Page 63 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Friday

I wasn’t sure why RJ had given me the blueprints he’d unearthed.

I seriously did not need them for anything “in the future”, as he put it.

And the blueprints felt like contraband in my backpack.

Maybe they came in handy for him, but it wasn’t like I could lay them out on my bed and study them.

Our security team would see them on the cameras.

I shouldn’t have let RJ convince me to take them.

And I swear it was like my dad knew that I was planning on sneaking out.

He kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“Pumpkin?” my dad said.

“Mhm?”

“I am sorry that you’re missing the party tonight. But like your mom said, there really will be other ones.”

“I know,” I lied. I was starting to feel a bit sweaty. I wasn’t a good liar. But there wouldn’t be any other parties like this one. It was my last first party of the year while I was at Empire High. It was a big deal to me. Which is why I was going.

“How about the four of us have a movie night?” my dad asked. “We haven’t done that in ages.”

Liam laughed. “You three have fun. I’m going to the party.”

My dad looked over at him as we pulled to a stop at a red light. “I thought it was just for upperclassmen?”

“It technically is.” Liam shrugged. “Wait, why do you know that?”

My dad laughed. “I may have been invited too.”

I groaned. “Gross. Who? Seriously, who? Which one of my classmates invited you?”

“A couple of them did actually.”

Liam laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I said. “It’s so messed up. Dad, really, why are you doing this to us? We hang out plenty. We don’t need to do it at school.”

“He’s not doing anything to me,” Liam said. “Because unlike a certain somebody, I follow the dress code.”

“Liam, you’re dressed like a slut.”

“Scarlett, that’s the second time this week that you’ve called your brother a slut. Enough, okay?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Even though all I wanted to say was, “Then he should stop dressing like a slut.” Maybe I did use that term too much…

Liam turned around in the front seat to stare at me. “Yeah, how would you like it if I started calling you a cad?”

I just stared at him. “I wouldn’t mind it at all because no one knows what that means.”

“It’s a male slut, Scar,” he said.

“I know, I gathered that from the context.” I leaned forward and slapped his shoulder.

Liam laughed.

My dad shook his head. “Both of you stop calling each other derogatory things.”

It wasn’t a big deal. He knew we were both joking. But I wasn’t a slut or a cad. Because even though Axel had held my hand yesterday morning, he’d basically ignored me ever since. I’d been on top of the world. And now I just felt like an underground troll.

My dad cleared his throat. “Well, I guess it’s just the three of us tonight then, Scar. You can pick the movie.” He pulled into the parking garage under our apartment building.

I sighed. If I was stuck watching a movie tonight, I’d be so late to the party. Not that I knew how I was escaping yet. RJ refused to tell me his master plan until the “appropriate time.” I thought lunchtime was an appropriate time, but apparently he did not.

But I’d overheard him mentioning a saw? I feel like I probably misheard that. “Can we get takeout for dinner and watch while we eat?”

“That sounds like a great plan. That way Liam can join us too.”

“Sweet,” Liam said. “But I’m picking the movie so Scar won’t choose a romcom.”

“What’s wrong with romcoms?” I asked.

“They’re unrealistic,” Liam said and climbed out of the car.

Yeah. Maybe.

***

I pulled on the sparkly dress that Sophie thought would be perfect. And it was. I felt as confident as I had when I first stepped into Empire High this week. Right before Gigi tripped me and Axel said he liked my glasses. I pushed the thought aside and smiled at my reflection in the mirror.

The dress was all the things I’d said before – too short, too sparkly, too much.

But too much was just right tonight. It was the first party of the year and I wanted to stand out.

The gold dress cut off right below my butt and the neckline dipped dangerously low down the front.

My dad had confiscated my Odegaards, but Sophie was bringing me black high heels.

I laced up a pair of sneakers in the meantime, checked my makeup, and was ready for the escape plan.

The only problem was…I was waiting for a text from RJ to tell me what the heck the plan was.

And waiting.

And waiting.

My phone finally buzzed. “You’ll get a text once the coast is clear.” It immediately buzzed again. “Wait for it.”

I inched closer to my bedroom door.

“Wait for it.”

“I am waiting,” I texted back.

“Don’t ruin the suspense, baby doll.”

“Stop calling me that, RJ.”

“Wait for it.”

I sighed. RJ would never stop calling me weird nicknames. I was pretty sure it was a character flaw he picked up from his father. Because I’d heard Uncle Rob call my mother some very weird things in my lifetime. Inappropriate things. Yeah, definitely an inherited character flaw.

“Wait for it,” RJ texted.

Oh my God. I swear if this was just me walking out of the apartment when my parents were in their room, I could have done it myself. I already knew they were in there.

“Wait for it.”

“Wait,” I texted back. “Is wait for it the signal to go?”

“No. Don’t go.”

“But you said you’d text me once the coast is clear and you’ve texted me a million times since then.”

“Patience, baby doll.”

I was going to slap him whenever I saw him next. “Whenever I do go, aren’t Briggs and Porter going to see me?”

“No, Liam is busy flirting with them. Or seducing. I can’t remember what he decided on.”

“Liam, Briggs, and Porter are all straight.”

“Seducing their minds, baby doll,” he texted.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, I was definitely going to slap him.

“Put some pillows under your comforter. So it looks like you’re there sleeping peacefully if anyone checks on you.”

Okay. I stuffed some pillows and my red panda stuffie underneath my comforter and looked up at the camera in the corner of my bedroom. I adjusted a few of the pillows for the angle and nodded. That would do.

My phone buzzed again and I looked down at the new text: “Go! Now!”

