Page 53 of Bitter Desire
“Don't lie to me. I’ll find out even if you try and keep it from me. You know I will, so which way are we doing this? The hard way or the easy way?” Addie’s eyes snapped back to me and I knew it was good I’d paid Christian a visit earlier. Good that I had let the man I’d been before back into my head. She knew I meant what I was saying.
“W-what would you do?”
I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Whatever I need to.”
“It’s my brother,” she said quietly. “He’s- he’s got a gambling problem. He’s staying with me right now after he lost a big bet.”
I leaned forward in my seat, watching her closely. “You mean he’s got bookies after him.”
She nodded, swallowed hard again. “Yeah, I think so. He keeps saying it’s fine, but I don’t think it is. I’m nervous.”
“This got anything to do with why you mixed shit up with my trip?” I asked. I was going to take care of what happened with Addie’s brother. I didn’t like her distracted or worried, or nervous or whatever the fuck her shitty gambling brother was bringing down on her head. I needed Addie with a clear head. If she was stressed and dealing with this, fucking up details on something so small as telling me where she was sending me on a vacation, then I was going to be fucked when it came to business.
“Mixed up?” Addie’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you talking about?”
“You said you were sending us to a show, but it was some,” I gestured toward my face with a hand, “masquerade ball shit.” I kept my voice even. No use in letting her know that Honey had been grabbed there, or what I’d had to do because of it. The less Addie knew the better.
“Masquerade ball? No,” she shook her head, snapping open the agenda and suddenly she was all business again. Not tired, or worried, but the on her shit Addie, the woman I knew her to be. She paged through the agenda as she talked, “You were supposed to go to a dinner theater, not a ball. What the actual fuck? I triple checked it with the resort before I booked it. Thought it would be easy breezy for you since you wouldn’t have to drive far.”
The drive to the ball had been nearly thirty minutes.
“The theater was in the resort?” I asked.
She nodded, head down, and looked at the agenda. “Yes, you could have walked there if you wanted. I thought maybe Taylor could enjoy a little rest too, seeing as you wouldn’t need him.” She tapped a finger on a page and held it up to me so I could see it, but I wasn’t looking at the agenda. My eyes were on my computer screen.
“Did you tell anyone else?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I have the confirmation email though…”
“Send it to me. Now.”
“Law, what happened?” Addie asked. “You’re scaring me and-”
“Someone is after Honey. They made a move at the masquerade ball.”
So much for keeping Addie in the dark. If I was going to get to the bottom of this I was going to have to clue the woman in. She sucked in a breath.
“What do you mean, ‘after Honey’?”
I raised my eyes from the computer screen to her. “I mean someone tried to kidnap her,” I told her. “Grabbed her off the fucking stage and tried to make a run with her.”
Addie’s eyes widened. “The stage?”
“There was some fucking competition for Masquerade Queen or some shit. The MC was in on it.”
“The MC-I,” she stopped and swallowed hard, “I know you keep saying there’s a masquerade ball but I swear, Law. I sent you to the resort theater. You shouldn’t have been at some ball. I promise.”
“I know. The shit was too perfect.”
“That means,” Addie stood from her seat and began to pace, the agenda clutched tight in her hands. “You know that means someone got into my computer and changed shit, right?”
We both stared at each other in silence. What she was saying made sense, but it was also dangerous. If someone had hacked into her computer, a system that had been encrypted and safe guarded by the best available, then we were fucked. That meant there was no secret too deep for this fucker to find.
“I know.”
“Fucking hell!” Addie threw out her hands. “I can’t take this shit at work. My brother? Yeah, okay, he’s a fuck up but not this-”
“The dresses,” I asked, interrupting her. “What kind did you send?”
