Elijah took my hand and led me away from the rest of the Ladies in Leather who sat at Hannah’s kitchen table and tucked us away in the tiny bathroom and shut the door. “Darling, I’m still the villain. It didn’t matter if I killed Shadow Strike or not, I was going to prison either way for the list of crimes the cops already had on me: breaking and entering, thievery, not to mention the mountain of parking tickets. With his amazing lawyer, Doctor Quackery only got a five-year prison sentence and if he doesn’t still think that I killed Shadow Strike, you’ll be back on the radar as revenge. Plus, I thought it’d be easier for you to move on if you hated me.”

“But you didn’t sign the divorce papers. If you wanted me to move on…”

“Just another move for you to hate me more. I knew the divorce would be final in a year and it’d be over…” he dropped his voice. “Or maybe I didn’t want you to move on so soon. Ems…” he brushed the hair off my face. “I never stopped loving you.”

My chest constricted. I didn’t know what was going on with my emotions, but there was one I latched on to. One I was all too familiar with. Betrayal. “You… you lied to me? All this time? You let me think the worst of you.”

“I didn’t….” but his voice trailed off, coming back weak. “I guess I did lie. I’m sorry. I did it to protect you.”

“Obviously, but didn’t you say that I was stronger than I thought? I didn’t need protection.” I spat, leaving him in the room and returning to the table surrounded by my villainesses.

“Emily… I’m sorry.” Elijah called after me.

I spun around, holding my open palm out to stop him. “Not now. Let me process one thing at a time.” And I needed something else to focus on. Something else to dedicate myself to, so I threw myself into the plan. I focused on my poor, innocent sister and how we’d get justice. “Let’s stay focused. I have to get to work in less than twelve hours. I mean, who’s going to crunch numbers, help rich people embezzle money, and push papers around all day if I don’t show up? Plus, I’d like to get back to a normal sleep schedule.”

“Emily…” Jasmine started, but I didn’t give her time to finish.

“I like where you were going with this, Natalie. Hannah, if we identify a superhero’s real-life identity, do you think you could hack into the superheroes’ personal accounts so we could review all their bank transactions for anything abnormal?”

“Maybe,” Hannah said.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I nodded, but my frickin’ lip quivered, seeing that look Elijah had on his face beside me at the table.

“You okay?” Jasmine squeaked out during my pause; her eyes filled with compassion.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? I married a villain four years ago, and it forced me to harden my heart. We have a plan and I want to stick with it. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can send Elijah on his way.” And maybe back to prison, making that toilet hootch he deserved.

After a small, uncomfortable silence, a sly grin spread across Madison’s face. “And while we’re at it, we could plant some false evidence to really turn the public against the superzeros. Maybe make it look like they’re embezzling funds or something.”

And just like that, we were focused back on our plan.

Jasmine’s sinister grin made me proud. “That’s all well and good, but we need to be careful. We can’t be caught red-handed, or else we’ll be the ones going down. Our first mission is to work on uncovering who the superheroes really are. What is their secret identity?”

“I was working on that right before the showdown with Dr. Quackery,” Elijah said, throwing himself into the plan just like I had. “I started to trace odd purchases through the financial system, hoping for a connection between the new things the Wonderful Wons used during their public appearances and tried to match them to purchase history. Hannah, you’re the tech one on the team?”

Hannah nodded. “I’m not that good. I can hack a few security cameras, but the financial system is too complicated and secure for me.”

Elijah continued, “I was using a hacker I knew… but I’m out of favors with her. We’ll have to pay and she’s not cheap.”

“We’ll have to raise funds then,” Jasmine said. “Madison, isn’t that your specialty?”

“Ugh,” Madison rolled her eyes. “How boring. I do that all day at work.”

“We should divide-and-conquer tasks,” Hannah said, ignoring the eye roll. “There’s five… um six of us and we’ll get farther by breaking things up.”

“And I also did some old-fashioned tailing,” Elijah added. “I watched where the superheroes went after each appearance and where they came from when they showed up at community events. I mapped it all out to discover any pattern. All that information was in my secret lair. We could dig it out.”

I swallowed. “I… um… threw that all away.”

Everyone glared at me.

“What? I didn’t expect to become a villain.”

“No problem.” Elijah saved me. “We can start again. We have time, right?”

Hannah nodded in agreement. “We do, but if we’re out there in the field, we need to be careful and cover our tracks. Assigning duties will help us stay focused. If we play our cards right, we can completely ruin the reputation of those self-righteous heroes and finally bring justice for what they have done.”

“Tailing it is,” Hannah said.

While the rest of the women cackled with glee when our evil plan came together piece by piece, I couldn’t help but dwell on the new information I learned about Elijah.

I understood wanting to keep me safe from Quackery, but why did he keep the truth a secret from me for so long?

All the hatred I harbored towards him this past year was built on false information. Did that make me like him again?

No.

All it did was make me find a new reason to hate him—for lying to me.

And my stomach churned even more, thinking about the kiss we shared last night.

I was foolish. And it wasn’t going to happen again.