“Break some balls, sis!” Betty calls out as I make my way down the hallway.

“Balls!” Wolf repeats, and I hear a buckle of laughter follow behind me up the stairs. It’s not that I hate what I do. I enjoy it. I can’t imagine not doing it now, and although I thank Papa every day for giving me this, I also want to bring him back to life so I can just have the first few years with Wolf.

Losing myself in my closet, I pull out a black blazer, a white crop top, and tight black leather pants. Pairing it with a pair of white pointy Jimmy Choo boots and a white handbag, I shuffle through my makeup. Whatever the bunch of idiots has done can wait. I don’t leave the house looking less than nowadays.

Brushing out my dark hair, I pause when I look at myself in the mirror, blinking back a memory, only it takes me with an iron fist.

I couldn’t fucking believe Betty dragged me here. To this damn place. To a party. After last week happened, the week I didn’t talk about, I thought Betty was trying to get my head back into the game with a distraction. And I didn’t even tell her the full story of what happened between Wicked and me.

Fucking asshole.

I expected Papa to be mad when I gave him the parcel. So fucking mad. When he gave me a blank expression and read whatever it was that was in the envelope, I was so mad that I ended up blurting out what Wicked had done. How he had basically kidnapped me and that when whatever his little plan he had with me didn’t work, he needed to backtrack. Of course, Papa gave me nothing after that too. But things changed.

I felt the distance in the house. Where it was once warm, it now felt empty. Cold. Like a distance that could never be filled. I hated it.

“You are getting into your head again!” Betty shoved the bottle of cheap vodka into my chest, even though I told her I was more of a tequila person. “Come on! Doesn’t it get boring being the good little angel girl who does everything everyone wants?”

I raised the lip of the bottle to my mouth and took large enough gulps. “It does. But that’s not what this is—” I swiped my mouth with the back of my hand when laughing caught me off guard.

“Oh my God…” My hand came to my mouth and I slowly lowered the bottle to the floor. “Betty, I’m late.”

I blink through the memories, my fingernails scratching down my chest. I don’t want to think of the cryptic letter he wrote Papa.