Cruel Hearts (King’s Crossing #2)

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Stella

M y body aches like hell. I don’t whine because Quinn would tell me to shut the fuck up. A bullet actually went through her, but she acts like she feels a lot better than I do. Maybe she’s taking her pain meds. I don’t like the woozy feeling the pills the junkie nurse gave me. I’d rather be in pain than feel like Alice in Wonderland and make do with plain ibuprofen which is never enough, but I need the control.

I’m grateful Quinn’s doing well. I still feel guiltier than hell she was shot in the first place.

As usual, we’re sitting in Max’s room. We feel safer together, protected by our numbers. It’s only Nathalie who goes off on her own, but she hasn’t given me a reason not to trust her and she has no reason not to help us. Zane’s saving her from a life of prostitution and abuse, and God only knows what happens to the women Ash sells after the men who use them don’t want them anymore. He’s always recruiting new girls, each one younger and prettier than the last. The women who can’t earn their keep disappear, and through all my years of working at Black Enterprises, I never could find what Ash does to them. I look forward to knowing...and stopping it.

Mel knew I was upset Zane and Nathalie had to meet Ash, and at one of the fanciest, most romantic restaurants in King’s Crossing, no less. In an attempt to make me feel better, she ordered steak and twice baked potatoes for dinner and seven-layer chocolate cake for dessert. Zane’s credit card is getting quite the workout, but the food is divine so I’m not going to complain.

Someone knocks on the suite’s main door interrupting the subdued quiet, and everyone tenses. Zane didn’t text Mel or call ahead warning us of a surprise visitor, but unless he went to the men’s room, there would have been no way he could do that without causing suspicion. Even though I’m upset, I know how important their dinner is, and I wouldn’t want anything to jeopardize what Zane needs to do.

Max shifts closer to Zarah on the loveseat, and Paulo and Denton hover near the door. Quinn links our fingers, and Mel closes her laptop and cautiously calls out, “Come in.”

The hotel’s manager tentatively pushes the door open and Zane’s driver, Douglas, steps into the room, ashen, holding his hat in his hands.

Immediately, I think something terrible happened to Zane, that he’s dead or in the hospital. Pushing back an alarmed sob, I lurch out of my chair at the conference table, and on shaking legs, meet Douglas in the middle of the room. “What is it? It Zane okay?”

His gaze flies to mine and he crushes me against his chest. He hugs me so tightly I can barely breathe. During the brief time Zane and I dated, I didn’t get to know his and Zarah’s driver. Either we would ride public transportation as it seemed to entertain Zane, or he’d drive us where we wanted to go, which he also seemed to enjoy.

“It’s true,” he says, pushing me to arms’ length and studying my face. “You’re alive.”

The plan had always been for Douglas to drive us to the hospital the night of the mugging, and I thought nothing of it.

No one knew how real my death would become.

“Zane didn’t tell you?” I ask.

Douglas shakes his head. “No. I said a few choice things to him tonight about Miss Barton. He had no right to be seeing her when a proper gentleman would be in mourning. I told him he was dishonoring your name and that I was disappointed in him.”

“I am so sorry. What a stupid—” I stop and sigh. “God. I’m sorry you thought that. It’s part of the plan.”

He drops his hands, releasing me. “Zane didn’t tell me what’s happening. How can I be of assistance?”

“We’re going to—”

“Wait! Who is this?” Mel asks, rising halfway off her seat and staring at Douglas.

We can’t be letting just anyone into our group, but Zane trusts him and Zarah stands near me, hovering, wringing her hands, waiting for the chance to speak to a man who’s been part of her household staff her entire life.

“This is Douglas—he’s Zane’s driver. If Zane sent him here, he trusts him, and he can help us.”

I introduce him to everyone. “That’s Mel Sanchez, a private investigator Zane hired. Ingrid Flannigan is Zarah’s nurse, and Max Cook is a reporter at the Chronicle. You remember Richard Denton, I think. And Paulo is Mel’s brother. Why don’t you sit and visit with Zarah and Max. He can tell you everything you need to know.”

Douglas nods and kisses my cheek. “I told Zane if you left him, it would have been for good reason.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Max will explain where I really was.” The truth won’t redeem Zane in Douglas’ eyes, but little by little, Zane is mending the past and fixing his mistakes.

