I hated her—no, it was more than hate.
Noah
“Assault. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—”
“Assault with a deadly weapon?” My lawyer, Henry Fordman, sat up just as confused as I was.
“Witnesses claim they saw Mr. Sloan here beating Mr. Mallory with his cane.”
At that, I snickered. Henry’s head shot toward me, internally screaming at me to shut up. However, I couldn’t. This whole thing reeked of absolute bullshit. The police, these so-called witnesses, this prosecutor sitting in front of me with his ugly patterned tie, and even Mr. Mallory his goddamned self—all of it was bullshit.
“Given those witnesses, plus the obvious damages to Mr. Mallory’s face, it would be in your best interest to accept this deal,” the prosecutor said, sliding the paper over to Henry, who glanced down at it and then back up, his face emotionless.
“I wouldn’t allow my dog to agree to this deal,” Henry replied.
“Henry—” the prosecutor began.
> “It’s Mr. Fordman, and we have a witness who will testify to the fact that my client was defending her from a vicious attack. So you can take your deal and shove it, because I will see you in court.”
The prosecutor shook his head, rising from the table. “I threw you a bone here, Mr. Fordman, but this isn’t California. You will lose, and you will lose badly. Chicago will eat you alive.”
“Thank you for the warning, but we will still take our chances,” he said, and I simply waved as the guards opened the door for him.
“How bad is this?” I asked him when we were alone.
“Normally, this would have been a breeze. However, this Mallory guy is throwing around a lot of weight. They had me jumping through hoops just to get in here and will most likely not get you a court date until Monday, which means you can’t make bail and will be stuck here over the weekend.”
“Great. Fucking perfect,” I sighed, running my hands through my hair. “What do we do?”
“Right now, I’m going to head over to a board meeting with Midnight Empire Studios…” Henry said.
I couldn’t catch a fucking break.
“They want to kick me off the movie, don’t they?”
He didn’t answer, just packed up his things. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Just keep your head down until I can get you out of here,” Henry reassured me.
It had been less than seven hours since I was arrested, yet I was already all over the news, and the studio wanted me off their movie. This had Esther London written all over it.
I didn’t know how she did it, but there was no doubt in my mind that the snake had struck when I least expected it. But if she thought I was giving up now, she had another thing coming.
“Oh, Ms. London wanted me to pass on a message to you,” Henry said.
Now he brings it up. “What is it?”
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? That’s all she said. What did she mean?” He paused, staring at me in confusion.
Smirking, I nodded, but I didn’t reply.
Shall we not revenge? She knew. Even without us speaking, she had already guessed her mother was behind this, and just like in the Merchant of Venice, she would get her pound of flesh.
How or when I wasn’t sure. But I trusted her with my life.
Amelia
I was quaking with rage.
The medicine Ollie had given me in the morning had relaxed me enough that I could fall asleep on the plane ride to New York City. When I awoke, all I could feel was anger. The pain and shock I went through all faded to the wayside. I had two goals now: get Noah out of jail with his reputation intact, and pay my mother back tenfold. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like a hurricane willing to destroy anything in my path.