Ciara nodded. “Well, as long as the police haven’t come, you’re free to—”
As if summoned by the mention, there was a pounding at the door. My heart dropped into my stomach as a voice bellowed, “Deon Keane, police! Come out with your hands up.”
“No,” I whimpered, hanging onto Deon. “Don’t leave me.”
“Hey.” He grabbed my arms and looked down at me. “It’s gonna be okay. Call Sicily, okay?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “My passcode’s your birthday.”
I nodded as tears started to stream down my face. Deon turned, kissed his mom, and came back to me for one last kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I responded, and then Deon walked over to the door and opened it. He lifted his hands into the air just as two armed police officers pointed large guns at him.
“Down on the ground!” one screamed, and Deon complied, dropping first to his knees, then down onto his chest, folding his hands behind his back.
Ciara wrapped an arm around me, and we both cried as we watched an officer walk over to Deon, slap cuffs on his wrist, and pull him up off the pavement. With aggression that wasn’t necessary, they dragged him over to one of the squad cars and shoved him into the back. With Deon in the car, they turned on their lights and sirens, almost as if they intended to make a spectacle, and started off down the street with him in tow.
I looked at Ciara once they were gone. “I’m gonna make this right, okay?”
Ciara nodded. “I trust you. Bring my boy—our boy—back.”
We hugged for an incredibly long time, and then I went back to my car and got in. Deon’s scent still lingered all around and made my throat burn. I swallowed hard to keep my emotions at bay as I called Avery and Alistair to tell them to meet me at Nathan’s house. Just before I pulled away, I got into Deon’s phone using my birthday, found Sicily’s number, and called.
“Deon. Fuck me, man. I know—”
“It’s Cherri.”
Sicily was quiet for a long time, and then he let out a long, exhausted-sounding sigh. “They picked him up?”
“Yeah. He said to call you.”
“It’s a good thing you did, your highness,” Sicily replied, “because I’ve got proof that Deon didn’t push Miss Abrams.”
32
Cherri
Pulling onto Nathan’s dark and seemingly-empty estate was a little more ominous than I was hoping for. I probably had my reckless speeding to blame for the fact that I’d seemingly gotten to the property way before Avery and Alistair did, despite them being much closer, but not long after I pulled into the wrap-around driveway near the front door, Alistair’s car came cruising onto the estate. I got out of my car and looked up. There were no lights or anything on in the house, and I knew in an instant that something was wrong.
“Shit,” Avery said as she walked up. “It looks kind of creepy like that.”
“Make that extra creepy,” Alistair added, then he wrapped an arm around my back. “You doing okay?”
“I was,” I said. “Deon and I… We’re together now. Made official and christened, by the way.”
Avery’s mouth went agape. “Why would you tell me that now when we don’t have time to discuss it? How was it? Was he well-endowed? He has large hands.”
Alistair walked over and tapped Avery on the shoulder. “Hello. I’m your boyfriend.”
“Hi, honey,” she replied sweetly, either not understanding his frustration or choosing to ignore it.
I chuckled. “I figured we had a few seconds to talk about it, since we’re waiting for one more person.”
“One more person?” Alistair asked. “Who?”
Almost exactly on cue, a car came driving onto the Loches’ estate. It wasn’t anything like the nice cars that Alistair or I were driving, but it was certainly the one I was most happy to see. It parked behind Alistair, backfiring as it turned off, and then Sicily climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked over to us.
“Oh,” Avery said. “Why?”
“Because he’s going to prove Deon’s innocence,” I said. Sicily made it to us, and I reached out and hugged him. “Thank you for coming.”
Sicily chuckled. “Oh, this is nice. Yeah, no problem. Deon’s my guy. I’d never leave him hanging.”
“First things first. We need to find Nathan,” I said. “I was hoping he’d be here, but…” I looked at the darkened lights not just on the main manor, but Nathan’s smaller home as well. “It looks empty.”
“Well, let’s go in just in case.” Avery walked past me, pulled out her keys, and slipped one into the front door, unlocking it. She turned around to the shocked expressions on all of our faces and shrugged. “What? Princess-in-line benefits. A key to the house.”
“You get one, but the queen doesn’t have one?” Sicily asked.
“I’m not the queen anymore,” I said quickly, “and when Nathan tried to give me a key, I refused. It felt a little too domestic for my tastes.”
“Fair,” Sicily replied.
Alistair, Avery, Sicily, and I slunk our way into the house and started to walk around. Alistair, Avery, and I knew the house quite well from our time in The Royal Court, so we split up to make our rounds of the house. Sicily just sort of wandered in a direction on his own. Everyone’s voices could be heard calling out from different parts of the house. I’d walked through the dining room and parlor and was just about to enter the kitchen when a voice pierced the silence.
“Oh god!” Sicily screamed.
I booked it back toward the sound of Sicily’s voice, down through the foyer and into the sitting room. Sicily had a hand over his mouth and was heaving, so I rushed over and pushed him toward a planter. I turned to see a dead body sprawled on the floor just as Sicily puked into the
