“Her tea,” I hissed. “Fuck, Jordi, you got some sick mind.”
“I can’t go to jail. I can’t.” He choked on his tears. “I don’t…”
“You can’t? Well, here’s a spoiler for you—the cops are waiting downstairs. Shit. Did I say cops? I meant FBI. Nope, wait, I think it’s both. But before I let you leave, you will sign three documents—one handing us Fiscal Heights Holdings in its entirety, one in which you give up custody rights over Theo, and finally, a third one handing over and destroying all your material about me regarding Luna. Your little friend, Val, I’ll take care of separately. Wash your fucking face, asshole. There’s a lot of work ahead of you. Now, go.”
I saw him ushered to the waiting cars. To the men in the sunglasses. To the person who had read him his rights.
In perfect harmony, Jordan’s head was ducked into the police car, his hands cuffed behind his back, when Val poured herself out of a cab behind them. She barely had time to straighten her scarlet come-fuck-me dress and fix her film-noir smile when I approached her.
“What’s going on?” she half-stuttered, half-begged for an answer, clutching at my sleeve. She looked up to me, and I saw Luna in her face. I wish I hadn’t. It would have made things so much easier. But essentially, Val was just a child. She proved it over and over again by trying to find a rich guy to babysit her.
And it was funny, how people viewed Edie as the kid because of her age, when she’d been nothing but a lioness throughout her short life.
“Your boyfriend just got arrested.” I shook her—and the spell of her Luna eyes—away from me.
“For what?” She followed me on her impossibly noisy heels.
“You name it. Follow me.” I started walking back into the Oracle building. She tried to keep up with my pace, stumbling her way behind me.
“What for?”
“To sign all the papers so I can get full custody of Luna.”
“Why would I give her to you?” She tried to laugh. Failed.
I stopped, turning around to face her. “Hey, remember when we first met? You were coked out of your ass, and shortly after the whole pregnancy revelation I had to throw you into rehab so you could get better and not fill my kid with enough drugs to grow a second head. And that was before I knew your side piece is the lord of drugs. Care to piss in a cup for me, Valenciana, dear?”
Her face drained of blood, and I could see how it seeped, slowly but surely. The fear. Val was using. Jordan provided it to her. She swallowed hard. I stepped aside, motioning with my hand for her to enter the elevator.
“Ladies first.”
She walked in, knowing exactly what was going to happen once we got to my office. “Shit before the shovel.”
“I LOVE IT WHEN WE get fucking vicious.” Dean lit a joint, sprawled on a settee in front of Vicious’ Olympic pool, throwing the unlit match in the latter’s direction. “No pun intended, asshole.”
“Ha-fucking-ha,” Vicious said, popping a grape into his mouth, lying on a lounger like a mad, entitled king. “But I have to say. The look on Val’s face when she signed those papers? Priceless. I’d feel sorry for her if it wasn’t for the fact she hadn’t even asked about Luna. Bet she ran off to the nearest bar to try to score some rich old businessman before the happy hour was up.”
Vicious thumbed through the documents we’d examined earlier that week with Eli Cole, Dean’s lawyer dad. The last couple days had been hectic, with each of us running around like a headless chicken trying to block every single evil plan Jordan Van Der Zee had crocheted for me. I had my friends to help me, and they were there, hound dogs out for blood. “Your ex-girlfriend saved your ass. Thank fuck she is no longer a minor and can testify the shit out of her dad’s wrongdoings.”
My stomach dropped at his last sentence, and I rolled my lower lip between my fingers, playing it off. I sat on the edge of the low table, trying to look like my heart hadn’t burned into ashes at the sound of her name and the idea she’d fucked me over by protecting him. When I’d sent Dean, Vicious, and Jaime after her, the rules had been clear—no telling her about Jordan and Val. I didn’t want her sympathy, and I didn’t want her to knock on my fucking door with crocodile tears.
Even though I wanted to knock on her door all the goddamn time.
Luna was with my parents. It was way past midnight—she was safe and sound and mine—and still, the hunger was there. The hole in the pit of my stomach sucked all my feelings and spat them back out into something numb.