the hum ofthe bass making the air thrum around me and the tension down my spine get worse.
The stage loomed ahead, the centerpiece of the night where I’d be making my speech soon enough.
The place my daddy had died.
But before I could even think about that trauma, I knew I had to be the boss and pretend to be fine. My new plan was rapidly getting closer, and as I caught sight of Rika hovering off to the side of the room, I knew I could start with her and tick one thing off my checklist.
She was lingering near one of the neon-lit pillars as she drank a cocktail and made small talk with a pretty hostess. She looked nervous, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her short black dress. I couldn’t blame her—I’d put her in a position that could change the outcome of the entire night. But she was strong, and I knew she’d pull through.
The same way Beau had from his surgery, to stitch him back together and make sure he wasn’t going to be leaving me, either. He was just stuck at home on bedrest, with Aiden and Ruby at his beck and call. But he was going to be fine. And he was one less person for me to worry about tonight. One less person I had to lie to and hide the rest of my new plan from.
After taking another glass of Champagne from one of the dozens of servers offering them out, I made my way over to Rika, weaving through the crowd, smiling when people greeted me, and going through the motions as though everything was fine.
Iwas fine.
“You okay?” I asked as I reached her, leaning in close so she could hear me over the music. Her eyes darted around the room before settling on me, and she nodded, though I could see the unease in her expression.
“I’m good,” she said, though her voice wavered slightly. “The drinks help me feel calm and taste like rich people things.”
I squeezed her arm gently. “You’ll be fine.” I promised. “You can handle things. You are just like Kody.”
Music drifted through the speakers as I downed my third glass of Champagne of the night, eager to have it take away the taste of nerves from my tongue before I stopped drinking entirely. As fun as it would have been to get smashed, it didn’t seem sensible. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Sure, I was a bit of a pessimist lately. I had been since my kidnapping and captivity. It was hard to stay confident, even in yourself, when you had experienced something that had quite literally made you want to die.
It might have been months, but I knew I wasn’t the same girl I had been before then. A part of me was still damaged and terrified, and I needed to make sure she felt like she was in control.
Sober. Calm. In command. A real Montana.
That was who Cassie would be meeting soon enough. She wasn’t going to meet the girl she locked in a horror room and tortured for her sadistic entertainment.
She wasn’t going to meet the girl with the broken heart, who couldn’t believe she’d ever been worthy of having her life ruined for something that had happened decades before she was even born.
Rika leaned over, putting her empty glass on the counter next to me, as she whispered in my ear.
“Everything is good to go now. I’ll be ready.”
“And nobody else knows?” I checked. “You definitely didn’t say things to Kody that he could find suspicious?”
She shook her head. “Koko knows nothing. I promise.” She turned and lifted her bag from behind a couch near the wall, smile turning stern. “If this whole thing goes wrong then he will kill me.”
“I know.” I replied. “Which is why I’m extra grateful.”
