Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 365

SCARLETT

It was almost an hour later when Sparrow finally drove away from the mansion with Tasha, Maya, and Jasmine in his car, and I followed close behind in the stolen sedan with my heart still sitting somewhere in my throat.

He had said little enough in the hour since I had stood on his doorstep demanding my niece back from him. He had opened the door, looked at me, looked at the two girls standing behind me, and told me to get in.

Tasha had already thrown her arms around my neck and whispered that it was fine, that he had kept his word, that she would tell me everything later.

We had barely cleared the neighborhood when Sparrow pulled onto the shoulder of a quiet stretch of road and killed the engine. He stepped out and walked back to my window, and I knew what he wanted before he opened his mouth.

"The car and the phone," he said. "They stay here."

I nodded. I grabbed the guard's phone from the seat beside me, wiped it clean with the hem of my shirt, and hurled it into the tall grass beyond the ditch. Then I took my bag, climbed out of the sedan, and left it sitting there with the keys still in the ignition, a gift for whichever thief was lucky enough to find it first. I slid into the back seat of Sparrow's car next to Maya, and he drove on without a single word.

The city fell away behind us, street by street, the lights thinning until we reached a part of the city I had never seen before, a secluded stretch where the buildings sat back from the road like they were daring anyone to try them.

Sparrow slowed in front of a towering gate and rolled down his window. The fence ran in both directions as far as I could see, tall and thick, topped with coils of razor wire that caught the moonlight like a necklace of thorns. Beyond the bars stood a building so large and so white it looked less like a home and more like a fortress that had borrowed a mansion's clothes, all clean lines and dark windows and the kind of silence that meant money and violence in equal measure.

A guard in black stepped out of a booth at the gate, rifle slung across his chest, and Sparrow leaned out and let a scanner sweep his eyes. A red beam ran across his face, and for a moment nothing happened, and then the steel doors began to part with a deep mechanical groan, wide enough for a truck to pass through.

Sparrow nodded. "This is Madam Lily. She runs this house." He gestured at us one by one. "Tasha. Maya. Jasmine. Scarlett. They are my guests. Show them to their room."

Madam Lily smiled at us, and my stomach chose that exact moment to announce itself with a growl loud enough to turn heads. Sparrow looked at me, and for a second, something that might have been amusement crossed his face.

"They eat first," he said. "Make sure they have a proper dinner before you settle them in."

"Of course, sir."

Sparrow turned and climbed the wide stairs with the unhurried stride of a man who owned every step he took, and I stood in the entryway watching his back until the landing swallowed him. When I turned, Jasmine was staring at the same spot, her eyes stuck to where he had disappeared like she had been hypnotized. I looked at her for a long moment, then followed Madam Lily into the dining room.