Revenant (The Midnight Society #3) (9 page)

How different would our lives have been then?

But that horrible night did happen and there was no changing it.

“I’m not pleased with this result,” Calisto stated.

“Cry, bitch,” I replied.

She frowned. “Odin, you are seriously proving to be a disappointment. Elena would have never given in to Lincoln and his kooky demands.”

“His demands are fair,” Odin said. “Your hand-picked jury agreed to them.”

Calisto sighed. “You’re all a disappointment. Seriously people, sometimes the only way to get the results you want is to cross that line, the one you’re all pussyfooting around.”

Odin shook his head. “A deal was made. A verdict was reached. We will remove the civilian’s tongue and that will be the end of it. Hence forth, she will be under my protection to ensure no harm comes to her, for as long as I’m still breathing.”

Odin tilted towards two large men in owl masks, who acknowledged him and gently lifted Karina up off the ground.

I looked into her fierce eyes and then mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” to her.

She nodded, knowing full well how I felt. She then turned to the men and waited for her cruel punishment for falling in love with me all those years ago.

If Karina was afraid, she didn’t show any signs of it.

As they led her away from the court room, Calisto couldn’t hide the look of disgust on her face.

“I swear, there are more strong-willed nerves on the tip of my clit than there are on the whole lot of you combined,” she snapped, before casting her eyes back to Odin. “Honorable judge,” she said with sarcasm, “What are the remaining charges?”

Odin lifted up a piece of parchment paper and cleared his throat. “Lincoln Richards is further charged with murder, conspiracy, lying, fraud, extortion, theft, and…” Odin paused on the last charge, “depraved hedonism?” He looked up at me. “How does the defendant plead to the remaining charges?”

I shrugged. “Well there’s no point defending myself now. I guess I have no other choice but to plead guilty or perhaps make a plea of insanity. That usually gets people off the hook, doesn’t it?”

Odin shook his head. “Do you accept all these charges and the punishments that come with them?”

Before I was able to reply, Calisto cut me off.

“I think we’ve come to an impasse on this trial,” she said. “Clearly you bunch of pansies aren’t going to inflict the type of punishment Lincoln so very well deserves.”

Odin tried to reason with her. “Calisto, if you would…”

She was quick to cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. Despite this entire trial being my idea, it’s clearly not moving according to the original plan. You all have hearts as soft as soggy waffles.”

Classic Calisto—she always needed to get her way.

“What you all don’t know is that for the past week, I’ve been in communication with Yuen Xi, father of Elena Zhang, the warlord of Asia.”

Did she just say Yuen Xi? That was bad news. When it came to ruthlessness, very few men could compare to the old dragon. His methods of inflicting torture on his enemies were infamous. Stories were told that scared off not only children, but adults as well. In terms of being a complete psychopath, he was just one tiny step shy of Calisto.

His one saving grace was that he loved his family, none more so than his only child, Elena. Her death would not sit well with him.

Calisto walked over to me and lifted my chin with the tip of her fingers. “You’ve been naughty, haven’t you, Lincoln.”

I raised a brow. What the hell was she doing?

“You see, we have hard evidence that it was you who ordered the hit on Elena Zhang.
You
were the one directly responsible for her murder. And
you
killed her without my poor brother knowing anything about it.”

Now THAT was just about the craziest lie I’ve ever heard.

“No, I think you must have me mistaken for someone else,” I said.

“Don’t lie to me, Lincoln.”

So that was Calisto’s game plan all along. She was afraid of Yuen Xi, though I couldn’t blame her. The fact that his only daughter died while acting as Calisto’s right hand made her the prime suspect.

Calisto was framing me for Elena’s death to take the heat off of her—and Shadow for that matter.

Yuen Xi was going to have me stabbed, burnt, flayed, and then eaten. Time wasn’t on my side.

“Tell the jury, Lincoln, of how you hired Duckface to kill Elena. Admit your guilt.”

“I figure I’ll try something a little different for a change. I’ll start telling the truth, which are these: I did
not
kill Elena, I think you’re all idiots, and you’re a little lazy in bed, Calisto.”

She looked at me like I had broken wind.

Apparently telling her she sucked in bed was a real slap in the face.

Good.

“Do you want to live, Lincoln?”

