Crown of Thorns by E.M. Snow
8
My heart is thumping so violently,I wouldn’t be surprised if it cracked a rib. The second I made the conscious choice to get in a vehicle with Phoenix, I knew I was screwed. I have this intense sense of foreboding that only intensifies the closer we get to Bel Air. By the time he pulls up to the massive iron gate separating his family’s estate from the mortal world, I’m a shaking, breathless mess. The car pauses long enough for the gate to open and then he speeds up the long drive toward the house.
In the light of day, the sprawling Spanish-style villa is somehow even more imposing and ostentatious than I remember it being.
I dare to glance up at Phoenix. He’s gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are chalk-white against his tan skin, which is pretty much how they’ve been the entire ride. He hasn’t spoken a word to me, and I can’t decide if that makes me more or less nervous.
Once the car comes to a stop in front of the house, he looks back at me.
“Keep your filthy hands to yourself. You’ve taken enough, so don’t even think about touching anything, do you understand?” I start to reply, but he shakes his head. “I’d be careful with that mouth if I were you. It’s a big house. I doubt anyone will hear you.”
Will hear me do what exactly?
When I somehow manage to stutter out my question, he just smirks and gets out.
The blood drains from my face so fast, my head spins. What does he mean by that? I thought he’d maybe brought me here just to question me and scare me a bit, but what if he’s not interested in just hurling out a few more threats? What if he’s actually willing to hurt me to get the information he thinks I have?
I jump when my door swings open. “Let’s go,” he orders.
“No.”
He freezes, then shoves his face inside the car so that our noses are practically touching. I scoot away, but he grabs hold of my leg, dragging one of my black knee socks down in the process. His fingertips spread over my bare skin, and a puff of air escapes my lungs. He’s breathing heavily, too, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stares down at me.
I meet his gaze and hold it, which is a way braver move than I would’ve thought myself capable of. Pure adrenaline is driving me. Survival instincts I didn’t know I possessed have kicked in, and every fiber of my being is telling me not to go anywhere with him. “I’m not going in that house alone with you.”
There’s a beat of tense silence before he roars with laughter. His reaction is startling, but I try not to let my surprise show. I maintain my determined expression until he calms down enough to speak again.
“You don’t have a choice.” He releases my leg, so I use this opportunity to scramble away from him, pinning myself to the other side of his Mercedes like it’s my salvation.
It’s not.
He’s across the leather seat so quickly that I barely have time to catch my breath from the last time the bastard stole it. A gasp bubbles from my lips when his fingers wind in my hair and his face gets within centimeters of mine. His touch is surprisingly … gentle but his eyes tell me everything I need to know. They’re cold. Cold and furious and humorless because he’s definitely not laughing now.
“You really think I won’t physically drag your ass inside? You’re so small, I wouldn’t even break a sweat. And who the fuck would try and stop me? The staff? The gardeners? They’re only here for the paycheck.”
“You’d really resort to forcing me? How pathetic.” The instant I say that last word, pathetic, I regret it. What the hell is wrong with me? Why, out of all the things in the world that I could have hurled his way, did I choose to call him pathetic?
Apparently, he agrees because his eyes narrow to slits that shoot an arrow of fear straight through my heart. “What’s pathetic is you trying to convince yourself I’m not really as bad as everyone believes me to be. Let me assure you: I’m worse. I will drag you into that house kicking and screaming and bleeding if I have to. Remember, Luna, I want to hear you scream.”
“You’ve all but kidnapped me. You want to add assault to that list?”
“Why the fuck not.” With his free hand, he thrusts his phone at me, his knuckles skimming my waist. “Do it. Call the cops. I’ll be happy to turn your thieving ass over to them. They come surprisingly fast on this side of town, but not fast enough…”
That’s almost worse than his threat to drag me into his house or the way the nape of my neck and stomach both tingle from the weight of his fingertips. The last thing I need is the police showing up, especially since I’m not one hundred percent sure what all Jasper has done or what the Townsends might have as evidence against him.
