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His family was threatening to disown him blah-blah-blah. The whole time he was yelling, I kept walking at my usual pace, which seemed to irritate him for some reason. It’s when he reached out to touch me that, before I could take his ass down, someone else did it for me.
I didn’t even see her move until she was standing between me and him while he was on the floor. “Are you okay, Mrs. Jacobi?” That’s how I learned that she was one of Garrett’s people.
“Yes, I am, thanks, and you are?”
She didn’t answer; she just turned and walked away. I stepped over Denny, who seemed unable to move because of whatever the hell she had done to him. He wasn’t holding his balls. She didn’t go there, but he was acting as if he couldn’t move, and the way he was catching his breath, I’m thinking he was in distress. Not my business.
I pulled out my phone as soon as I was in the building with the door closed behind me. “You have people spying on me; remove them.”
“No. Now, I’m in the middle of a meeting; go to work, and we’ll talk about what the fuck your ex was doing at your place of business when you get home.”
He hung up the phone and I stood there for a few seconds in shock. “How is this my fault?” Why is he acting like I invited that asshole here? The bastard was still causing trouble for me.
I punched in another contact on my phone with an order. “Do it!” It was only after I hung up that I wondered how the hell Garrett had heard so soon. It was only about a minute between Denny’s takedown and the phone call.
DENNY
“What the fuck?” I almost ran off the road when something small and furry moved around beneath my feet on the floorboards. My scream seemed to have alarmed whatever it was, and the next thing I knew, there was a sharp pain in my leg.
I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car with what I now realized was a raccoon attached to my leg. I shook it off, but it just kept coming back until I looked like an idiot running around on the side of the road, trying to get away from that thing.
People were yelling out of their car windows and honking their horns which only seemed to make the thing more agitated. I found a broken limb about ten feet from my car where the raccoon had chased me, and I was finally able to get it away from me.
I hobbled back to my car and was scared to get in lest there was something else inside. I finally found the courage to get in and close the door when I saw the raccoon heading back my way at a quick pace.
I sat there for a few minutes to get my bearings and try to calm down. How the hell did that thing get into my car? Did I leave the door open when I went to confront Alyssa?
I don’t recall doing that. Or was it when I stopped at the gas station to get a bottle of water inside? I don’t remember leaving my car door open either time, and it was too hot to drive with my windows open, so it couldn’t have gotten in that way.
I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to go to the hospital right away or give it a few days. The bite hurt like a son of a bitch, but I was more distracted by seeing Alyssa. Had she always had that air of aloofness about her?
Of course, she did, but she had never turned it on me before, so I never noticed the power behind it. She made me feel like shit. Like I meant less than nothing to her, the man she had spent the last four years with.
I knew she was a cold bitch, but I didn’t realize how deep that coldness ran. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel as tears gathered and rolled down my cheeks unchecked.
GARRETT
“We fucked up royally, didn’t we?”
“How so?”
“I’ve been thinking since the wedding, in fact, since the night she attacked Dad in his house. While we thought we were protecting her over the years, she was the one protecting herself.”
“So, what do you plan to do about it?”
“We’re not sure; that’s why we’re asking you. I guess we realize that somehow you do know her better than we thought we did. Everything else aside, I just want to make sure that she’s not hurting. If she is, I think that would kill me.”
“It would kill all of us, Bri; we’re all equally to blame in this,” Cameron answered him. They’d shown up at my door sometime after lunch when I was sure they were all supposed to be at work.
The fact that they came here now meant two things, one, that they were genuinely worried about their sister, and two, they didn’t want her to know that they had come to see me. I’m going to tell her of course, because she’d see it as a betrayal if I don’t. But they still don’t seem to get it.
I wasn’t going to explain because I knew where they were coming from. It must be hard for the siblings, as close as they usually are, to have this rift between them. She just needs time and she’d come around, which is something I doubt even she knows.
But once she works it out in her head in her own time, she’d come to the realization that she’s mad and hurt because she loves them, including her Dad. But as is usual for humans, they want instant gratification. They expect to say sorry and have things go back to the way they were before they fucked up.
Not taking into account that the other party still has their own trauma, which is completely different from the perpetrators to work through. “Your sister just needs time. I won’t let you rush her, not that you can. And just so you know, full disclosure, I will be telling her that you came here today.”
“We figured as much. We don’t want you to hide it from her; in fact, we came now because we know she doesn’t want to see us right now, and we don’t want to seem like we’re pushing. But you’ve got to understand how hard this is for us as well.”
