The Insiders Page 17

  So not helping.

  His hand began running up and down my arm, soothing, feeling nice, and the flutters were back. Damn it.

  “Look.”

  No. If I did, I was a goner.

  “I know things are in a weird place between us.”

  I wanted to scoff. “Weird” was putting it mildly. But I kept my lips pressed tight. No sound came out.

  He tugged me even farther in, until my head was against his chest. That hand moved to my back, and his other arm wrapped around me, resting on the small of my back. He began rubbing up and down.

  Did that have to feel so good?

  He rested his chin on top of my head, then turned so it was his cheek instead. “I know you have questions about me. I know last night was intense.” His arms tightened around me. “I know there’s a lot of other shit happening right now. Just, trust me?” He pulled back. His finger was under my chin, and he tipped my face up. Our eyes met. His hand moved to cup my cheek and his thumb smoothed over it. “I want to get these assholes, and then you and me, we’ll figure everything out. Okay?”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but he was so fierce. I whispered back, “Okay.”

  He dipped his head, his lips finding mine, and I gave in.

  I was gone.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “We are never going to find these kids.”

  I elbowed Matt later that night, tiptoeing through the mausoleum. Why I was tiptoeing, I had no clue. The seeker in this game didn’t need to be secretive, but there we were, at nine at night. After two large pizzas, after Ferdinand had been watched, after Marie and Theresa went home, after the night nanny was on duty, Kash had the brilliant idea to play hide-and-seek.

  Seraphina and Cyclone squealed and took off.

  And two seconds after they were gone, Matt rounded on Kash. “Are you kidding?! You grew up here too. This place has a million hiding spots. And we’re trying to get them to bed.”

  Kash gave him a smug look. “Relax. What do you think happens to a hyper kid after pizza, swimming, a movie, and he has to stay in the same position while waiting to be found? He falls asleep.” He smacked the back of Matt’s head. “You’re it.”

  “Hey!” Matt glared, ducking his head down, but Kash was heading down another hallway. “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “Hiding.” Kash didn’t look back, jogging and turning another corner.

  “We are really screwed if we have to find that guy.”

  Kash’s idea was solid. I tapped Matt’s wrist, jerking my head forward. “Come on. Kids usually aren’t too brilliant about where they hide. Under beds, behind doors, behind a post.”

  Matt snorted, trailing after me. “You’ve never played this game with a little genius.”

  I started to laugh, but then stopped. He was right.

  “Yeah. See.” Matt was reading my face. “This was a bad idea. It’ll take us hours to find ’em, and how do we know if they’re still alive by then? They could be hiding in a freezer. Or—”

  I clamped a hand over his mouth, and on the echoes of his voice, there it was. Giggles.

  Hearing it, Matt’s eyebrows shot up.

  Turning. Turning. Pinpointing where those giggles came from. Bull’s-eye.

  Then I crapped myself. The laundry chute.

  “Oh my God!” Sprinting to the wall, I flung open the cupboard that led to the laundry chute downstairs.

  “Cyclone!” Matt lunged for him.

  He was wedged inside the chute, his hands and feet braced against the other side so he didn’t fall. “Aw, man. Seriously? You guys found me too quick.” And with a quick grin, just as Matt’s arms started to go for under his arms, he let go.

  “Cyclone!”

  We heard a “Catch me later, losers!” all the way down, until a thud.

  “Curt!” Matt yelled down.

  I was right next to him. “Cyclone!”

  I couldn’t—ohmygodohmygodohmygod—and then Kash hollered up, “I got him.”

  “Fuck’s sakes. How’d he know?”

  Kash answered Matt. “Little punk found me one time hiding in the same spot.” He was laughing. “I hadn’t fully filled out by then. Can’t believe he remembered.”

  I couldn’t get air in for a full beat. Then I lost it, curling my hands over the edge and leaning down, “Some of us are human, Kash! We can’t scale buildings and jump over fences and we don’t keep all our limbs if we fall down a two-story laundry chute.”

