Page 83

Hell, I was thankful for it.  Even with the fighting, some of it horrible, messy, disastrous—some of it damn near too painful to take, I was still grateful for every second granted to us, only hoping each day that we could have another, and another. 
We'd never had much luck with hope. 
The movie was going well, scheduled to wrap up in days, and I'd just gotten into to my trailer and was changing to go home when I got the call. 
It was an unknown number, and I automatically ignored the first few times it rang.  Finally annoyance had me answering with a curt, "Hello?" 
"Hello, Scarlett." 
I hadn't heard the voice in a while, not since Gram's funeral, and then only briefly, but I recognized it instantly.  "Hello, Adelaide," I said, voice gone cold with no effort at all.  I had nothing but ice in my veins for this woman. 
"How long did you think this could last?" she asked, poison dripping from the words.  "How long did you think you could hide it from me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said evenly and unflappably.  I was an actress, after all, and there was only one person, one man to be precise, that I couldn't fake it in front of, in a pinch. 
"Cute.  Very cute.  I have a man waiting for you, right outside of the gate at your studio.  Get in the car.  It's time we had a talk."
"Not likely.  Why the hell would I want to talk to you?" 
"Don't be coy.  I'm in no mood.  You'll do what I say because you know what I know and I'm just looking for a reason to turn you in." 
"I don't know what you're talking about."  Yes, I was still faking it for the simple reason that I didn't know what else to do.
"There's no statute of limitations on killing a cop," she said, tone flat.  Dead.  "Go get in the car." 
Checkmate. 
I changed and left the property.
I saw her car and driver right away.  A man in a suit leaning against a Rolls Royce.  Yeah, no brainer. 
He opened the door for me as I approached, holding out his hand.  "Your phone," he said without expression. 
I eyed him.  He was middle-aged and nondescript, head to toe—brown hair, dark shades, medium build, face deadpan. 
I had a very bad feeling.  "Fuck you," I said succinctly, eyeing the open door narrowly. 
My cell started ringing.  It was Adelaide again.  "Do you have her?" she asked by way of greeting. 
"He doesn't," I said, my temper boiling.  I really wanted to hit something.  Adelaide's face particularly. 
She made a tsking noise over the phone.  "Always difficult, even when you don't have a leg to stand on.  Give him the phone and get into the car." 
"What do you want?"  I was already so fed up with her that I was ready to say to hell with the consequences.
It was a problem, except that my rage was almost a comfort just then, for the simple reason that the alternative was worse.  If I was focused on my anger, I wasn't worrying about the fact that my life, and my options had just narrowed drastically.   
"As I told you, I'd like to talk," Adelaide said into my ear, sounding almost reasonable, which let me know that she was full of it.  "In person.  I think we can work something out.  I want you out of my son's life, and you want to stay out of prison.  We're both motivated.  This can be productive."
I wasn't sure what I could have done, I felt pretty cornered, but I was saved from having to decide by the sudden and very welcome appearance of Dante.         
His car pulled up, he jumped out, and whisked me away.  I barely had time to hang up on his mother before he'd bundled me into his car and started driving away.  It was over in seconds. 
His hands on the steering wheel were shaking.  "What was that?  Was that one of my mother's henchmen?" 
"Yes.  She was trying to get me to go with him.  She said she wanted to talk.  She knows about us, Dante."
He started cursing and did not stop until we were nearly at the house.  "Were you actually going to go with him?" he finally asked incredulously.
"I don't know.  Maybe.  She wasn't exactly giving me a choice." 
"Never deal with her by yourself," he told me.  "Never go anywhere with her.  Never engage her.  If she bothers you, and I'm not around, you fucking wait for me."
We were home by then, and he didn't even allow me to respond.  He was out of the car, on his phone, pacing. 
"Adelaide knows," he was saying.  "Yes.  She tried to grab Scarlett.  Sent one of her henchmen to pick her up right outside the studio."  He paused, gripping a hand into his hair.  "Yes.  Fine.  Fine.  We need to figure this out and fast.  We're running out of options here."  He hung up and looked at me.  "We need to meet up with Bastian.  We've been working on some things, but we thought we had more time.  Now we need to focus on plan B.  Do you want to grab anything from the house before we go?" 
"Where exactly are we going?" I worried about filming, but felt silly about it.  What would the movie even matter if I went to jail tomorrow? 
"Not far.  Bastian's already here, so we'll meet him at his hotel." 
This was news to me, and so was the plan B.  And the plan A, for that matter.