Chapter 47: The Game 2
MARGAUX
"Margo!" Her voice came through panicked and breathless. "Thank goddess you can at least pick up your calls, especially after that scary text you sent."
My stomach dropped. "What text?"
"Huh?" Confusion bled through the panic. "Don’t you remember? The one you sent to Chris?"
"I didn’t send anything to Chris." The words came out automatic and certain because I knew I hadn’t messaged him. I’d barely thought about my phone since arriving at this nightmare estate.
I pulled the device away from my ear and hit the speaker button with fumbling fingers. Then my fingers went to work. My messages app loaded. The last conversation sat right there at the top. Chris’s name was indeed there. With a timestamp from half an hour ago.
My thumb tapped the thread before my brain could catch up with what I was seeing.
—I don’t want to die here Chris. Help me.
The message stared back at me. Sent from my phone. My number. Words I’d never typed appearing in my own conversation history like they’d always been there.
A gasp tore from my throat.
"I didn’t send this." My voice came out strangled and too high. "Shanelle, I swear to the goddess I didn’t write this message."
"What?" Static crackled through the speaker. "But Margo, the second Chris saw it—"
"What did he do?" I cut through her words with rising dread that made my chest feel like it was caving in. "Shanelle, what did Chris do when he saw this?"
Silence stretched for three heartbeats too long.
"He decided he was going to go against Beaumont and our father." Her words tumbled out fast like she’d been holding them back and couldn’t contain them anymore. "He gathered elite sentinels who aren’t comfortable with what you had to sacrifice. The ones who think the whole arrangement was wrong."
No. No no no.
"It’s a trap." The realization hit me like ice water dumped over my head. "Shanelle, you have to stop him. You have to call him back right now."
"He’s already gone." Her voice cracked. "You know with you, he never wastes time or holds back. The moment he saw that message, he started planning. By the time I found out what he was doing, he’d already left Beaumont territory."
Chris was coming here. Chris was walking straight into whatever twisted game Étienne had set up. Because of a message I’d never sent from a phone I’d barely touched since the wedding.
"This is his trick." My free hand curled into a fist against my thigh. "Étienne wants Chris here for some twisted and demented reason. I have to stop him."
"Wait... Who is Étienne—"
I ended the call before Shanelle could get a response. My fingers flew across the screen pulling up Chris’s contact and hitting dial. The phone rang once. Then twice and it went on for third time even.
But he didn’t pick and it continuously went into voicemail.
I tried again, only to get the same result. The automated message played in my ear telling me to leave a message after the tone like everything was normal and fine.
But Chris never ignored calls. Never. Unless he had made up his mind to deliberately avoid them. Unless he was already in transit and didn’t want distractions like angry phone calls from his father who would be crazed and borderline violent trying to stop him from doing something this reckless.
"Fuck!"
The word exploded out of me. I threw my phone onto the bed and pressed my palms against my eyes while my chest heaved with breaths that wouldn’t come deep enough. I couldn’t believe Étienne had done this. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the calculated cruelty of it. He’d stood in this room and preached at me about truth and family and the cages they’d built. Then he’d gone behind my back and fabricated a cry for help designed to pull Chris directly into his reach.
My eyes darted around the room searching for nothing in particular. They landed on a small black dome mounted in the corner near the ceiling.
Was that...
A camera?
My vision went red. The camera lens stared back at me like an unblinking eye. Had he been watching this whole time? Watching me fall apart after he left? Watching me stand frozen at the window trying to decide whether to call my mother? Watching me panic over discovering the fake message?
The rage that burned through me was so hot and consuming I thought it might incinerate me from the inside out.
I grabbed my phone, crossed the room in three strides and yanked open the makeshift door. The wood protested against my grip but gave way. Cool air hit my face as I stepped into the hallway. A sentinel stood about twenty feet away near another doorway. His posture straightened when he noticed me.
I walked up to him fast enough that he took a small step backward. "Where is Étienne?"
The sentinel’s brow furrowed. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Right... I was using the wrong name.
"Theo." I corrected myself through gritted teeth. "Where is Alpha Theo?"
Recognition flickered across his face. "Alpha Theo is usually in his study before breakfast."
"And where is that?"
He gave me directions.
I didn’t wait for him to finish explaining. I turned and started moving down the hallway toward the stairs he’d pointed out. My bare feet slapped against cold marble. The dress I’d changed into after he’d left me in the infirmary swished around my legs with each step.
I didn’t care how crazed I probably looked now. I didn’t care that I was probably breaking a dozen of the rules he had set about wandering the estate unescorted. I didn’t care about anything except getting to him and making him understand exactly how far over the line he’d just stepped.
The stairs appeared on my left. I took them two at a time. My breathing came harsh and ragged by the time I reached the third floor. The wing stretched out before me. This wing had more marble and plenty of expensive artwork on the walls. More evidence of wealth built on goddess knew what kind of blood and suffering.
The oak doors sat at the end of the hallway exactly like the sentinel had described. I could hear voices inside. Low conversation that stopped me for half a second before rage propelled me forward again.
I didn’t knock. I didn’t bother to announce myself. I grabbed the handle and shoved the door open hard enough that it slammed against the interior wall.