  Matt’s lips pressed together.

  “I’m fine, Bailey! I mean it.” Did he have to sound so happy, too?

  I replied to Cyclone. “Just be safe!”

  “I will. Promise, promise, promise.”

  Matt whispered, “That’s the ultimate promise in this house. He’ll be careful.”

  A second later, from Kash: “We’re going to hide again. Come find us.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Kash.

  I had security send me the footage. Seraphina is already asleep in the movie room. Go and have a drink with Matt in the bar. Be there as soon as Cy falls asleep.

  Relief flooded me. I nudged Matt, showing him. “This is why adults should always have a plan in every game.” Then, “You guys have your own bar?”

  How had I missed that in the tour?

  * * *

  It was an actual bar. A long, sleek counter ran down the length of the wall.

  Matt went behind it, pouring a drink. He slid it over to me, nodding at one of the stools. “The most family time we’ve had has been this week.” He leaned back against the wall, pointing his drink to me. “Because of you.”

  “You serious?”

  He nodded, slowly. “Why do you think Ser and Cyclone took to you so fast? Marie stays longer. Theresa sticks around. I’m here. Kash was around today. It’s all been you.”

  “You called him Curt before. Is that Cyclone’s name?”

  I knew, but I wanted to actually be told that. It seemed like information that should’ve been spoken, not read on a computer screen or in a file.

  A second nod.

  He was studying the bottom of his glass now. “Yeah. Quinn used to call him that. ‘My little Cyclone.’” His mouth tipped up. “Name stuck because, you know.” He looked up now. “The ADHD stuff.”

  I noted, not knowing if I should, “He’s her favorite. It’s obvious.”

  “Yeah.” His voice faded. He was looking back into his drink. “She’s hard on Ser.”

  “Yeah.”

  A sad grin at me. “You. Me. Them. Different moms. Dad got around.” His frown deepened, became more prominent. “I don’t know why he’s not claiming you. It wouldn’t be a surprise. He was with my mom, cheated on her with Quinn. Well…” He glanced to me before returning to that glass. “Cheated with yours, too, apparently. It’s been Quinn. She had Ser, and a couple years later, Cyclone. Funny thing is that he and Quinn were struggling. She went off with her family, then came back with Cyclone.”

  I was quiet. I didn’t know what to think about any of it, the cheating, or anything.

  Matt laughed abruptly.

  His jaw clenched and his fingers tightened on his glass before he tipped his head back and drank the whole thing in one go. He never hissed. I was waiting. I’d watched as he poured the alcohol in there. It was almost all liquor. Then he motioned to my glass. “Want another one?”

  He wasn’t waiting. He turned and began to pour himself a second drink.

  I didn’t answer, just waited for him to finish and turn back to me.

  He did, but he didn’t look at me. Instead of the glass, his gaze was fixed on the bar. His thoughts were elsewhere, that was obvious. “It was kinda messed up.”

  “What was?”

  He jerked his head up and jerked it back down, his eyes glittering in anger. “I overhead Peter talking to Kash one night. Quinn wanted to have another kid, but he’d been cheating on her. Quinn knows Kash’s family, actually, but that’s why she left. Because of the cheating. It en
ded how it was supposed to be, I guess. Quinn always wanted a boy.” He looked up now. “She got what she wanted, huh?”

  I was hit with a wave of anguish. Not mine. Matt’s. It was so clear and so powerful that he couldn’t mask it. He was struggling to. His hand kept tightening, loosening, tightening again around his glass. I kept an eye on it, wondering if he was going to shatter it.

  “Another boy.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t want a nine-year-old from another woman.”

  “Matt.” My heart sank for him.

  “She wanted a baby boy. A boy to match her perfect little girl.” Without warning, he threw his glass across the bar. It hit the wall and shattered. Matt just stood there, watching the liquid start to spread over the floor. His jaw kept clenching. His nostrils were flaring at the same time. “Fucking bitch. That’s what she is.” Suddenly, he looked over, piercing me with that same anguish that almost knocked me off my stool. “Watch yourself with her. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like having you here, and she might be gone all the time, but she knows what’s going on. She knows you and Kash have something going on.”