Shit, suddenly I wasn’t ready. My heart started beating faster in my chest as I slowly opened my bedroom door. I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching.

“Stop pussyfooting around, Scar. There’s no time.” Another text came almost immediately: “Go. Go, go, go!”

I’m not pussyfooting. I’m double checking. “Go where?” He still hadn’t told me what the plan was.

“Past your parents’ bedroom and down the stairs.”

I followed his instructions and paused at the bottom of the stairs. I was just about to text him, but he texted me first.

“Go through the living room.”

How did he know I was ready for my next set of instructions? Or that I had actually kind of been pussyfooting around a minute ago? I looked up at the security camera mounted in the corner of the wall. “RJ, are you watching me?”

“I hacked into the security cameras,” he texted. “Go. Now.”

How the hell had he done that? I shook my head. I didn’t even want to know. “Shouldn’t I go to the front door?”

“Stop being basic and listen to me for one second.”

“But…” I started to text.

“Get your ass through the living room right now.”

RJ was so bossy. I ran through the living room.

“Now go right.”

I turned to go into the downstairs powder room.

“Not the bathroom. The hallway. Why would I be sending you into the bathroom?”

I don’t know. How was I supposed to know what he was doing?

He hadn’t told me the plan. He just said go right.

I turned down the hall that led to both my parents’ home offices and the guest rooms. I don’t know why I was walking down this hall either.

I quickly texted him. “Seriously, why am I not going to the front door?” There was no way out down here.

“Are you trying to get caught, baby doll?”

“Stop calling me that.” I walked toward my mom’s office even though none of this made any sense.

“It’s your code name for Operation Trap.”

“Operation Trap? RJ, what are you talking about?”

“Stop, you’ve gone too far. Go into the second guest room on the right,” he texted.

I peered over my shoulder at the door. “Why?”

“Just do it! We don’t have time for your dillydallying!”

“You’re the one dillydallying, RJ. This whole time you could have just told me to go to the second guest bedroom instead of all those other instructions. Or we could have been talking instead of texting. That would have saved loads of time.” I backtracked to the room he’d mentioned.

“Shush your face,” he texted back.

I shook my head and opened the door to the guest bedroom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in here. Probably when I was playing hide-and-go-seek years ago or something.

“Close the door behind you. Quickly.”

I stepped into the room and closed the door. My phone buzzed again as I walked toward the bed. But I didn’t have time to read it because the carpet caved in and I was falling through the floorboards like a sack of potatoes.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, but only a tiny peep came out because someone put their hand over my mouth mid-air right before I landed hard on a big bean bag chair.

“Ow,” I mumbled against RJ’s hand.

“Did you just lick me?” RJ said with a laugh. He pulled his hand away.

“No I did not lick you!”

“Whatever you say, baby doll.”

I shoved him away from me and looked up at the massive hole in the ceiling. “What. The. Actual. F did you do, RJ?”

“Don’t you love it?” RJ tossed a saw to the side and moved a ladder under the hole. “I’ll admit, the cut could have been cleaner. And smaller,” he added as he climbed the ladder. “But for some reason this apartment’s floorplan was all in Russian.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and my Russian is a little rusty. So the hole was a little bigger than I meant for it to be because I accidentally started sawing a little to the right. But it’s fine.”

None of this is fine! I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Falling through the floor was scary. But the thought of my father seeing the hole in the floor of our apartment was a lot more horrifying. “My dad is going to kill me. I’m going to be grounded for a year instead of a week.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? You broke into our downstairs neighbor’s apartment and cut a hole in the freaking ceiling.”

“We didn’t break in. Liam has a key.”

Why would Liam have a key to this random apartment? And that was the least of my concerns. I looked around the room. It was pretty much empty minus the ladder and bean bag chair I was sitting on. Maybe it was vacant. I stood up and winced. My butt hurt from the fall.

“I know it looks bad right now,” RJ said. “But I’ll make it look nicer later.” He shoved the carpet back up into the ragged hole so that the next unsuspecting person to enter our guest room would fall and break their neck.

He looked down at me from the top of the ladder. “But for now, no one will even know. See.” He gestured to the hack job. “I mean, you didn’t notice when you were in the guest room. You fell right though.”

“You should have warned me!”

“I tried to text you but I guess you were in a hurry.”

I glared at him. He’d been texting me not to dillydally!

And if he’d told me the whole plan I would have told him it was a no-go.

“Wait a second.” I thought back to what he’d just said before blaming me for falling.

“RJ, what do you mean you’ll make it look nicer later ?

You have to completely fix it! Right now! ”

“But wouldn’t it be better if you always had a permanent escape route?”

“RJ!”

“I’m going to make it into kind of a trapdoor. With a pull-down ladder and everything. Hence Operation Trap.”

“Brilliant, right?” Sophie said as she walked into the room in a white, floor-length fur coat and matching furry hat. “Operation Trap was a glowing success.”

“What are you wearing?” I asked. But I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I’d been in Sophie’s closet a million times and those were 100% not Sophie’s clothes.

“I don’t know, I found them in the closet of the woman who lives here. But I’m obsessed.” She did a twirl. “Don’t you love it? Especially whatever this hat is.”

“The hat is a ushanka,” Liam said as he strolled into the room. “Our downstairs neighbor is Russian.”

“Yeah, I got that.” I just stared at the three of them in disbelief. They all seemed perfectly calm despite the fact that there was a gaping hole in the ceiling, Sophie was wearing our neighbor’s clothes, and we were about to be caught red-handed. I hated Hunter Hunter mess arounds.