Joey: Chapter 44

Ow! There’s a reason I don’t drink a lot. Hangovers are hell. A hell of a lot of fun while you’re getting one, not so much when you actually live through it.

My head throbs as I open my eyes. Damn margaritas.

Except I’m not in my room. Not in my bed. These covers aren’t soft like mine. They’re rough and scratchy against my bare calves.

Holy shit! Where the hell am I? Where is Max? Where’s Ash?

Bile burns my throat. My headache has nothing to do with the margaritas. I banged my head. But Ash was there. He told me we had to go home.

What the hell happened? Think, Joey!

I was changing out of my bathing suit. Monique gave me a cocktail.

Monique! That bitch fucking drugged me. And then she shot Ash. Bile surges up from my gullet.

I survey my current situation. My dress is dirty, but I’m still in it, my underwear too. My knees are scraped from when I fell. My wrists and ankles are bound together with zip ties. I twist against them, but the plastic only tightens, pinching my skin.

“Hey! Where the hell am I?” I yell, but my voice is little more than a croak, my throat raw and dry. “Hey!” I try again, and this time it’s loud enough to send someone walking through the door.

“Morning, princess,” Monique says, wearing a saccharine smile. Bitch!

“What the hell, Mo?” I shriek. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“A joke?” She throws her head back and laughs like the psycho she so obviously is. “What exactly do you think is funny, Jo? Although seeing you all trussed up like a turkey is kinda funny.”

My stomach rolls. She’s unhinged. “What the hell, Mo? You’re supposed to be my best friend!”

“Your best friend?” She whines the last two words in a mocking tone. “You have any idea how fucking infuriating it is to be your friend, Joey? Watching you get every single fucking thing you want just because you’re Joey Moretti.” She rolls her eyes and sticks her index finger down her throat.

I blink at her. Where the hell is this coming from? “But … you and me … we were …”

“You never liked me. You were only ever my friend to make yourself feel good and we both know it.”

“That’s not true. You’re rewriting our entire lives.”

She stalks toward the bed and leans over me. “You are a spoiled little bitch, Joey. Snapping your fingers and getting whatever you want.”

“You have everything, Mo. Any guy you want. Money.” Those are the only things that have ever been important to her. “What more do I have that you don’t?”

“Money?” She snorts. “I have nothing, Joey. My mom has burned through it all. Every last cent.”

“I didn’t know.” I frown.

She sneers. “Of course you didn’t. Because you wander around in your own little perfect Joey world.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” I scream. “My world is far from perfect.” My mom died when I was three. My father was a maniac. I was sent off to Italy for three long years—for reasons I still can’t fathom—and she knows all of this.

She folds her arms across her chest and looks down at me like I’m something she just stepped in.

“Mo? Please?” I plead with her. Surely she has to see reason. “Why are you doing this?”

She sighs dreamily. “For Viktor.”

“Viktor?”

“Hmm. He’s my ticket out of here.”

I only know one Viktor, but it can’t be him, right? “Tell me Viktor Pushkin isn’t Mystery Guy?”

Her only response is a smug smile. It makes a sick kind of sense. Her man was always disappearing for weeks on end and more recently seemed to have gone completely off the radar. “But why? What does Viktor Pushkin want with me?”

She runs a finger through one of my curls and I yank my head out of her reach, making her laugh. “Poor little naive Joey. Nobody ever tells you what’s going on, do they? Even screwing Max didn’t make him open up to you.”

My stomach rolls again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Before she can answer, the door opens and a heavyset man with tattoos on his face and a shaved head walks into the room.

“Hey, baby,” she squeals when she sees him. This must be Viktor.

He doesn’t smile. There isn’t even a flicker of affection for her in his eyes. He lifts his arm, and it’s only then that I see the gun in his hand. I close my eyes and shrink back. Dear god, he’s going to kill me.

A deafening gunshot rings out and I’m splattered with warm stickiness. Opening my eyes, I take a deep breath, and something drips into my mouth. Blood. Is it mine?

Refocusing on my surroundings, I see Viktor standing directly in front of me. On the floor is Monique, face down with a huge hole in the back of her skull.

I lurch forward and vomit onto the floor.

“We meet at last, Guiseppina,” Viktor says in a thick Russian accent. He smirks, not in the least bit bothered by the dead body or the puddle of puke at his feet.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“Maybe.” His smirk transforms into a full smile. “But I am your husband also. At least this time next week I will be.”