So far, all I’m aware of are the earrings, and those are enough to screw me over for this lifetime and possibly the next. Phoenix said they were worth twenty grand. I’d crack under the pressure before an officer muttered a single word. Gritting my teeth and hating him a little more with every second that passes, I shove his phone away.
“I’ll come with you.”
I expect some kind of look of satisfaction, but he appears almost uninterested as he lets go of my hair and responds, “Then get the fuck out of my car and stop delaying the inevitable. You’re annoying me with that shit.”
Without another word, he exits the Mercedes. He doesn’t look back at me, as if he simply expects me to obediently trail behind him. It infuriates me that I’m going to do just that because what other choice do I have? I’m not an idiot. Whether of my own free will or over his shoulder, I’m heading into that house. Ultimately, the sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can leave.
I follow Phoenix up to the front door and inside, but he still doesn’t look back at me as he leads me through the foyer. Once we reach the staircase on the right, he stops and holds out his hand. When he takes my bag, our skin connects again.
I convince myself that the jolt that spirals through my fingers is fear and nothing else. It’s impossible for it to be anything else because of who. He. Is.
Clearing his throat, he says, “So you don’t steal anything else.” Then he motions for me to start walking.
I feel his eyes blazing into me all the way to the second floor.
At the top of the staircase, he takes the lead and I trudge behind him until we reach an open door at the end of the hallway. He steps aside to let me cross the threshold first, and I stop short just as I enter the room.
Gideon is here.
He’s sitting in front of a massive mahogany desk in one of two leather chairs. While the other parts of the house—at least the ones I’ve seen—have a modern theme with all the ivory and dark gray, this room gives off a vintage, old English vibe. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one side, and floor-to-ceiling paneled windows on the other. I can easily picture some pompous lord sipping brandy in front of the marble fireplace.
Gideon motions for me to take the chair next to his. When I hesitate, Phoenix gives my shoulder a little push to propel me forward. I take a deep breath and slip into the seat I’ve been offered, and he leans down to whisper something to his brother before he strides around the desk and settles into the large executive chair on the other side. This all feels like a movie. Like that scene in The Godfather.
Are the Townsends about to make me a deal I dare not refuse?
I wait for one of them to say something, anything, but neither of them moves. In fact, Phoenix just stares at me for an unsettlingly long time. I start to twitch in my chair, more uncomfortable and confused than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Even starting at Ravenwood hadn’t been this painfully awkward. What is he waiting for? Does he want me to say something first? Is he just waiting for me to break?
If he is, he gets his wish. So fast that I’m truly ashamed of myself.
“I don’t know anything about what’s going on,” I blurt out. “Bringing me here is a waste of all of our times because I didn’t do anything, I swear it.”
“Fuck, do you hear yourself with that ‘I-Don’t-Know-Nothing-About-Nothing’ bullshit?” I suck in my cheeks at his mocking tone. He responds by steepling his long fingers against his mouth and tilting his head. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have gotten into my car, but here you are.”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
Sneering, he ignores my remark. “My family was robbed twice in the last week. Once the night of my party, and again on Tuesday. You were at that party. I saw you there—cutesy pink dress, lost fucking look on your face, the stench of trying desperately to belong. Ring a bell, Luna?”
“Just because I was also there doesn’t prove anything. Half the school was at your party.”
“Figured you’d say some dumb shit like that.”
Lowering his hands from his mouth, he snatches his phone off the desk. He pulls something up on his screen before leaning forward and slamming the device down in front of me. It’s a video, and I can barely breathe—that’s how big the lump in the back of my throat is. He hits the play button without another word.
The screen lights up with an image of the very room we’re sitting in. As I watch, a figure comes into view. My heart stops because, even though the person’s face is obscured, I can tell without a doubt that it’s Jasper. Even if the earrings weren’t a factor, I would recognize the way my brother moves. Stealthily and smoothly, just like his nickname implies. He’s poking around the room, opening desk drawers and studying the bookshelves intently.
