“Heroine. And you should thank me. They say it’s a lovely way to go. But don’t you die on me yet, I’m not done with you. Come on now, let’s get you up on this throne. I think it’s the perfect spot for your final farewell. Don’t you?”
Ivy hauled her up and wrapped an arm around her waist. Though Sylvie knew she desperately needed to get as far away from the homicidal psycho as she could, making any move without her tormentor’s aid was beyond the realm of possibility.
Every shuffle forward took all the energy she could muster, but Ivy pushed and half-dragged her, and at last Sylvie sank onto the throne. Her head lolled back against the metal and her eyelids fluttered downward. She smacked her lips together in slow motion, but the move did little to alleviate the desert in her mouth.
“Damn, I’m sorry as hell I’m going to miss seeing them find you like this when they unveil the Throne of Hope to all the fund-raiser attendees in an hour. But I’ll be off discovering the new me, the person I can finally become with you dead and gone.”
Sylvie rolled her neck so she faced her would-be killer and fought to keep her eyes open. She had to keep fighting or she’d die. Even in her drugged state, the dire state of things reverberated through the foggy high. “Don’t underst—” Her tongue thickened and she couldn’t finish the thought out loud.
“Of course you don’t understand, you stupid bitch.” Ivy cracked her palm across Sylvie’s cheek. “Did you know that rehab is a lot like prison? They tell you what to wear, where to go, what to eat, and how to live, every fucking second of every fucking day. I was ready to snap into a million little jagged pieces. I’d survived it once, but you, you greedy bitch, forced me back a second time.”
She scraped a long fingernail down Sylvie’s cheekbone and across her bottom lip. The force pushed her head backward against the unyielding coins of the throne’s high back.
Ivy leaned in, her mouth so close to Sylvie’s ear that the humidity of her hot breath tickled her sensitive skin, even through the growing numbness. “Have you figured it out yet, what got me through those days when the withdrawal was sawing my body in half and I could see the devil waiting for me in every corner?” Ivy wove her fingers through Sylvie’s hair and yanked her head to the side, exposing the lethargic pulse in her throat. “Planning to kill you, the bitch who stole it all from me. That’s what.”
Adrenaline and pain should have spurred Sylvie into action. Instead, everything in her body lay mired in cold molasses. She couldn’t raise her head. Drool pooled at the corner of her mouth. Her breathing slowed and grew shallower. She knew was going to die, but she was too high to be terrified.
A lingering regret threaded its way through the haze as thick as woven fabric.
Tony.
She’d hoped there’d be time. For more. More what exactly, she didn’t know. But time for more with him. Wasn’t that the ultimate irony? Here she was on the Throne of Hope without any hope left at all.
“I was the one who introduced you to Drea—my best friend,” Ivy snarled, clearly starting to lose it. “I invited you to join our blogging group. I helped you work out the security kinks and set everything up so your real identity was hidden away. And how did you repay me? Not just by stealing the spotlight. You stole my closest friend.” She started to pace. “Catwalk Style was supposed to be my reinvention. I’d failed as a model. I couldn’t afford to fail again. Not if I wanted to regain my rightful place in the industry.” She spun, and her voice rose as she gestured erratically at her. “The blog was going to get me back on top. Instead, you tossed me to the side with your stupid High-Heeled Wonder blog. People stopped feeding me gossip and started sending it your way. Advertisers told me they didn’t have any room in their budgets. Funny, they always found a little extra money to send your way. When Pippa Worthington refused my call, it was an insult only cocaine could numb. I didn’t fall off the wagon. You pushed me with both fucking hands. You!”
Ivy reached into her handbag and pulled out a thin rectangular box, pinched the clasp, and withdrew another hypodermic needle and a blue ribbon. “Oops, looks like you won’t match.” She tied the ribbon around Sylvie’s bicep. “After three months of planning in rehab, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Frighten you. Expose you. Kill you. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. Well, almost. The first hit was enough to get you high. This second dose is what will finish you off.”
She lowered the needle to Sylvie’s arm, centering the point on the engorged vein in the crook of Sylvie’s elbow. “This will only hurt for a minute. Trust me.”
Tony spotted Anya as soon as he sprinted through the museum’s double doors. “Where’s Sylvie?”
“She’s talking to Ivy.”
His heart stopped beating in his chest. “Where?”
Sudden concern darkened Anya’s expression. She pointed toward a hallway off the crowded lobby. “Down there. Why? What’s—”
He took off at a dead run. God help him, he would not be too late. He would not fail the woman he loved.
He burst into the room at the end of
the hall. Sylvie sat thirty feet away, slumped over in some weird chair, drowning in a sea of stiff red material. Ivy Rhodes was nowhere in sight.
A primal rage curled inside him, squeezing his organs so tightly he felt they could implode from impotent fury.
He sprinted over to Sylvie and waded through the waves of satin and lace. He felt for her pulse at the base of her neck. Slow and unsteady, a barely perceptible rhythm.
He tapped the com device in his ear that connected him to Ryder and Carlos. “She’s still alive! Get an ambulance here pronto.” Knowing they had him covered, he turned back to the woman who’d kicked him out of her life less than twenty-four hours ago. “Stay with me, Sylvie. Help’s on the way, baby. I promise, you’re gonna make it. Just hang in there.”
Her olive skin had a ghostly pallor, and a blue tint colored her lips. Tony’s entire world shrank to the space she occupied. He couldn’t lose her. He had so much to make up for.
She took in a ragged breath and he squeezed her hand. Her breathing returned to a slow but steady in and out. Thank God. “That’s it, you’re doing great, honey.”
A soft click sounded behind him, just loud enough to punch through the worry fogging his brain. He jerked his head up. The Rhodes woman had her back turned to him as she pushed against a door a few feet away that must lead to a secondary exit. She pushed again. Again the click sounded, but the door still didn’t open.
He leaped to his feet. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Rhodes turned. For a millisecond he saw the hate twisting her model-perfect face before it disappeared, replaced by a doe-eyed innocence.