Chapter 200

Ella POV

It had been quite a while since I’d been to Scott’s apartment, but not much had changed. It was the same pristine space with his two white leather couches and black-and-white Ansel Adams prints. He answered the door with the same calm smile he wore when Olivia died, and when I held up a bottle of chilled champagne, he made the same little comment about toasting to success.

“If you like,” I said while stepping over his threshold. The was a hint of pine in the air from when his cleaners had been by. His windows showed a lovely view of the park.

Actually, I quite liked Scott’s place. I’d spent many hours here talking about the past and the future.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, walking over to his wet bar for glasses. “You were in Paris for months.”

“You should come with me next time,” I said. “It’s a lovely city.”

He laughed, though what I said wasn’t funny. That was Scott, however, always pretending he was in on the joke even when there wasn’t a joke.

“You would have enjoyed being here,” he said next. “Watching Sarah and Zane pretend they’re not together is hilarious.”

“I thought you two were fated.”

“We are, but if she needs to waste her time with my brother first, I can tolerate it, for now.”

I nodded and handed him the bottle. He looked at the label, of course, and nodded at the Methuselah Louis Roederer, Cristal Brut de 1990, as if he recognized it. Maybe he did. It didn’t matter.

“So, Zane knows about Olivia?” I asked as I took my place on the larger of the two sofas. How many times had I sat here before?

“He does. That team he’s assembled is really quite impressive.”

I nodded and watched as he opened the bottle. “So he must be looking for the person who supplied the poison.”

Scott gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I think he’s more interested in more recent affairs.”

“Such as?”

He looked at me as though I were supposed to know what he was thinking. Goddess, it was annoying.

“What?” I asked.

“Marshall Kim.”

“What about him?”

“It was your decision to dispose of him.”

I kept my rage off my face. “And it was yours to use him in the first place.”

He poured two glasses. “The girls couldn’t just die, not when Chloe was perfectly healthy and Grace was in the NICU with 24/7 care.”

“So you decided to kidnap her instead?”

He frowned at me as he walked over and handed me a glass. The champagne was nearly the color of pure sparkling water. “You know all this. Why rehash it now?”

I took the glass. “I’m still not completely sure why you chose Kim.”

Scott gave me a two-shoulder shrug this time, held up his glass in a human gesture that made me laugh, and downed half his glass. “He told me his foster sister was the best person he’d ever met.”

He smiled. “And she was a dutiful maid, wasn’t she?”

“I didn’t appreciate that, Scott.”

He laughed and finished off his glass. “Looking at her cleaning your floors, knowing she had Zane’s daughter—You can’t pretend that wasn’t enjoyable.

“But I didn’t know she had Zane’s daughter, did I?” I set my glass down on the black coffee table. “You kept me in the dark for years.”

Scott rubbed his forehead and took a seat on the smaller couch. “There was no reason for you to know. I didn’t want to stress you out.”

“So, a human woman came into my life, cleaned my apartment, and then went home and cared for my niece, and you didn’t think I needed to know?”

He laughed again, but he was starting to feel the effects of the champagne.

“And now this same human woman is Zane’s lover and my niece’s goddess-mother,” I said. “Basically, she’s living the life I want, and you think this is funny?”

He blinked at me, trying to focus. “She’s not going to stay with Zane. She’s my fated—”

“She’s not your fated mate, you pathetic puppy.”

“What?” He tried to stand up. “What’s going on?”

“Just be quiet,” I said. “Just close your eyes and go to sleep.”

Finally, he realized something was wrong, but it was far too late. I picked up my glass and the bottle and poured the liquid down the sink. By the time I was done running the water, he was done.

It was odd. My plan had been to walk out then, but I found myself sitting back on the sofa. Scott was slumped into his seat, and apart from not breathing, he looked asleep. I told myself to get up, to go to my car, and get as far away from Scott as I could.

Instead, I just sat there. This was the wolf who had both helped and hindered me for years, my partner in crime and my betrayer. When I had found out Chloe wasn’t dead, that she was alive and well and living with my maid, I had never been more furious.

But what was I now? Was the ice in my veins a feeling or just my life now?

I hadn’t anticipated Sarah and Zane would become lovers, or that Grace—sickly, poor little Grace who couldn’t say boo to her own shadow—was suddenly going to turn into the next Gloria Stradt.

I hadn’t anticipated any of this.

I was standing and walking over to Scott before I knew I was going to move. I drew my right foot back and kicked as hard as I could.

“You bastard! You fucking piece of shit!”

I kicked him again. Poison was too good for him. I should have torn him to bits.

“Fuck you!” I shouted. “You ruined everything! Rot in hell!”

I kicked him again and then once more.

But now it really was time to go. I shouldn’t have stayed. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

“Screw you, Scott,” I told his corpse. “Olivia, Chloe, and Grace, they were supposed to be dead. Was it really so hard for you to understand?”

I waited another minute, but Scott didn’t respond. But then, he always was pretty useless.