CHAPTER 20
STEPHANIE
I flinch at the sound of the hotel room door crashing open.
Waylon’s here. He found us.
I thought we'd make it. For a few minutes, while we were laughing together during that episode of Insecure, I’d felt like a real girl, and I honestly thought we'd make it.
Everything had gone according to my plan.
I wasn't sure Wedding Dress Girl would understand the note I passed her. I'd had to keep it as vague as possible and make it look like a shopping list just in case it was discovered.
Bourbon
5Karrots
Apple
outfit
Roses
11-28
Feeling up her boobs was a risky move—especially with the way Waylon watched her even when she didn’t know it. I had to pretend to be passed out pretty much the whole time I was with them in the living room, but I observed him watch her under my slitted eyes. He tracked her every move. I was surprised he even let her go to the bathroom alone.
Nobody’s worse than Hades. But Waylon’s almost as bad. And those two psychos watch out for each other like brother hawks.
If anyone found my note, it would be him. But I had to risk it. Wedding Dress Girl lifting one of those 5K wads off him was integral to my plan. I needed money to run, to make it to my destination.
That was why I heavily encoded the note I gave her. If he found it, I was hoping he’d mistake it for some kind of a grocery list—one written by somebody who didn’t know how to spell carrots. He wouldn’t know I won a couple of spelling bees in my past life.
That’s not something Hades talks about with other people—even his brother-cousin. Me having an identity—that’s not allowed.
I hoped that would work in my favor if Waylon discovered my little encoded grocery list. But there was always the chance that Wedding Dress Girl wouldn’t understand what I was asking for—what I needed from her to make this escape plan work. There was also a chance she was full of shit.
A lot of people are—I discovered that the hard way the first time Hades brought me to a nice party outside his underworld and I tried to ask for help. He’s a cruel bastard by birth, but he’s also smart. There’s a reason he makes me dress like this—especially when he takes me into what I privately call the overworld. Places where women wouldn’t get PROPERTY OF tattoos in the first place, much less openly display them.
I watched Wedding Dress Girl from underneath my slitted eyes, but she didn’t glance my way that I could see. Not even once. I could hear a couple of the Fairgood wives talking about what to do with me over in the corner. But she seemed to be pretending I didn’t exist altogether.
Also, she appeared mighty comfortable underneath Waylon’s arm—the total opposite of how miserable she looked when he drove her off in a black pick-up truck. Maybe she didn’t want to run from him anymore. They had that New Couple Alert air about them that I remember some boyfriend-girlfriend pairings shining with when I was in college.
College…that seemed like a million years ago. Before Hades took me. Before the tattoo. Before I received my real education.
But hope flared in my chest when she said no thank you to the thirty-year Glendaver bourbon Hades brought with him to the party—his supposed business gift. I wonder if that country music star cousin of his would’ve drunk it if he knew how he really got the bottle.
It didn’t matter. All the men drink it just like I knew they would.
I’d been forced to trail behind Hades long enough to know there was just something about bourbon and men. Unless they were alcoholics, they never turned it down.
In this case, it was no different. All the men drink the bourbon just like I wanted.
And luckily, Wedding Dress Girl didn’t look suspicious because a couple of the Fairgood wives turned it down too—though, Kyra Fairgood knocked one back and bragged about how some cousin of hers that couldn’t make it to the party worked as a nurse in Olivia Glendaver’s office and even named her little girl after her.
I vaguely recognized the name from my pre-Hades life of swanky parties and needing to know who was who on the old money Black American list. I’m pretty sure she’s that one Glendaver heir the family adopted from some country in Africa.
I listened to Kyra and the other Fairgood wives have one of those legitimate rich people conversations about which charities they were donating to that Christmas. I used to think nothing of pledging four or five figures to some deserving charity for the holidays, too. I’d even considered doing some nonprofit work after I graduated, since it wasn’t like I needed the money.
But that was all before Hades. Now I’m risking asking Wedding Dress Girl for help just to get five thousand dollars.