“I’m not going to beg for my life, if that’s what you’re asking me to do. I don’t get on my knees for just anybody and if I did, it’d certainly not be for you.”

Calisto reached into the pocket of her long, black robe and pulled out a gun. She pointed it at me.

“It’s loaded,” she said.

“I assumed no less.”

What she did next surprised me.

She handed the gun over to me.

I was hesitant at first. Someone as crazy and cunning as her wouldn’t just hand over a gun to me without a stipulation. Maybe the gun was tampered with? If I pulled the trigger there was a chance the bullet would shoot backwards and hit me in the face.

Tampered guns didn’t seem like Calisto’s style though.

I took the gun but refrained from pointing it at Calisto. I needed to know what game she was playing.

Meanwhile, the crowd around us was getting nervous. Just moments ago they were hurling insults and accusations at me like I was a whore from the Old Testament. Give them stones and I was sure to have bloody welts on my body.

Now that I had the gun, I was the one in control.

“I’m giving you a choice, Lincoln,” Calisto said. “It’s a very simple choice. Take the gun, kill me with it, and then you can walk away.”

“Come again?”

“Take the gun, point it at my head, and shoot me. It will all be over. You get to go back living your normal life, Shadow’s parents are avenged, and Aria gets to live her life happily ever after. It’s quite the amazing offer, really.”

I took a deep breath. “What’s wrong with the gun?” I asked.

Calisto sighed. She took the gun out of my hands and without taking her eyes off of me, pointed in the direction of the jury, and pulled the trigger.

The explosive sound of the gunshot elicited a few loud screams, majority of them coming from the jury. Much to their luck, no one was hit as the bullet narrowly missed juror number four.

She handed the gun back to me. This time I didn’t hesitate to point it at her head.

“Good,” she said. “Now we’re talking.”

“You’re absolutely bat shit,” I said. “I think you’ve gone over the deep end. If you think I won’t kill you, that I’m still madly in love with you after all the people you murdered, you’re mistaken.”

Calisto laughed. “No, Lincoln, I know that you don’t love me anymore.”

She began undoing the clasp of her robe.

“But how about the child you’ve put inside me?”

I watched in utter shock as the black robe dropped to the ground revealing Calisto’s nude body, but more specifically, the noticeable baby bump her stomach displayed.

“Now, Lincoln, as I said before, you get to walk out of here alive. But first, you must kill me—the vessel housing your unborn child.”

That was why the bitch had blindfolded in her little game of seduction; so I wouldn’t notice her stomach.

I allowed the gun to fall from my hands and land on the ground. The sound of metal hitting the floor echoed throughout the courtroom, which otherwise was overtaken by a blanket of stunned silence.

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Chapter Thirteen

Aria

“I’m having issues with trust,” Shadow said bluntly. “Some of that has to do with you, but much of that has to do with me.”

I watched as he stepped into the panic room, hidden behind the large antique wardrobe in his master bedroom. My heart was sinking to my feet as I braced for the conversation yet to come.

I took a deep breath. I knew that this moment would come eventually. I couldn’t run from my guilt forever and with the way Shadow was acting, a part of me knew that he knew what had happened.

He was a smart man and I was foolish in thinking I could hide the truth from him for so long.

What I didn’t understand, however, was why he decided on having this discussion in his panic room. Just as I was about to step inside, Shadow pushed a button from inside the room, initiating a glass door to slide across the entranceway.

He had sealed himself inside and blocked me from entering. A plate of glass now separated us, just as we were about to have a discussion that could alter the fate of our love life.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“As I said, I’m having some trust issues.”

“So you’re going to seal yourself in there and act all mopey about it?”

He shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh I think it’s what I think.” I grabbed a chair, plunked it right in front of the glass door, and sat down. “Needless to say, we need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do,” he agreed.

We both stared at each other like spectators at a zoo. I swallowed.

“I guess I’ll start then?” I said.

“Okay.”

“I want to start off by saying that you were a real dick to me, shortly after the shit storm at the Inferno. You tore my heart out, tossed it on the ground, and then stomped on it with the heel of your shoe,” I said.

“I know,” he replied, “And I apologized for it. It was wrong of me to treat you like shit. I recognize that. I’ve never been good at expressing my feelings…or communicating for that matter.”

“So I guess this brings us to the moment you sent me away with Lincoln; as far away from you as possible. I thought we were done.”

