“To keep you from running away,” Melanie replied, not missing a beat. “See, my plans revolve around this disgusting tournament, and if you left early, that would throw a wrench in my plans.”
I thought back to all the times I’d referred to Matthias as my babysitter. It had started off as a bitter remark but somewhere along the lines it had softened. Now, it tasted like ashes in my mouth. It had all been a lie. He’d been playing a role. The banter, shared laughter, conversations …
And what about the kiss?
None of it was real.
“Matthias will take you back to the mansion.”
I snapped back to reality. “I’m not going with Matthias!”
“Yes. You are.” Melanie’s eyes flashed.
My fangs locked into place as my lips curled back. I didn’t have any weapons on me and it was likely that she did, but I no longer cared. I wasn’t going to get a pat on the head and sent away like a dutiful hound dog. This was going to end one way or the other.
The door opened and Matthias stepped inside.
Chapter 22
As soon as we were in the hallway, I jerked my arm out of his grip as swung around to face him. “Well, I guess we know who the Academy Award goes to this year,” I snarled. “You’ve been lying this entire time!”
“Lacey, please.” He looked up and down the vacant hall. My blood boiled over even more. Was he seriously worried about someone overhearing us? It was clear everyone else already knew exactly what was going on. I was the last to know. “I can explain.”
I scoffed and stalked away, retracing the way I’d come. We were at least three floors up. There was likely a stairwell at the end of the hall. “Save it, Hartford. I’m not interested. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
Matthias sped up his pace and fell in step with me. We reached the end of the hall and he gestured to the left. I lifted my chin and continued in the way he’d pointed. He outpaced me and pulled ahead, reaching the stairwell door before I did. Instead of opening it, he braced his back against it, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“Get out of the way,” I demanded.
“Not until you promise to hear me out.”
“You can say whatever you want, but I’m not going to believe a word of it. You’ve been lying to me from the moment we met. You sat there and played dumb when asking about my sister, knowing full well that she was here, in the haven, all along.”
“I didn’t know at first,” he protested. “Melanie wasn’t the one who approached me. It was only recently I figured out she was the one behind the plans. And even then, I didn’t know fully what she had planned.”
I scoffed. “You expect me to believe that you really didn’t know what they were planning to do? What they’re still planning to do?”
Matthias leaned in another half an inch, his breath hot on my skin. “Believe whatever you want, Lacey. You can sit here and judge me and pick apart all the things you would have done differently, tell me that you would have played it smarter or been one step further ahead. When it came down to it, all I needed to know was that someone was going to make your father pay for what he did. I wanted to be there so that I could watch his eyes and see the light drain from them when it finally hit him that everything he’s spent his whole existence building was gone. Taken away. Just like Sylvia was taken away from me.”
The words cut, each one tearing a little deeper into me.
“The idea of your sister being behind it, quite honestly, never crossed my mind. I figured it was some other House. Another baron. I didn’t care. The plan was to stick around long enough for it all to come undone. Then I was getting out when the chaos took over.”
“Aww, and just what would your mommy think about that?” I sneered.
Heat flashed behind his eyes. “I couldn’t care less. I’ll get her out before the massacre. I’m not a complete monster.”
“Could have fooled me.”
He glowered at me but didn’t say anything. Our gazes melded together, unblinking, for a long moment. My stomach swooped but I refused to flinch.
Somewhere down the hall, footsteps clacked on the ground. Matthias backed up, pushing the door open, and then reached for my arm.
I jerked away.
“Lacey, please, I don’t want to hang around here anymore than you do.”
I ignored him and continued back. “If you want to prove you’re not like them, then help me get Jupiter out of here. My sister might not trust her, but I do, and I’m not leaving her caged up like a rabid animal for another minute.”
Matthias sighed, then muttered something under his breath, but he didn’t resist when I pulled on him.
I started trying the handle on several of the doors I passed. “You got keys to any of these rooms?” I asked over my shoulder.
“No.”
I clenched my jaw. A door gave way and I stumbled inside. Flipping the lights, I gasped as my eyes focused on the contents of the room. Weapons lined the walls and covered a long table. I gawked at the display. Matthias joined me and groaned.
“She’s not bluffing,” I said, more of a statement than a question.
“No,” he said, his tone melancholy. “I don’t think she is.”
“What is all of this?” I asked, stepping closer to the table. An open box showed a dozen silver orbs nestled in foam packing materials. “Grenades?”
“They’re silver bombs,” Matthias said. “Essentially, they’re modified smoke bombs. When they go off, silver filings are released with the smoke. They can’t kill anyone, but can be used to divert a crowd and cause mass confusion.”
I recoiled from the box, as if one might go off just by looking at it. “What are they going to do with them?”
Matthias took my elbow. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but we have to get out of here.”
I stared up at him for a long moment and then relented. “Fine.”
“My car’s below, there’s a garage.”
He turned off the lights and we scurried out of the building.
Two hours later, Matthias and I were standing on the balcony of his penthouse—a preventative measure at his request, as he feared his rooms might have bugs embedded by Melanie’s people. He didn’t know exactly when the attack would happen, but his best guess was that something would happen at the final tournament. I confirmed his suspicion and told him what Melanie had shared with me. I left out the information about the turns.
He assured me that he hadn’t been aware of Melanie’s end game in regards to vampirism going public and he definitely didn’t see how she would ever get the Court to accept her as their leader, but in his words, he wanted to see my father out of the seat of power and was willing to throw his lot in with whoever promised to oust him.
My shoulders felt heavy, weighed down by the lengthy conversation. Though he’d answered my questions honestly and straight-forwardly, it was still hard to sort everything out. My head and my heart warred with one another for who would get control over whatever happened next.
With a long sigh, I sagged down against the railing, bracing my elbows on the cool metal. “Can you just tell me why?”
“Lacey,” Matthias started, my name sounded pained. “I told you why I got involved in this whole thing.”
I shook my head, still staring blankly out at the cityscape. “No. I want to know why you led me on. What benefit did that have? Did you think I would be easier to maneuver if I actually liked you? Or, was it just a game? Something to amuse yourself with while you waiting on your next set of marching orders?”
Matthias’s fingers brushed my arm and I shivered away, sidestepping out of his reach, still refusing to make eye contact. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said, his voice thick.
I snorted. “Matthias, everything since the moment we met has been a lie. All of it. So, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t know exactly where your personal ethic boundaries lie.”
He reached for me again and this time I let him. He encircled my wrist, his thumb brushed over the sensitive place at the base of my palm. I looked up and our eyes met. “You were never part of the plan,” he said. “Everything was supposed to happen around you. Us getting involved was not supposed to happen.”