The door that holds Colton’s biggest secret.
I guess it’s my biggest secret now too. It’s all of ours—me, Colton, Spencer, and now Charlie.
Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment or maybe seeing Colton face his demons so epically gave me what little encouragement I needed to finally end this. Hell, maybe it has a little something to do with the empowerment I felt after firing that gun at the douchebag's car. Either way, I'm here now and I won’t ever be here again.
This ends tonight.
From now on, Jude Carter will not reside rent-free in my mind. He does not win, I do.
I pull the heavy metal lock and hear that same loud BANG that I'd heard the first time I walked in here. I slowly push open the door, still kinda terrified of what I might find inside, despite knowing exactly what it is.
The smell hits me first and it’s clear that this trash has been living in his own filth, too fucking scum to bother getting up and using the fucking toilet like the rest of the human population.
Dried blood lines the room and I have no doubt that it’s adding toward the stench but I try to see through it and put it to the back of my mind. I'm here for one job and one job only.
Jude sits in the corner of the room, his hands still bound with heavy chains. He looks up at me, squinting against the light that floods the room. “Come to finish the job?” he questions.
I ignore him, knowing that I need to keep my control. If I allow him to get inside my mind, I’m going to lose myself and without Colton here to stop me, I don't think I'll have the strength to walk out of here with my soul still attached.
“I’ve come to tell you that this is it. You don’t own me anymore. You don’t consume me, you don’t scare me. You don’t hold that kind of power, not anymore. You thought you won by touching me, by taking what wasn't yours, but you didn’t. You’re hardly even a blip on the radar and all you managed to do was fuck yourself in the ass.”
“Quit lying to yourself,” he grumbles, not putting any energy into fighting because he knows that I've won and there is no longer a point of even trying.
“You’re scum, Carter. You always will be, always have been and in fact, I’m fucking thrilled because had you not decided to do what you did, I never would have had the opportunity to destroy you.”
“You can’t destroy me,” he scoffs. “No one can.”
I smile sweetly. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong,” I tell him, slipping my phone out of my back pocket. “I can do just that.”
I press a few buttons and hold the phone up against my ear, keeping my eyes on Jude as I listen to the phone ring.
“O, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Nic,” I say, watching as Jude’s eyes widen in horror, knowing exactly who the Widows are. “We found Jude. He’s locked in the back part of Charles’ wine cellar.”
Jude shakes his head. “No,” he panics. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m getting the boys now,” Nic says. “We’ll handle it.”
“NO,” Jude yells in fear, rattling against his chains and desperately trying to get to his feet.
I smile at Jude while letting out a deep breath. “I know you will,” I tell Nic before ending the call and turning on my heel. I walk out of the dungeon and slam the door with a loud BANG knowing damn well that I will never have to see Jude Carter again.Chapter 23“How did this even happen?” Mom demands, standing in the full-length mirror of my bedroom while sliding my borrowed earrings into place.
I stand behind her in the mirror, watching as she gets ready for the ballet that she was so lucky to win tickets to, despite not entering a competition for it. In fact, there was no competition at all.
I grin wickedly. This plan is flawless.
Mom has always talked about going to the ballet but it’s one of those things that we’ve never been able to afford. Hendrix however, just happens to own box seats in the theatre and her father just so happens to be going.
It’s a match made in heaven. Or at least, a match made during high school biology.
Mom has been questioning it all week. I came to her on Tuesday after school, racing in like a fire had been lit under my ass telling her how I’d entered a competition on her behalf and that I'd just got the email to confirm that we’d won. Hendrix and I even spent our lunch period creating a fake email address to send the announcement from because we’re smart like that.
I've then slowly started coughing through the week, hinting that I'm coming down with something and just spent the last hour standing on the couch and getting my head as close to the air vents as possible. I cranked the heat right up and twenty minutes ago, mom walked in to find me snuggled in bed with a high ‘fever.’