Shadow pursed his lips.

“You gave me no indication that you still wanted to be with me.”

“That’s fair. It’s probably because I didn’t know at the time if it was even possible for us to be together.”

I took a deep breath. At this point, tears began streaking down my cheeks. I wiped away the dampness with the tips of my fingers.

“You’re crying,” he said, pointing out the obvious.

“Yes. I feel like shit.”

“Don’t.”

I shook my head. “Lincoln…” I began. However, the words were lost to me. I had recited them in my head, over and over again—‘Shadow, it was a mistake, what happened between Lincoln and I. But I was so weak at the time, and I needed comfort. There was no one else around. If only
you
could have been there for me.’—but those well rehearsed words had vanished like vapors in the air.

“Aria, I know you had sex with Lincoln,” he said.

So he did know something, though it wasn’t completely accurate.

“We never had sex,” I replied.

He looked surprised and almost relieved. “You didn’t?”

“We made out and he fingered me.”

That moment of relief was quick to dissolve into disappointment. “Oh. Well, damn.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it feels like I betrayed you, but you have to understand that at the time, I honestly thought we were done. I needed someone to be there for me—especially while I was still dealing with Justin’s death.”

Shadow took a step forward and pressed his hand against the glass door.

“I never blamed you,” he said. “I’m disappointed but I don’t hate you for what you’ve done. Believe it or not, I understand.”

“You do?”

He nodded.

“I don’t love him like I do you,” I stated. “I came back to you even though you didn’t deserve a second chance. I’m in love with you, Shadow, and there’s no one in this world that I’d rather be with.”

He smiled, looking at me with affection in his eyes.

“I feel the same,” he said.

I pressed my hand against the glass so it was lined up with his.

“You forgive me?”

“There was nothing to forgive,” he replied.

“You’re not going to go out and have revenge sex on me with some random floozy?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Good.”

A moment of comfortable, warm silence lingered in the air between us.

“Why don’t you remove this glass door between us so we can have raunchy make up sex. You can do anything you like,” I whispered seductively.

“I can’t,” he replied.

“Why not?”

“As I mentioned before, I’m having trust issues. I’m worried that if I remove the glass between us, I’m going to end up strangling you.”

Wow.

That took me by surprise.

“It’s not what you think,” he sighed. “The laptop on my desk, I want you to turn it on.”

I eyed him suspiciously.

“Please,” he added.

I did as he asked.

“Password?” I asked.

He told me.

I typed it into the console and unlocked the computer screen. A paused video was prominently displayed. What it showed unnerved me.

“My God, is that who I think it is?” I asked.

Shadow nodded. “It’s Lucien.”

They both looked to be in Shadow’s study.

“Play the video,” Shadow said.

The sound quality was a little sketchy, but I was still able to make out what they were saying.

“What do you want from me, fearless leader,” Lucien sneered. “I’m quite busy. My football club is in the midst of contending for the European Championship and there’s much money to be made.”

“What will it take for you to give me your loyalty?” Shadow asked.

Lucien laughed. “Are you trying to buy me out?”

“Yes. Is that such a surprise?”

Lucien shook his head. “No I suppose not. The saying ‘every man has his price’ has truth to it.”

“So what’s your price?”

“Power and respect, of course. I want to have a bigger piece of the Midnight Society pie. I want my words during council meetings to double the weight of any others.”

Shadow paused for a moment before walking over to a decanter. He poured drinks into two glasses. “Fine.”

“That’s it? You agree to my terms, just like that?”

Shadow shrugged. “I’m tired of bickering with you during every meeting. I also understand when to give the dog a bone.”

“I’m no bloody dog.”

“Figure of speech you numbskull,” Shadow said. “I do agree, you provide great value to the Midnight Society. During council meetings, I will endorse your recommendations if you stop arguing with me on mine. I’ll start by approving your proposal for a privatized global energy conglomerate, as unethical as it is.”

“There’s a lot of money in it.”

“That, I don’t disagree,” Shadow said as he walked over and handed Lucien the drink, who took a healthy sip. “In the meantime, I need you to support my initiative.”

Lucien swallowed the remainder of the contents and then set the glass down. “Oh, and what would that be?”

“Your death.”

Shadow said those words with a complete lack of emotion.

