Page 175 of Gilt

Levi shoots Jameson a pleading look, but it’s too little too late. Sabine stays frozen in place even as her boyfriend follows our hulking private muscle toward the elevator.

“Monroe,” Sabine begins, but Monroe holds up her palm.

“Leave,” she commands.

“What’s going on with you two?” Leighton interjects. She doesn’t bother to keep her voice quiet, and all around us, heads turn. Apparently, she’s still a little hazy about what’s happened in her absence. I glare at Hugo accusatorily. He brought her here, knowing full well that their little friendship circle is broken forever.

“Tell her,” Sabine says, stamping her heel on the tile. Now the whole party is watching. “Tell her what’s going on with us, Monroe.”

“It’s best you go.” Monroe turns, but not before Sabine moves closer.

“Tell her who pushed her out the window.”

A low buzz breaks out around us as people figure out what she’s saying.

“Get her out of here,” Monroe shouts to the security guards who are standing by hesitantly.

“No.” Hugo steps in. “I want to hear what she has to say.”

“Tell them,” Sabine sneers. She might lose the war, but she’s going to win this battle, and it seems there will be casualties.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Monroe begins, her eyes flashing to each of us. No doubt she’s hoping one of us will save her. The trouble is that none of us have reason to.

“You pushed her through the window,” Hugo screams, and I’m reminded of how swiftly he’d turned on someone he considers his best friend. It doesn’t matter if Monroe did it so long as Hugo believes she did.

Before I can nudge Jameson to intervene, Jonas steps out from the crowd. More than anyone, he doesn’t owe Monroe any favors. But when Hugo takes a purposeful step toward her, Jonas grabs him from behind.

“Let’s cool off,” he coaxes his best friend.

“Why? Because I can’t hit a girl?” Hugo asks. “Because she’s no lady. She’s a cold-blooded bitch. You know that.”

“Drop it,” Jonas urges, struggling to keep his hold as Hugo thrashes. After a few moments, Hugo goes limp. But before we can breathe a collective sigh of relief. He casts a scornful glare at Monroe. “Assault. Prostitution. What else are you capable of, Madam West?”

The accusation goes off like a bomb, and the low murmurs of gossip die down as everyone strains to hear her response. Looking around, I realize more than a few people have been filming this encounter. Within hours, Monroe West’s private life will be subject to an online smear campaign.

Monroe raises her chin in defiance, and then she does the last thing any of us expects. She shrugs.

“Caught me,” she says with a wicked smirk. Next to me, Jameson doesn’t move. I’d wondered before if he knew what she was up to, and now I know. He had no clue.

Security finally does their job and escorts Sabine to the elevator. Hugo begins to follow, but Leighton just stands there, staring. Monroe doesn’t meet her minion’s eyes until Leighton’s soft voice calls for her attention.

“It was you. Emma told me I saw someone that night and that I smiled at them before we went through the window.” She repeats the story I told her as if she’s finally remembering. “You tried to kill me.”

“I overreacted,” Monroe admits, and more than a few people around us boo her. When this news leaks, she’ll be the talk of the town. The question is whether or not her temper flared up so dramatically on the night her father was murdered. I can’t be the only one wondering that now.

But despite the demonstration of what she’s capable of, somehow, I know it wasn’t her. Monroe and Jameson didn’t hate their father, regardless of his faults. Rational or not, Monroe had a reason for why she’d pushed us out the window that night. What would make her hurt her father? All these people surrounding us now were there as well. The room is full of opportunity, but I still can’t find the motive?

Monroe seems to realize that she’s playing to a crowd that’s turned on her, so she beats a hasty retreat.

“I need to talk to my sister,” Jameson says, his voice so frigid that a chill runs down my spine. He follows her away from the crowd, and I contemplate stepping in. Monroe certainly owes me an apology, although I don’t want her explanations. The reasons behind her actions are quite clear to me. In the end, I stay put, watching as most of my top suspects take the elevator. They’d all been hiding something, but if they aren’t the ones behind the murder, who is?

As the crowd begins to disperse, waiting for whatever unexpected entertainment comes next, Jonas steps beside me.

“We have a problem.”

It’s the last thing I want to hear. He gestures for me to follow him. As soon as we’re in an empty corridor, he levels with me.

“It’s gone,” he says.