Étienne sat behind a massive desk. The stag mask was still fixed to his face. Another man stood beside him. Someone I didn’t recognize and didn’t care about recognizing.
My eyes locked on Étienne.
"You psychotic bastard."
The words came out venomous and shaking. I stepped fully into the room and let the door swing shut behind me with a bang that echoed.
"You were there preaching in my face about truth and family." I advanced on the desk. "And you went right behind my back to do what you did."
"Do what?" His voice came out smooth and unbothered. Like I’d interrupted him discussing the weather instead of confronting him about manufacturing a crisis.
"Don’t play dumb." My hands balled into fists at my sides. "Why did you pretend to be me and message Chris that I was in danger?"
Étienne leaned back in his chair. The movement was slow and deliberate. Then he laughed. The sound came muffled through the mask but no less infuriating for it.
"Well, you are in danger." He gestured vaguely toward me. "That part is true."
Heat crawled up my neck. "You know exactly what I mean."
"I have been expecting your beloved to make some divine move." He tilted his masked face slightly. "And he was not moving quickly enough for my liking. So I had to give him a little push."
The casual admission made my stomach turn. He truly had no shame. The fact that he didn’t even make an attempt to deny it and all he gave me was the cold acknowledgment that he’d manipulated the situation exactly how I’d suspected.
Horror washed through me in waves that left me feeling sick. "What do you need him for?"
"You will not stop holding your family’s hand." His tone shifted into something harder. "And I cannot trust you. Neither can you trust yourself. So I intend to use this Chris for my nefarious intentions. Is that clear enough?"
The bond between us sat quiet. He wasn’t putting on a shield. There was no barrier preventing me from feeling the truth behind his words. He meant every syllable. This wasn’t a bluff or a mind game. He genuinely planned to use Chris as some kind of pawn in whatever larger scheme he’d constructed.
"What do you think I should charge him with?" Étienne continued like we were discussing legal theory instead of one of my best friend’s life. "There will be so many crimes to pin on him once he steps foot on our territory."
"Stop it." My voice broke on the words. "Stop it and I’ll do what you want. I’ll give you what you want."
"It is a little too late for that, Margotine."
The finality in his tone made my knees weak. I gripped the edge of his desk to keep myself upright.
"He’s innocent in all of this." The plea came out desperate and raw. "Chris has nothing to do with what happened between our families."
"I do not quite think so." Étienne leaned forward. "His family climbed the ranks after my own family perished. He is very much in this."
He laughed again. The sound grated against my nerves like sandpaper.
"It does help that he is in love with you."
"He’s not in love with me." The denial came automatic. "He’s just devoted to what his job is."
"A Beaumont true and true." The mockery in his voice was unmistakable. "This man is about to risk his whole life for you, and you cannot bring yourself to even admit why he would go this far. Even I saw it clear as night on our wedding day."
My mouth opened but no words came out. What could I say? That Chris’s feelings didn’t matter? That his devotion was misplaced? That I’d never encouraged whatever emotions he might have developed over the years? Because my heart had only been reserved for one person and one person alone.
The person that was making life hell... Fuck this.
I was going to say something but Étienne beat me to it.
"He is about to learn in real time what a waste his devotion is to the likes of you." His voice dropped lower. "Perhaps we will bond over how much of a fool we had once been for love."
The man beside him chuckled. The sound was cut short immediately when Étienne’s masked face turned toward him with a glare that needed no expression to convey its warning.
I didn’t know what to say to any of it. My hands curled into tighter fists until my nails bit into my palms hard enough to draw blood. The pain grounded me barely enough to turn around and walk toward the door on legs that felt disconnected from my body.
My hand closed around the handle. I yanked it open and almost collided with Séverine.
She stood in the hallway with one hand raised like she’d been about to knock. Surprise flickered across her face when she registered me standing there in a nightgown with tear tracks probably still visible on my cheeks and rage radiating off me in waves.
We stared at each other for a frozen second.
Then I pushed past her and kept walking. My shoulder knocked against hers with more force than necessary. I didn’t apologize. I didn’t even look back. I just kept moving down the hallway while my heart hammered against my ribs and my mind raced through scenarios that all ended with Chris hurt or dead or worse.
Behind me, I heard the study door close, followed by Séverine’s muffled voice asking something I couldn’t make out. Étienne’s response was far too quiet to catch.
I turned the corner and pressed my back against the wall. My chest heaved with breaths that wouldn’t satisfy my lungs. Tears burned behind my eyes but I refused to let them fall.
Chris was coming. There was nothing I could do to stop him now. And when he arrived, Étienne would use him as another piece in whatever sick game he was playing. Another way to hurt me. Another person I cared about who would suffer because I’d made choices I couldn’t take back.
The bond pulsed quietly in the background. No strong emotion was coming through it now. Which made me wonder if Étienne was now a soulless murderer who has no qualms taking the lives of innocent people because there was not a war in what connected us both.
I took out my phone to try again and that was when the door opened the man that had been with Étienne stepped out.
His gaze was fixated on me and he smiled when our eyes met.
"Luna Margaux, we haven’t officially met. But my name is Laurent. Beta Laurent—"
"What do you want?" I cut him off.
He turned back to the closed door instinctively and then said; "He would hate that I helped you so can you keep a secret?"
Huh... Was this Laurent dude implying he wanted to help me?