RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,56
daughter from her previous marriage.
The bartender, smiling so professionally, so politely, as he makes cocktail after cocktail with flare, has been considering suicide for months.
Vrrrrrn vrrrrnnnnnn. Vrrrrrn vrrrrnnnnnn.
I glare at the lying, deceptive degenerates, despising everything that they are and everything they stand for. I could be wrong about the people I’ve just picked apart—it was all blind conjecture at best—but I know this set. They’re expert fabricators and masters of their craft. The shiny veneers they present to the world are wafer thin and disintegrate like wet paper when inspected up close.
Revolted, I turn back to my phone.
Incoming Message:
+1 (819) 3328 6582
Yes.
ME: Operational?
+1 (819) 3328 6582
Yes. What should I do with it?
ME: Leave it where we discussed.
“Well, well, well. What’s this? Do my eyes deceive me? Wren Jacobi, alive and in the flesh.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Exhaling sharply down my nose, I turn the phone off and pocket it before I turn around. The girl emerging from the doorway isn’t really a girl anymore. She’s all woman, with her exaggerated curves and the seductive sway to her hips as she walks toward me. Her jet-black hair’s long and wavy, fixed in place like some sort of forties Hollywood starlet. The crimson color of her lipstick suits her perfectly. She looks like a pale, porcelain-skinned vampire, who’s just had her mouth clamped around someone’s jugular and spilled her main course.
In every way, she’s perfect. In every way, I hate her.
Detestable creature.
“Mercy. If I’d have known you were gonna be here, I’d have torched the building to the ground and fled to Europe.”
“Charming, as always,” she purrs, sauntering to the balustrade. There’s a fifteen-foot stretch of open space to my right, but of course the bitch comes and stands as close to me as humanly possible. The subtle scent of her perfume makes my stomach roll. “I saw your illiterate friend inside. The one who looks like a murderer. I spent all of three seconds trying to calculate where you’d be before I came up with the answer.”
“Yeah. You know me so well, Mercy. Excuse me. I have to get back inside.”
She doesn’t listen, or else chooses not to hear me, talking over me as I step away. “Can’t I bum a smoke?”
Halting, I roll my eyes up at the clear night sky, resenting the moment I ever agreed to come to this fucking party. Under normal circumstances, I’d pin her up against the side of the building by her throat and tell her to go fuck herself, but the consequences would be disastrous. Mercy’s the queen of theater, a lauded actress whose ability to cry on cue has already landed her three reasonably large speaking parts on Broadway. I lay a finger on her here, at Lord Lovett’s Charity Benefit for Battered Women, and she’ll undertake the role of a lifetime. After a flood of tears and some smeared mascara, I’ll be carted off in fucking handcuffs.
No, thanks.
Grudgingly, I offer her the pack of smokes I had in my pocket, resigning myself to the fact that I’m gonna be out here with her until she’s finished with me.
She places the cigarette against her lips, smiling knowingly as she snaps the catch on the small silver lighter she always carries around with her, lighting up. A thick fog of smoke spills down her nose, curling off into the chilly February air.
“You weren’t in the city at Christmas. I drove all the way to the Upper East Side only to find out you were off galivanting without me in the Czech Republic.”
I give her an icy grin. “Yeah, well. It’s the only place that I’m safe from you. I know how much you loathe Prague. Sorry you had a wasted journey. Driving yourself has always made you feel poor, hasn’t it?”
A vicious light sparks in her green eyes. “We could have gone somewhere together, y’know. The fireworks over Sydney Harbor on New Years’ Eve were epic. You said you wanted to go there last year.”
Hah. Last year. Many things have changed in the past 12 months. “I’m sure you had a great time without me, Merce. You’re milking that cigarette for all its worth. Get it finished so I can go.”
Her smile morphs into a mirthless slash across her face. “No need to be so belligerent all the time, Wren. Is it so bad that I might wanna spend a couple of minutes with you? Am I really that awful? All that frowning and pouting’s gonna prematurely age you. And then what?”