I doubt that will work, but as of right now, she’s leaving Sterling Shore. She’d be snubbed by the rich world here that she loves so much if she tried to stay. Hell, she might even endure the insanity she unleashed on Allie. She’ll be on a flight to Paris tonight to stay in her parents’ vacation home. No more drama from her.
I see Toby walking through—my mother’s newest butler—as though he’s going to the door, and I run to beat him to it. Finally. Someone must have called to say a car was coming through the gate.
But when I swing open the door, my brow furrows, seeing a red Acura instead of a blue Focus driving toward me. Why is Bella here?
My stomach lurches as Bella comes to a stop near the stairs that lead to the porch, and she gets out. If looks could kill, Bella’s glare would be digging my grave right now.
“Where’s Allie?” I ask, dread coming over me.
Did something happen? I knew something was—
“As if you give a fuck,” she growls, taking a wide berth path to steer far away from me.
“The hell? Where is she? Of course I fucking care.”
“Yeah, is that why you had lunch with your ex after you told her you had important plans? Or why you ignored her phone call when she saw you sitting with Erica right in front of her?”
Venom seeps from her tone, but I feel frozen instead of poisoned. Fucking hell.
“What?” I ask hoarsely. “She was watching me with Erica?”
Then she has to know what I was—
“She was outside with Tria. She called. You blatantly ignored her call and she got to see Erica smile at what a sweet gesture it was. I really feel like the dumbest person on the planet, because I swore you were so damn good. Turns out, you’re worse than all the creeps I’ve dated… combined.”
Fuuuuck. No wonder she’s not here.
“Bella, it’s not—”
“Please don’t tell me it’s not what it looked like. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” Tears fill her eyes as she takes a menacing step forward. “Allie has had nothing, Wren. Nothing. Her entire life, she’s had no one to depend on other than me. And I’ve had no one but her since I didn’t do exactly what was planned for me. It hurts me knowing how easy it was for my parents to turn their backs on me. But at least I had more love than Allie had as a child. She dared to care about you—she let you into her life. And you… I can’t even look at you.”
Her tears fall harder, and a knife twists in my chest. If I’d known she was just outside and reading the situation completely wrong, I’d have abandoned the sabotage and left it at what I had.
“Bella, damn it! I didn’t meet with Erica for any other reason than to crush her—not Allie.”
She glares at me, clearly unconvinced, not that I can blame her, and I pull up my phone while I continue speaking. “I destroyed Erica today, and fixed this mess. Everyone knows the truth now—all of it. Including what I did to her seven years ago. She has all kinds of apologies flooding in from everywhere.”
I find the YouTube link that already has millions of hits since it went live earlier, and I hand it to her.
She takes my phone, a wary guard up around her, and she hits play. Slowly, as Erica goes on and on, spilling all her jealous ramblings and voicing the lies she told, Bella’s shoulders stiffen. Then it gets to the part I filmed after my meeting with Erica, and Bella’s shoulders drop in defeat as her head falls back.
“Shit,” she exhales.
“Please call Allie. She’s sending my calls straight to voicemail.” I really don’t care if it sounds like I’m begging, because frankly, I am.
“She’s not sending your calls to voicemail,” she groans. “She turned her phone off.”
I start to say something, but my phone rings, and I answer it quickly without looking.
“Allie?”
“No. It’s Kode. I was hoping you’d get ahold of Allie for me, though,” he says quickly, his breath rushed like he’s upset or pissed.
“I can’t get her to answer my calls. What’s going on?”
“I can’t reach Tria, and she’s with Allie. Pete Mercer was in transit to the federal prison upstate, but he was riding with several other big name criminals. One of them is the leader of some sort of drug ring, and a crew of his men crashed the convoy, and sprung the prisoners so they could free their boss. Pete—the lucky fucker he is—just happened to be one of the many prisoners that escaped. It was hours ago, and I just found out thirty minutes ago.”
I try to catch my breath, because Pete has come after Tria before, but surely he’s more interested in escape than revenge.