Out of the house the next moment, I walked with a purpose down the long driveway, feeling my heart speed up with every step I took toward the open gate and the sleek black car waiting outside. As I walked up to it, I waved to Frank, and I saw that it was the same driver who’d taken Vaughn, Dante, and I to the dance.
And then…you know, sat in the front while we got a little freaky after it.
That was a tad embarrassing, but I was at the point where I didn’t care. If someone felt shame, it wasn’t me.
Once I was in the backseat, we were off.
Vaughn wasn’t here, and I wished he would’ve been. During the drive to the Scott house, he could’ve been prepping me on what to say and what not to say to Markus. It sounded like Markus was the head of their family, an important guy, and someone you didn’t want to fuck with. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to have a meeting with me before I saw Vaughn, but maybe that was the point. Maybe Markus had forbidden him from coming along to stop him from advising me how to act or what to say.
That was kind of scary, but at this point, I’d gotten a severed finger as a gift and was a murder suspect, so really, did it matter?
During the drive, I had to puff myself up. I could do this. I could sit down in the same room as Markus Scott and act tough. Who the hell was he to me? He couldn’t intimidate me. He probably just wanted to check me out, since they never let anyone on their property.
At least, that’s what I was currently telling myself. Whether or not it was true…I guess I’d find out soon enough.
When the Scott estate came into view, my stomach hardened, and I kind of wanted to be sick. I swallowed down the feelings as their security let us in, feeling a certain uneasiness rising up in my gut. A young man wearing all black stood near the front of the house, his hands folded across his stomach as he waited for the car to pull up. He wore sunglasses, hiding his eyes, but he didn’t look completely evil, like I imagined every family member or employee of the Scotts was. What he did look like was a young secret service agent or something.
You know, maybe I blew this all out of proportion. Maybe this wouldn’t be half as bad as I was expecting it to be.
When the car stopped, I was about to get out, but the guy in all black came to the vehicle and opened my door for me. I cautiously stepped out, not used to this kind of treatment, and as he closed the door behind me, I craned my neck up to view the house.
It was…well, huge wouldn’t really cut it. To call it a mansion would do it a disservice. This entire place looked like it was separate from Midpark, its property built on acres and acres of land, all surrounded by a high fence. The house itself was multiple stories, sprawling in every direction. I never thought another house could put Ollie’s to shame, but this one did. I dared to think that this was the largest one in all of Midpark, or at least the Midpark I’d seen.
The man in black led me to the front door, and he moved to hold it open for me. As I walked past him, going inside the house, I wondered if he watched me under those black glasses, if he wondered whether I was stupid to come here. I might not have known exactly what the Scotts got up to, but I knew it was bad shit.
I walked into a long vestibule, greeted by statues and paintings, things which Ollie’s house didn’t really have. I guess if you had a house that was this huge, you needed to fill it up with shit. At least when I was in Ollie’s house, I could pretend there wasn’t a ballroom and over a dozen unused rooms on the upper levels.
This…this place was on its own freaking level.
The man who’d let me in remained by the front door, and as I headed deeper into the house, I spotted someone waiting for me, someone I didn’t recognize. The vestibule gave way to a high-ceilinged hall, where two separate stairwells hugged the walls on either side.