He shakes Denton’s hand, and he lets Zarah lead him to the couch where they settle in to talk. Max joins them, unable to stay away from her but just as eager to add another person to our team.

Tears blur my vision. I went from having no one two weeks ago, to a room full of people who would give their lives to protect me because they care and believe in our mission.

“While everyone is catching up Douglas, why don’t you and I have a salon appointment?” Mel asks, holding a box of hair dye and a pair of scissors she snicks back and forth almost menacingly.

I love my hair the way it is, but I’ll do what she says. I can’t leave the hotel looking like a woman who’s supposed to be dead.

Quinn teases, “I’ll hold your hand while you cry.” She reads me so easily.

“Fine,” I mumble and follow them into the suite’s spacious bathroom.

“Quinn needs a photo. Her guy’s going to forge you new IDs. I don’t know if you’ll need them, but it’s better to have them than not.”

I don’t know what exposing Ash and Clayton will entail, but at some point, I’ll need ID. Even if it’s to leave King’s Crossing after this is all over.

“And think of a name,” Quinn says, perching on the edge of the large tub. “Something sassy. Something you’ll answer to in public.”

Quirking my lips, I say, “Something sassy? I’ll try my best.”

I sit on a barstool Mel dragged into the bathroom, and I’m at the perfect height she needs to cut my hair.

“Don’t worry,” she says, using her brush and gently tugging out the knots. “Before I decided to be a PI, I went to beauty school.”

“That’s quite a leap.” Quinn shifts and balances on the tub’s edge, trying to find a comfortable position. I hope she doesn’t fall in.

Mel explains why she decided to go into PI work, going back to school after realizing she didn’t want to cut hair for a living. My hair falls to the floor, and I watch in growing dismay while I listen to her story about growing up in LA. Her mom and dad could never find the footing they needed to jump from living in the poor part of the city to buying a house in a safer neighborhood.

She decided she would do better and majored in Criminal Justice. Using her degree and instinctive computer skills, she opened her own security firm and she’s been supporting herself and helping her parents for almost fifteen years. Sometimes Paulo acts as a consultant and business partner assisting in cases like this one if she needs more than two hands. “But only when I can drag him off set. He’s a stunt double in Hollywood,” she says, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t expect that, and I laugh.

Mel cuts my hair into a sleek bob. It grew out during the years Ash held me captive, and now the long blonde strands cover the floor. I feel like she took five pounds off my head, and I swish the ends back and forth.

“You look great,” Quinn says softly, her heart in her eyes.

It hurts her to see Zane and me together after what he did.

He says he loves me, even Nathalie admitted he thought about me during the years I was gone, but I’m not the one he’s spent the past five years with. Nathalie must be special for Zane to have invested so much time in their relationship. She shares a history with him that I don’t. That I may never.

Mel bends over and sweeps up the hair the best she can without a broom.

The hotel’s closed, and there’s no staff. We’ve been cleaning up after ourselves and hauling our trash to the dumpster behind the building. The manager unlocked a supply closet giving us access to vacuums, toilet paper, and an unlimited number of clean towels.

When she’s done, Mel shakes a hair coloring kit, the bottles rattling in the cardboard box. She chose a color called Copper Penny, and it’s a pretty rose gold. At least it is on the model on the front of the box. If the circumstances hadn’t required it, I may have tried it on my own, just for fun.

“Are you sure it’s different enough?” Quinn asks, swinging her gaze between me and the box.

I agree, but Mel says, “Anything too different, and she’ll stick out. Black is too harsh. I could have gone with a brunette shade, I suppose, but copper suits. Hiding in plain sight works better than a full-blown disguise. If she has to go out, we’ll pad her bra, pad her ass. She can wear glasses. It’ll work.”

Quinn nods, satisfied. “Sounds good.”

It’s painful to raise my arms over my head, and Mel massages the color into my hair. Quinn and I are still healing, and I’m grateful for the quiet days we’ve had at the hotel. Mel understands how exhausted we are, and she’s been closely monitoring social media hoping to give us as much time as possible but also wanting to put our plans into motion as quickly as we can. I’m mentioned frequently, but my death is whittled down to statements such as, “There are no new leads,” and “The investigation is ongoing.” The nurse tagged my name on a body in the hospital’s morgue, and so far, no one has suspected anything. We’re lucky the city didn’t pay to have an autopsy done on a nobody like me.