What the hell was he thinking hitting a place like this? People like this?
He has to be on something. Something terrible that makes him stupid enough to rob a house that would probably win the Parade of Home Security Systems all day, every day. I force my expression to remain neutral and curious, but I can feel Phoenix’s penetrating green stare scorching the crown of my head.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” I say at last.
“Fucking liar. You know what I’m looking at, Josslyn?” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him use my name—not Luna or senorita, but my name—and it catches my breath. “A lowlife motherfucker, always looking for a quick buck and an easy fuck.”
Phoenix snorts at the harsh sound that erupts from my lips as I jerk my focus up to his. “What’s wrong? You’ve got to know how much of a useless piece of shit your brother is, don’t you?”
I say nothing. Just swallow hard and take it while he rips into me.
“You’re all a bunch of low-class leeches looking for your next score, aren’t you? Your brother’s by far the worst of your trash family, I’ll give you that, but you’re hardly any better, are you? If you wanted new trinkets, you should have asked. I would have gladly given them to you—for a price.”
I swear I’m going to be sick, but at least I finally find my voice. “You’re insane.”
“Without a fucking doubt.”
At that moment, Gideon pushes to his feet. He doesn’t speak at all as he turns and leaves the office. What the hell? What was that all about? Doesn’t he have any probing, deeply inappropriate questions or comments that he’d like to lay out on the desk, too?
I can’t really focus on little Townsend, though, because Phoenix is talking again. “Researching Jasper was surprisingly … simple since the motherfucker is such a piece of trash. Guess it’s a family trait that started with your ‘father.’”
He uses air quotes for that last word. And then there’s the way he said it and that shit-eating smirk he’s suddenly wearing. Like there’s something he wants to add, and he’s just waiting for me to beg for it.
Silly me, I take the bait.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I know everything about you now, Luna. About your mother and brother. Your … father. Where you work. Where you live. Where your grandmother lives and how excellent her health insurance is. What would her esteemed employer say if they knew how fucked-up she and her trashy family are?”
He pauses, allowing me plenty of time to freak out over the idea of him knowing exactly how to get to Nina before he flippantly adds, “I also know your brother doesn’t give a shit about you. Why else would he leave you alone after what happened to your mom? A hit and run, right?”
He already knows this. How my mother was hit walking home from a late shift. How nobody even realized she never came home because Dad and Jasper were out doing God only knows what, and I was asleep. How the person that killed her could have saved her life if they had just stopped and called for help.
And I guarantee he already knows that I’m the one who found her the next morning when I went outside to catch the school bus because she’d died in our yard.
While I slept.
I hug my arms around myself, as if it’s the only thing that can hold me together, and glare down at my lap, unable to meet his taunting gaze while he talks about my mom’s death. “Please, stop—”
“Save the begging because I’m done with that subject. I’m more interested in your loyalty to your brother since there’s no reason what-so-fucking-ever that you should be protecting him. He’s fucked you, Josslyn. And would you like to know how?” He sounds positively giddy at the opportunity to shove my face in more of this mess.
I shake my head. “No, because this is over.” I push to my feet, swaying a little because I’m so unsteady.
But Phoenix’s voice follows me as I start for the door, squeezing around me until I feel like I’m dying. “Your brother stole millions from us. The bastard even admitted it himself when my father caught up to him. Just. Last. Night.”
Hundreds of alarms go off in my head at once, and I freeze in place, my hand on the doorknob. He knows where to find Jasper? He’s known this whole time and has spent the last hour terrorizing me?
“So let me ask you this,” Phoenix continues, and I hear the smirk in his voice. Feel it mocking me, even though I refuse to face him. “If your brother cares about you so fucking much, why did he make a deal with my father offering you as collateral for the next three months so he can pay back what he owes?”