  Crap.

  “She doesn’t like that, either, I bet you. She’ll do something to get you out of here. Don’t know what, but something.”

  “That’s enough.” A snarl came from the doorway.

  Kash was there. “Nothing’s going to happen to Bailey.”

  Matt laughed, the sound harsh. “That doesn’t mean shit with Quinn. You know it. Bailey can see it. Ser and Cyclone, they can feel it. Ser—Jesus, Ser. She’s terrified of her own mom, her mom that dotes on Cyclone more than she does her. Seraphina’s expected to be perfect. Always put together. Quiet. She’s supposed to have the popular friends, girls who are outright bitches. Have you been around when they come over? They’re horrible to Ser, and Quinn loves it. She gets off on it, I swear.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No. No, man. It’s time something happened.” Matt flung a hand in my direction. “Quinn’s going to take all the goodness in my sister and she’s going to gut her. She’ll take it out and fill her with nothing. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t di—”

  He stopped, just stopped.

  He blinked.

  No one said a word. No one stopped him.

  Then his eyes grew bleak. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his head folding down. “We’re so far fucked up. We’re ruined, Kash. All of us. We’re too damaged.” He saw me and blinked a few times, focusing to see me better. “You should get away from us, before you become like us. Get lost, Bailey. I mean it. For your own good.”

  He moved past Kash. He started for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Matt paused, shaking his head. “Does it really matter?” Then he headed out.

  I flicked a tear away, my throat closing up.

  “His mom killed herself.”

  What? That was a punch to my system. Matt …

  I wanted to go after him, hug him until he healed, no matter how long that took. I’d hug him for years if I had to.

  Kash moved to the stool beside me, sitting with his back to the bar behind him. “Report says car accident, and technically that is how she died. Report doesn’t say that she directed the car at a tree, or how security cameras across the street show her staring ahead. There was nothing wrong with her. She was like a statue. She turned that wheel, sat back, undid her seat belt, and pressed down on the accelerator.”

  I sucked in a breath. My gaze flicking back to where Matt had gone.

  “He doesn’t know about the footage, just that she wrote a good-bye note to him and she was dead. Death by tree.” Kash was looking too. “He’s smart. He’s always known, without asking. It’s something we don’t talk about.”

  I was aching. For Matt. For Seraphina. For Cyclone. For Kash, too.

  As I moved my hand to his, I wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  I wasn’t expecting him to flip his hand over and slide his fingers between mine. I wasn’t expecting to suddenly be pulled into his arms, his head burying in my neck. And I really wasn’t expecting him to press a kiss there. “I will never let anything happen to you. No one.”

  My legs parted and he was between them. Just holding me. I was holding him back.

  We stayed like that.

  Minutes could’ve passed. An hour. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Until we heard footsteps on the ceiling above us and Kash stiffened.

  He cursed under his breath. “They’re back.”

  Which meant we’d leave. I was starting to understand this family’s dynamics. Understanding, yes, but not liking it. How could I?

  We were going past the kitchen, our hands entwined, when Peter appeared in the doorway.

  Kash stopped. I stopped.

  Peter seared me with his eyes before switching to Kash.

  He clipped out, “Matthew took off in the Lamborghini. He’d been drinking.”

  Another look my way, and then he disappeared.

  His words echoed in my head first.

  Worry for Matt hit me second.

  And third, I was seared.

  Peter had walked away from me again.

  I should have been used to it by now.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Kash called the security team on Matt, and we were pulling up outside of a dark mansion two hours later. It took us that long to get his location.

  “Where are we?”

  Kash flashed a quick grin at me, pocketing his keys. He had chosen to drive us himself, in a sports car. Two SUVs pulled in behind us. I recognized the guards.

