My mind is racing, and I’ve missed a bit of what she’s just said, but I calm down and listen because she is still talking, and I think I heard my name. “I’ve already thought about how to get her to shut up. I know last time paying her off didn’t work, but this time we have so much more money. We’ll make her an offer she literally can’t turn down. And we’ll take it out of my cut. Okay? This was my fuckup. I’ll pay for it.”

Silence again. This time it is glaring. Izzy is done making her case. I don’t speak fast enough.

“Taylor? Did you hear me?” Izzy sounds desperate now. “What’s going on?”

Nate tugs on my arm. I’m sure he can see the lines of concentration on my face as I run through the harrowing past few weeks.

It’s so unbelievable, but also undeniable.

They set it up together. They killed Simon. They framed me. Both of them.

Izzy’s voice pops back into my ear. “Taylor? You there?” She is about to lose her shit.

I climb off the bed and look at Nate. “Izzy.”

His face contorts into shock, then disbelief. I hold up a finger, telling him to give me one more second.

“Oh,” Izzy says, almost breathless. “You’re there. Did you—”

“It’s not Taylor.”

28

TAYLOR

It’s surreal when the funds finally transfer into my account. I almost don’t believe it, but it’s really there. Everything is in my name.

I smile, thinking of the way Brandi got dragged out of the W, of how utterly pathetic she looked, of how she thought she’d win.

I got the money.

I won.

I fucking won.

Still, there is this gnawing sourness festering in the pit of my stomach whenever I think of Mei and Jared, my soul sister, my favorite boy. They were supposed to be here, riding this adrenaline high with me, but thanks to that bitch I had to do the unthinkable and turn them in. I had no other choice. I contemplate not touching their cut out of respect, but it would probably crush them even more to know they’re trapped in a psychopath-filled hellhole in vain.