Sweet Like Revenge

40 - Restoration

"He's been arrested?"

The words poured from my lips faster than I could register them, so quickly in fact that they strung together almost incomprehensibly.

Kirsty, too, looked puzzled as she peered between Chontelle and Sienna through her feathery lashes. "For what happened with Lainey?"

Chontelle swiveled around in her seat, tapping the screen of her phone with a black acrylic nail. "No. On different charges."

I wanted to shoot across the table and grab that phone from her hands, to take a look at whatever illuminated the screen for myself. But I was glued to my chair, anticipation and nerves weighing me down like an anchor as I waited for the storm to hit.

"What charges?" Kirsty snapped.

After what felt like an eternity, Sienna cleared her throat. "Threat to distribute revenge porn."

Just like that, intrigue and adrenaline — perhaps hope, as well — cut the ties to my anchor. I scooted my chair closer to Chontelle's, leaning over to get a closer look at whatever was on that phone. She gave in, tilting the screen towards me so that I could read the texts for myself. Texts from her lawyer father.

"But here's the interesting part." Sienna rested her chin on her hands, batting her eyelashes sweetly. "I think you know the girl pressing them."

I didn't hear the name she said next. I didn't need to; I read it for myself.

Jessica Lorraine Waterson.

My hand fluttered to my mouth as I suppressed an audible gasp. I forced it back onto my lap, remembering that I wasn't supposed to know who that was.

But I did. Holy shit, I did.

"Apparently," Sienna was saying, feigning a humorous level of ironic indifference, "Jessica's... involvement with Astor had something to do with her pulling out of your little pageant. And that involvement, it seems, was far from appropriate." She popped a cube of watermelon in her mouth, waving her fork in the air as she crunched the fruit between her teeth. "Of course, information's cloudy at this stage. Though rumor has it that at least one other contestant was involved."

"So it's a form of cheating?" I asked pointedly. I couldn't help myself.

Chontelle shrugged. "Cheating, blackmail. All I know is that it's disgusting."

"Mhm," Sienna agreed, turning back to Kirsty with a knowing twinkle in her eye. "To have your competition tarnished by something like that must be soul-crushing. And we all know how you feel about cheating, of all things. The worst thing a person can do, right?" She tilted her head ever so slightly, drawing her words out slowly as her stare turned ice cold. "An act reserved for the lowest of the low. If you know what I mean."

Just like when Kirsty had uttered the words to Sienna, we all knew exactly what they meant.

Kirsty's eyes darted around our table as she searched for support. They left Sienna's hard glare to find Chontelle's, which was equally as smug if not slightly more piercing. Kat's demeanor was less arrogant, though no less hostile. Driven by hopeful desperation, Kirsty's dark eyes met mine.

But she knew she'd lost that battle before it'd even begun.

Sienna was right. Threats and blackmail weren't glue, and ruling through fear earned no loyalty. Kirsty's credibility was shot; any dirt she held over anyone was as good as a hammer made from glass. And without it, she had nothing.

The verdict was in. Kirsty's coup had failed, and the troops were out for blood. Her blood.

A shrill ringtone cut through the silence that hung over our table like a cloak. The jilted queen wasted no time rejecting the call, though not one of us missed how the color drained from her cheeks upon reading the caller ID.