  “We had a team following us?”

  Kash had skimmed a look over me before focusing on the road again. “There’s always a unit on us. They might not be in the car with us, but they’re around.”

  The house wasn’t in a gated community. That felt wrong, but the road was isolated. I didn’t see any other houses along it, just forest. Tree after tree blanketed both sides of the road as we drove here, giving us an isolated feeling. The house itself was three stories. The driveway wasn’t long, but three cars were parked in front. I recognized a Lamborghini and assumed that was Matt’s. The others were just as expensive looking.

  Kash walked ahead of me, pocketing his keys and phone. He took my hand, leading me up to a fence. He gazed up at the camera perched on top of it and, without saying anything, pushed a button. The gate swung open for him.

  Strobe lights lit up the backyard. Low bass filled the air. The smell of bonfire and marijuana was strong, too. But the view. Man. The view was spectacular. This was why this house was built here. A drop-off opened up to a valley filled with lights from each of the homes nestled along the side, and the river at the bottom had bobbing boat lights.

  Lush green lawns spread out until the drop at an edge.

  Neon and sparkling crystal lights lit up the entire backyard.

  I was getting another glimpse into a world that was so far from the one I grew up in.

  Kash led me forward, circling around to the back, and we turned the corner of the house. A couple was in the pool. His lips moved down her throat.

  Kash walked past without a second glance. Like it was nothing new, like it was something he saw every day.

  Going through the rest of the house, we saw other couples. All having sex.

  Kash tightened his hold on my hand as he opened a door that led to the basement. The bass we had heard outside was louder here. We were headed right to its source, and a sick feeling overcame me.

  I didn’t know what we were going to see down there. Kash did. His face was rigid and masked, and that told me enough. But I kept with him.

  More couples. More orgies.

  This place—Matt was here. And he was hurting and he was here and there were drugs and I didn’t know what state we would find him in, until finally, finally, Kash pushed open a back door.

  Matt’s pants were undone. Shirtless. A girl was bent over in front of him and he was thrusting inside of her. Ano
ther girl was beneath her, her mouth on the girl’s breasts.

  There was more movement in the back.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I recognized Chester, Tony, and the other guy from the tent earlier. All three were nailing a third girl.

  Kash flipped on the main light.

  No one reacted.

  Well, that’s not true.

  Matt looked right at us, and even through the glaze, I could see the ugliness. He didn’t stop thrusting. He grabbed her hips and pounded even harder until he came.

  Once he was done, Matt pulled up his pants, coming toward us. “You come for the show?” He passed us by, going into the hallway.

  Kash didn’t follow, not right away. His gaze was on the girls on the bed. His jaw clenched before he swung his head my way. His eyes met mine, and a look passed between us. He was trying to warn me, remind me again. Kids who grew up wanting nothing, who had the power to get anything.

  They could use people for their games.

  Anger was building in me. They didn’t know how privileged they were.

  Kash saw it coming. “Bailey.”

  A growl erupted from me. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. Storming off, going blindly through the house. Down the hallway, through the room, up the stairs, through the door, and I was lost again. Kash’s fingers curled over my arms. Taking the lead, he tugged me the rest of the way. My head remained down now. I didn’t want to see what else was happening, where the moans were coming from, what was being snorted.

  Matt was outside, waiting for us.

  This world—I didn’t want it. But if things had been different, I would’ve seen this long before now. I was reeling, feeling like I was half stumbling.

  Someone called out, “Francis. You leaving?”

  Matt snorted. “Got in trouble. The ’rents found me.”

  Someone else asked, “Who’s the girl?”

  Kash’s hand tightened on me, and he didn’t pause in his stride.

  “Wait!” Their voice picked up, excited. “Colello? That you?”

  A female gasped.

  “Kashton Colello? Where?”

  Kash picked up his pace.

  “Kash!”

  He ignored them all. Not pausing until we got to the cars, he held his hand out. “Don’t fuck with me. Not now.”