Zane and the paparazzi are caught in a twisted love/hate relationship, and they’re on his tail all the time, documenting his every move—just like he needs them to. We knew the minute he and Nathalie arrived at Luna Blanc. Mel texted him and told him to bring her to the penthouse after their dinner instead of leading the paparazzi back to the hotel. He would have brought them straight here putting us all in danger. My innocent Zane. Always thinking with his heart instead of his head.

I hate the thought of Zane and Nathalie alone, and I want him at the hotel as much as he wants to be here. She wants him. She as good as told me that. I won’t underestimate what she’ll try to do to keep him.

Mel rinses my hair and blowdries it to see what shade the color turned into. I’ve never dyed my hair before, and my strands absorbed it like a dying plant that’s finally been watered. The color is pure and shining.

“I ordered you green contacts. It will be a subtle change, but necessary. I think you look great, Stella,” she says, fluffing my hair.

“Thanks.” I study myself in the mirror. I do look like a different person. Especially after she hands me the tortoiseshell glasses I wore at the hospital and I slip them onto my face.

A sexy librarian.

I practice tucking my hair behind my ears, and I smile with my mouth closed instead of my all-teeth grin.

Mel hums in approval. “That’s perfect.”

“You look hot,” Quinn says.

Mel scoffs. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She hauls the stool out of the bathroom and closes the door.

I sit on the edge of the bathtub next to Quinn. Sucking in a breath, I say, “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m sorry you got shot because of me. How are you feeling?”

“Better than you. You walk like you’ve been hit by a truck,” she says, tapping her toes on top of mine.

“It’s what I feel like. Zane won’t be back tonight. I should take a pain pill and go to sleep.”

She scowls, but it isn’t a mean sound and she doesn’t look mad. “You should have seen him after he brought you to the hospital. He was out of his mind. At first we thought he was doing it for the reporters, but then he attacked Paulo. If I didn’t believe he loved you before, I would have then, watching him grab Paulo’s throat. He broke down, and I’ve never heard a man cry like that. It was scary. It took Mel a good fifteen minutes to convince him you were okay.”

Her words touch me. Listening to her come over to Zane’s side.

“I don’t know, Quinn. Sometimes I see the boy I fell in love with. The easy smiles, the laugh. But we’re different people now. If I wouldn’t have fought like hell to escape, he never would have looked for me, and he would have been okay with that. He wants to marry me, but it’s really difficult not to resent him. He never fought for us.” I wipe a tear off my cheek. “We have a lot to work through, and maybe love won’t be enough.”

“Sometimes it’s not,” Quinn says, running her fingers over my arm.

“I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to apologize every time I say I’m in love with you. You don’t like girls. I know the truth and if it hurts me, it’s my own fault for not moving on. We have a bond, you and me, and it’s hard to break.”

I hug her the best I can, the pungent scent of dye wafting around us. “We don’t have to break it, and I don’t want to break it. You’ll always be my best friend, no matter what.”

Quinn leans away and kisses the corner of my mouth. “That’s enough.”

She leaves to chat with Mel, but I’m not tired enough to go to bed, and melancholy, I sit on the balcony and watch the lights blink all over the city.

At one point Zarah sits next to me and I hold her hand, so grateful she’s out of Quiet Meadows. Max comes out, too, and Paulo passes me a mug of coffee that I gratefully accept.

I miss Zane.

His hard chest, his husky laugh. The way he hesitantly touches me like he thinks I’m going to tell him to stop when I want to tell him anything but that. After five years, him holding me in his arms again is nothing short of a miracle.

Everyone takes a turn, even Douglas, and I realize they’re checking in to see how I’m doing. I appreciate the effort, but if I’m going to be of any help, I’ll need to be a lot stronger than that.

Mel forces a pain pill on me and tells me to go to bed.

I soak in the tub in the Honeymoon Suite, the warm water and the pill relaxing me. My bruises look horrible and will need weeks, if not months, to fade, but I’m alive and I have people who will help me stay that way. One of those people is Zane, even if he’s with another woman right now, probably sleeping next to her in the same bed he and I used to share.

So many things have changed.

Besides the strong, brave woman I had to turned into working for Ash, I hate every single one.