Four Of A Kind - Chapter 128: [3.30] A Concerning Development

Chapter 128: [3.30] A Concerning Development

you mean, ’nope’?”

“I mean,” I took a long, deliberate sip of my tea, “if you want to know, you’ll have to win the bet.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious. When you earn that B and I become your pet for the day, you can make that one of my tasks. Full disclosure, no lies, complete honesty.” I smiled. “Until then? My lips are sealed.”

“That’s…” She searched for words, her face cycling through about fifteen different emotions. “That’s blackmail!”

“That’s incentive.”

“It’s manipulation!”

“It’s motivation.”

“Ugh!” She threw herself back in her chair hard enough that it creaked. “You’re so annoying!”

I shrugged, entirely too pleased with myself. The way her ears were red suggested I’d scored a direct hit. Maybe multiple direct hits. Possibly critical damage to her composure stat.

“Ready to go back to the manor for our session?” I asked casually, as if I hadn’t just weaponized her curiosity against her.

Cassidy glared at me for a solid five seconds. Then she grabbed her drink, stood up with enough force to make her chair scrape loudly against the floor, and marched toward the exit.

“Let’s go,” she said without looking back.

I caught Mira’s eye on the way out. She grinned and gave me a thumbs up, which I pretended not to see. The last thing I needed was Cassidy catching that exchange and adding it to her growing list of things to interrogate me about.

The walk to my car was silent except for the aggressive sound of Cassidy’s combat boots hitting pavement and her equally aggressive bubble tea consumption. She was stress-drinking her passionfruit tea, stabbing the straw through lychee jellies with prejudice.

I unlocked the Lexus, and she reached for the passenger door handle.

Then stopped.

Patted her pockets.

“Oh no.”

I paused with my hand on the driver’s side door. “What?”

“I forgot my phone.” She looked genuinely distressed. “It must have fallen out in the shop. Be right back!”

She took off toward Bubble Dreams before I could respond.

I stood there for a second, keys in hand, trying to decide if I believed her. Cassidy Valentine forgetting her phone was like me forgetting to breathe. That girl checked her messages every thirty seconds minimum. I’d watched her reflexively reach for her pocket during tutoring sessions when we both knew phones were supposed to be put away.

My internal skepticism alarm started ringing.

I glanced back toward the shop, but Cassidy had already disappeared inside. Fine. Maybe she actually did drop it.

I moved to open my door when something caught my peripheral vision. A car. Beat-up Ford Fusion, maybe ten years old, windows tinted dark. Nothing remarkable except for the decal on the side.

Monchamp Media.

The name meant nothing to me, but the fact that someone was sitting in the driver’s seat with a camera lens the size of a small telescope pointed directly at me? That meant plenty.

Oh hell no.

My Philly instincts kicked in before my brain could catch up. I’d grown up dodging sketchy people in sketchy cars doing sketchy things. This fell squarely into all three categories.

“Yo!” I called out, walking toward the Fusion. “You good?”

The camera lens immediately dropped. I saw movement inside the car. Panicked movement. The kind that said whoever was behind that wheel absolutely did not want to have a conversation with me.

I picked up my pace. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

The engine roared to life. Reverse lights flashed white.

The Fusion jerked backward so fast the tires screeched. The driver cranked the wheel, executed what had to be an illegal turn that nearly clipped a parked Honda, and disappeared down the street like they were being chased by the cops.

I stopped in the middle of the parking lot, watching the car vanish around the corner.

What the actual hell was that?

A photographer. Taking pictures of me. With professional equipment and a media company decal.

My mind went into overdrive. Options:

One: Random creep with a camera. Verdict: Unlikely. Too professional.

Two: Someone investigating my background. Verdict: Possible but weird timing.

Three: Someone interested in the Valentine connection. Verdict: Most likely and most concerning.

The third option made my stomach drop. If someone was digging into the Valentine family and I’d been photographed with Cassidy, alone, at a bubble tea shop, looking like we were on a date…

Yeah. That was a problem.

I pulled out my phone, took a photo of the empty space where the Fusion had been parked like that would somehow help, then realized how stupid that was. Too late now. The car was gone, the photographer was gone, and I had exactly zero useful information except a company name I could Google later.

I walked back to the Lexus, my good mood from earlier completely evaporated.

Troublesome didn’t even begin to cover this.

A few moments later, the shop door chimed. Cassidy emerged, her phone held triumphantly in one hand, her expression completely transformed from the scowl she’d been wearing. She practically bounced toward the car.

Cassidy Valentine did not bounce.

That was the thing. Cassidy Valentine did not bounce. She stalked and she glared and she moved through the world like she was daring it to get in her way. Bouncing was Harlow’s whole entire personality. Cassidy’s default setting was aggressive forward momentum with occasional detours into violence.

So the fact that she was bouncing right now was deeply suspicious.

“Got it,” she announced, holding her phone up as evidence.

“Where was it?”

“On the counter.” She opened the passenger door and dropped into the seat with exaggerated casualness, the kind that required visible effort. “Fell out of my pocket when I grabbed my drink.”

“Right.”

I started the car.

In my peripheral vision, Cassidy took a long, peaceful sip of her passionfruit tea and looked out the window with the serene expression of someone who absolutely did not just have a conversation they’re not planning to tell me about.

She turned her phone over once in her hand. Screen down. Tucked it in her lap.

I said nothing.

She said nothing.

We pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road toward the Valentine estate, and the silence stretched out in that particular way that meant one of us knew something the other one didn’t, and both of us were aware of it, and only one of us was going to acknowledge it.

That would not be Cassidy.

So I drove.

The October afternoon was doing something genuinely pleasant outside the windows, golden light across the shops and trees starting to turn at the edges. I had the heat on low because the temperature had dropped enough to matter. Good weather for sitting in a warm car with a cup of tea and not talking about whatever Mira had just said to make Cassidy come out of a boba shop walking like she’d won something.

“You’re quiet,” Cassidy said eventually.

“I’m driving.”

“You’re usually annoying while driving.”

“I can be annoying if you prefer.”

She made a small, dismissive sound. “No.”

Another silence. More comfortable this time. She crossed one leg over the other and resumed her assault on the lychee jellies, popping them methodically with her straw while watching the scenery.

I let the quiet sit.

This was new with Cassidy. Three weeks ago, silence between us had felt like a pressure cooker. She’d been in combat mode constantly, every pause loaded with whatever fresh hostility she was building toward. Now the silence felt like something else. It didn’t need filling.

That was probably the more concerning development.