It gave me chills. This was the same man whom I shared a bed with over the past couple of weeks?

“I beg your pardon?”

“You just drank poison. It’s not going to be pretty.”

Lucien immediately rose from his seat and made a move to attack Shadow. “What did you do? I’m a member of this council. What did you…” He began choking on his words.

Shadow brushed him aside as if he were nothing more than an insignificant insect. Lucien collapsed to the floor, hands around his throat, gasping for air.

Meanwhile Shadow looked on with cold, emotionless eyes.

That was when the the video ended, leaving me deeply disturbed. I was assaulted with chills, the feeling of icicles stabbing my entire body.

“Shadow…” I began as I took a step back away from the laptop.

“Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are,” he said. “I don’t remember any of that.”

I turned to face him. “Is the video authentic? Could it have been forged?”

He frowned. “I had one of my contacts investigate it. They put their best video analysts on it, assessing every damn pixel. The video is real. The person in that video is me.”

I was stunned.

“So what does this mean?”

“It means I’m responsible for Lucien’s death and I don’t remember any of it.” He folded his arms across his chest. “One of the reasons I sent you away was because I feared my mind was no longer my own. I didn’t know what fucked up shit Calisto put in inside my head and to what extent the control of her manipulation was.” He pointed at the laptop. “Now I know. As long as I’m around, I’m dangerous.
I
could very well be the one who’s been leaking information to Calisto, and I wouldn’t even know it.”

“And that’s why you’re sealing yourself in there?” I asked, gesturing towards the panic room.

He nodded. “I can’t lead these people with the time bomb that’s ticking away inside my head. Now that I’m locked away in here, I need you to set the password on the outside, one that I won’t be able to guess.”

“So the plan is for me to imprison you inside your wardrobe. Great. What next?” I asked. “The deadline for Lincoln’s big rescue is approaching and we don’t have a leader or a solid plan.”

Shadow rubbed his jaw. “Well, I’ve been thinking…” his voice trailed off.

“What?” I asked. “You have this look in your eye that tells me I’m not going to like this.”

“I need you to lead the rescue mission.”

What? Was Shadow out of his fucking mind?

“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Aria, at this point, I don’t trust myself. If there is another mole, I can’t trust anyone else either. You’re all I have at this point.”

I was bombarded with self-doubts as the pressure of Shadow’s request buried me like a cement coffin.

“I can’t pull this off, Shadow. There’s just no way. You’re asking me to outsmart Calisto.”

Shadow nodded. “Yes, I am. And yes you can.”

I could tell this was going to be a tough sell. “She pulled the wool over your eyes since you were ten. She outwitted the entire Midnight Society, a group of the world’s most powerful people. What makes you think I’ll fare any better?”

“That’s because we’re all idiots,” Shadow smirked. “You’re not. Now please, take the reins of whatever’s left of the Midnight Society and save Lincoln. Devise a plan, and make sure you keep it to yourself, up until the night of the breakout. You can coordinate everyone from here. Reiko will provide you with both eyes and ears to all the players involved.”

I bit my lip, and finally nodded.

“That a girl.”

“Shadow, what are you going to do to Lincoln when you see him, now that you know what happened between us?”

Shadow frowned. “Best you go, Aria. You have a lot of planning to do.”

“Okay,” I replied, knowing full well he wasn’t going to answer my question.

I had one day left to engineer an escape plan for Lincoln.

Fuck me.

Yet, despite all our efforts to save him, I couldn’t help but think that bringing Lincoln back to the Midnight Society was no different than leading him into the mouth of a lion.

“Don’t forget to set the password,” Shadow said, tilting his head towards the control panel on the outside.

I did as he requested.

“Thanks,” he said when I was done.

“Are you going to be okay in there?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine. In the meantime, you have a lot of work ahead of you.”

“No kidding,” I muttered. “All thanks to you.”

I tried to smile and make brevity of the situation, but it was difficult.

“You’ll succeed,” Shadow said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

I silently disagreed.

Just before leaving Shadow’s room, I turned around and glanced at him once more. He had a wicked grin on his face—one filled with vicious malice—and it scared the shit out of me. Though he was looking at me, I could tell he was lost in a mist of dark, unsettling thoughts.

I couldn’t help but wonder what monsters were buried deep within the soul of my lover. 

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