Page 54 of Cruel Endings

I leap to my feet, ready to beat Camille unconscious. She pulls a small silver tape recorder from her pocket and holds it up in front of her like it’s a cross and I’m a vampire.

“I talked to your sister today.”

Rage explodes inside me. She didn’t dare.

Brandy tries to stumble toward me, wailing and clutching her lopsided, bleeding nose, and I shove her so hard that she staggers. “Get the hell out of here,” I snarl in the voice I use when I’m about to kill someone. She turns and runs from the room, hands over her face, sobbing as blood runs down her chin, dripping all over my newly mopped floor.

I don’t like the look of triumph on Camille’s face, so I’m going to beat it right off her. She doesn’t get to feel good. She doesn’t deserve any wins at all, ever.

I lunge at Camille, but she leaps back out of my reach.

“You are going to leave me, my mother, Landon, and my friends the hell alone,” she snaps at me, holding up the recorder. She presses a button.

“Emilie?” It’s Camille’s voice. “I’m not going to stop calling. I really need to talk to your parents about Bastien. He’s out of control.”

Then I hear Emilie’s voice. “Leave my brother the hell alone. I told you not to call here again. I am going to come to America and cut your throat, you bitch. I’ll destroy your mother, and then I’ll hire someone to take care of your fiancé. Oh, yes, I know about Landon. I saw your wedding announcement, you putrid little whore.”

“Emilie?” Camille’s recorded voice says. “I really don’t think that you should speak to me like that.”

“Why not? Who’s going to stop me,putain?I ruined you once, and I will take great pleasure in doing it again.”

“I’m going to stop you. I just recorded this conversation. What do you think your parents are going to say when they hear it? Your husband? Your children?”

Emilie shouts with rage and screeches more threats at Camille. She always had a fiery temper—and Camille knows it. She’s playing my sister like a fiddle and if it were anyone else, I’d be impressed by her deviance. But this is Emilie she’s messing with.

I can’t allow that to go unpunished.

Camille taunts her, and my sister’s threats grow ever more vulgar and strident. Finally, Emilie hangs up.

“You shouldn’t mess with me,” Camille snaps at me. “I know how to push people’s buttons. You taught me that yourself.” Her smug smile is grating, and I have to refrain from choking the life out of her pretty little face. “For instance, you and your sister—you’re each other’s buttons.”

I grab the recorder from Camille, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it. She just laughs.

She laughs.

Camille shakes her head. “How stupid do you think I am? I have multiple copies of this recording stored in safe places. I have to check in on a regular basis with several people, and if I don’t, that recording gets released everywhere. Both in the US and France.”

I grab her by the arms, squeezing hard. “You’re going to tell me where every copy of that recording is and who’s helping you, right now, or I’m going to fuck you with a butcher knife,” I snarl.

She looks at me, trembling a little, but her gaze never drops. “I anticipated your threats. If I don’t make a phone call in the next ten minutes, that tape goes public.”

“I can make you talk in five minutes.” I tighten my arms until she winces in pain.

“I doubt it. But I also have a way to poison myself. If you torture me, I’ll simply end my own life, and the tape will be released anyway. How will the police react when I either turn up dead or vanish? I implicate both you and your sister on that tape. I talk about every single thing you did to me. I know your family is rich as hell, and they’d probably be able to lawyer their way out of a conviction, but the stain will stick to them forever. A family as rich as yours? The press will eat it up. That’s a lot of bad publicity.” She has the audacity to shrug. “It wouldn’t just hurt your siblings… it will hurt their children.”

Fuck. She’s got me— for now, until I can figure out a way around this. My family can’t handle any publicity at all. The truth could come out about my parents, my mother could go to prison, and the Franklins might end up getting dragged into this mess, and they would not take kindly to that. The most frustrating part is that Camille doesn’t have a clue just how by the balls she has me.

As furious as I am at my mother and father for their betrayal, I don’t want to see them destroyed. I’m not sure if this is because I still have a scrap or two of feeling left for them or if it’s just self-interest, but if they go down, and the Franklins are exposed, I will die from the GPS capsule in my body, and Emilie and her family will be murdered. I’m still fond of Emilie and would never forgive myself for her demise.

I stare at Camille, calculating. Where would she hide the poison? She’s wearing a lot of jewelry. Necklace, earrings, rings? Something in her teeth?

“Tick tock, time’s a wasting,” she says coolly. “I estimate you’ve got about eight minutes left, but it could be less.”

I grab her by the throat and squeeze.

“You don’t mess with my family,” I rage at her. “I will fucking kill you.”

“You messed withmyfamily.”

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