“What? What is it?” I don’t think I can take anymore bad news for one day. The way he’s half-heartedly restraining me makes me think he suspects I’m going to hit him. He bends down and whispers his secret into my ear.

“The man who was going to buy you…was Rebel.”

******

She took it about as well as could be expected. The whole time we’re in the car, heading for the hospital, Sloane is swearing under her breath. “That sick bastard’s married to my sister, and he tried to buy me! Who does that? Lex can’t know. She’d never stay with him.”

I keep my mouth shut. I have other things on my mind. Like the fact that Sloane told me Lacey was talking to Charlie for days, and it was my fucking fault. She didn’t actually say that, but it’s true. The cell phone I gave Lace, I should have wiped it. I should have switched out the fucking SIM before I gave it to her. I should have realized, if Charlie bugged the phone I destroyed weeks ago, it was likely he bugged every single one of my phones—burners, disposables, every last one of them. As soon as the fucking thing was switched on, it must have been like a goddamn signal flare going off in the bastard’s office. The only reason I can trust the one I have now is because I bought it after I found out about the surveillance. Now I’m heading toward a clusterfuck of a situation with Lacey and the old man, and I have no idea how it’s going to play out. I’ve made a very tense deal with Sloane’s friend—she heads inside the hospital and recons the area, tells us whether there’s any security we need to avoid in order to get up to the Duchess’ room, and in return we let her go. We’re not going back to the apartment anyway, and she has no way of contacting us after we part ways, so we lose nothing by freeing her. We won’t have to listen to her bitch and moan anymore, so it’s actually a bonus.

Newan is sitting in the backseat of Michael’s sedan—the Chevy was gone when we hit the garage—pulling sour faces at me. I’ve finally figured her out. Or at least I think I have. Suffice it to say, it’s not so much the fact Sloane picked me over another guy and I’m a bad choice (which I am). I think it has more to do with the fact that Sloane picked me and not her.

“You got this?” I ask pointedly into the rearview. “You’re going to come back out and let us know what the deal is, and then you can return to your privileged life overlooking the park. Got it?”

“Oh, I’ve got it all right.”

“And you know what’ll happen if you call security or you don’t come back?”

“Yeah. You firebomb my apartment with me inside it.”

I was just gonna say she’ll never see Sloane again—her friend will never forgive her if she betrays her twice in one week—but now that she’s mentioned it, firebombing—

Sloane slaps my shoulder. “Just please, Pip. Just do this one thing for us, okay?”

I pull up outside St Peter’s and Newan gets out. She looks like shit, which I’m sure is making her even madder. She’s normally so damn perfectly turned out that her dirty hair and three-days-lived-in clothes are undoubtedly doing nothing for her mood. She pauses by Sloane’s side of the car and it looks as though she’s going to say something to her. I know what—this is the last time I’m going to ask, Sloane. Leave this guy. Walk away. Come with me now and you’ll never have to deal with any of this nightmarish stuff again. Sloane can read it in her eyes as well; she gives Pippa a cold look that stops her short. She just nods and then walks across the lot and inside St. Peter’s.

Sloane stares out the windshield, hands clenched together in her lap, and I feel like a massive fucking dick. She has to come back here after everything that’s happened, to the place she poured her blood, sweat and tears into, but now she’s reduced to sneaking in through service entrances like a petty criminal. Even her work colleagues must think she’s involved in the death of the woman Charlie picked at random off the street. Fucking Charlie. The man has the touch of disaster to him. Everything he comes into contact with ignites, crashes and goes down in an epic ball of flames. Including me.

“What happens after this?” Sloane asks. “What happens once we have Lacey back and Michael’s helped deal with Julio?”

I maybe shouldn’t have told her about Rebel earlier; now that I have to try and persuade her to head back to New Mexico with him, convincing her that going anywhere with him is a good idea is going to be fucking impossible. Worth a shot, though. “You’ll have to leave,” I tell her.

Her head whips around, eyes sharp and spearing straight through me. “What?”

“You’ll have to leave. With Rebel. Just for a couple of weeks until this Charlie thing is done.”

“Won’t it be done with today? If we get Lacey back, what’s to keep any of us here?”

She poses a solid question. She must know, though, that letting Charlie live is a bad decision. He’s touched in the head; he will never, ever stop searching until he finds us, and I can hardly put an end to him in a fucking hospital. Not without being recorded by a thousand CCTV cameras committing the act. “You know why,” I say.

She’s prepared for this answer. “If Julio’s so scared of Rebel, why isn’t Charlie? Can’t we just walk away? Let the threat of Rebel protect us?”

“Only sane people can be reasoned with, Sloane. Charlie’s out of his mind. There’s nothing on earth that’ll deter him from what he wants anymore. Too much coke. Too much fucking and drinking and killing. He thinks he’s untouchable. And I think—think he’s sick.”