CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Amelia
Knowing that today was the day that Declan was going to present everything to the assistant prosecutor made it impossible to focus on anything.
I’d stumbled through a telephone call with my mother and gotten fairly good news from her.
“Surgery in three days!”
Apparently, Pop’s cold had cleared with a little good, old-fashioned sunshine and his doctors thought it was a good time to try to get the tumor out.
“Is he nervous?” I can’t imagine what I’d feel if it were me. Pop was so stoic, I sometimes wondered if he felt normal human emotions in times of high stress.
“You know your father,” she said with a laugh. “He’ll never let me know if he is. How are things around there? Everything going smoothly?”
Smoothly. I nearly choked at the words and felt absolutely terrible about lying to her, even if it was for their own good and even if it was temporary.
“Yeah,” I bit out. “It’s fine, Mom. You just worry about what you guys are doing — and healing. We’ll keep things fine on our end.”
At least that part wasn’t a lie. We were going to protect their business and deal with the people trying to take it down at the same time.
“Great, dear,” my mom said. “Listen, we have a massage scheduled for your father in a few minutes that we can’t be late to. It really helps him heal, they say. Probably doesn’t feel too bad, either, I imagine.”
They’d become quite the self-care connoisseurs since having to stay at The Capstone with Finn. It was good. They deserved it.
“How’s your brother?”
An asshole. An idiot. A backstabbing snake.
“Fine,” I nearly spit the word out. “The usual, you know.”
“That’s great,” she said again, clearly not too involved in the conversation, something I was grateful for. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
We said our goodbyes and I sighed, looking around the living room of Declan’s place. It was so him. Clean, straight lines. Smooth, impeccable surfaces. Not a magazine out of place, not a rug off a perpendicular line. Just for fun, I sometimes screwed with the spacing of the hangers in his closet while he was in the shower at night just to hear the sharp intake of breath through his nose when he saw the mischief I’d been up to.
I was anxious to hear how things at the D.A.’s office went and nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the key in the door turn. A smile spread on my face as the door pushed open and nearly plummeted when I saw that it wasn’t Declan after all.
It was a coifed, teased, and sprayed blonde with a helmet of perfect beach waves and immaculate veneers. What. The. Fuck.
“Oh, you’re the cleaning lady?” she asked, her eyes giving my jeans and concert t-shirt a once-over. “Is Declan around? He’s expecting me.”
Was he now?
“Umm, no,” I said, struggling to regain my emotional footing here. “Not the cleaning lady and Declan’s not home right now.”
Her fake smile dropped instantly, probably because Declan wasn’t around to be its audience.
“Who are you?”
Her question was condescending as hell and rude.
“Amelia,” I said, not bothering to give additional information. “And you shouldn’t be here.”
She raised her brows at my words and dangled the key on a simple keychain in between us. “But I have a key,” she said. “So I should be here and speaking to Declan as soon as possible.”
My blood was practically boiling at this point, but I didn’t have all the answers. Did I think Declan was possibly playing me? No. But it didn’t make this any less uncomfortable or weird.
“What’s your name? I can call him and tell him his guest is waiting?”
She leveled me with a stare, probably trying to see if I was being serious or not. Oh, I was fucking serious alright.
“Claudia Vickers,” she said, a fake smile on her lips. “You know, from the evening news?”
I rolled my eyes as I punched Declan’s number in my brand new smartphone, dreaming of an alternate reality where I had the balls to kick her out of his apartment on her face. But this was weird territory for me, and she still hadn’t really told me why she was here. It was just that her vibes were so… territorial. She didn’t look around his home like she’d never been there before — it was obvious she felt fairly comfortable in his space. And the bitch had a key.
“Hey,” he answered on the second ring. “I’m almost there.”
“Hey, baby,” I said, taking a great amount of pleasure at using the pet name I’d never used before. Her face darkened in my periphery. “You have a guest who let herself in.”
“Damn it,” he swore, but he didn’t sound surprised. “Is it that crazy Claudia chick? I knew my mother wasn’t going to give up.”
“Yeah, it’s her,” I said like we were having an inside joke at her expense. Which, we kind of were.
“She doesn’t look like she’s going to leave peacefully, does she?” His voice was strained.
“Not really,” I clipped, my eyes on her again. She was looking at the picture frames on one of the ledges that separated the hallway from the living room. I got a serious sense of satisfaction when her eyes landed on a recent one of us from Puerto Rico. I smiled.
“I’m so sorry, Amelia,” he said, the tone of his voice telling me he meant it. “I’m about five minutes away. You can try to make her wait in the hallway if you want, but she’ll probably be a pain in the ass. Just ignore her, and I’ll be right there.”
Nothing in my bones made me want to ignore her or allow her one more minute of believing she had a right to be in Declan’s apartment, but I did. Hanging up, I turned back to her.
“He’s on his way, and he’ll deal with you. Sit. Make yourself comfortable. Stand. I don’t care,” I said as I walked toward the hallway. “I’ll be in our bedroom if you need anything.”
Oh, I was laying it on thick as hell, but I couldn’t help it. So far, I hadn’t had to deal with jealousy when it came to Declan. I hadn’t needed to. He spent practically every free minute with me and had been open about his feelings toward me. But there’d also been no mention of exes, and to that point, I hadn’t cared.
But Claudia Vickers made a girl want to pull off her fake nails — not that I wore them — and scratch a bitch’s face off.
Steaming, I stomped into the master bedroom and flopped on the bed. Declan took no more than six minutes to get inside the front door, and I was pretty sure he had to have run up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
The door slammed, and I prepared for some fireworks. I mean, I was hoping for some at least, but I was surprised to hear his heavy footsteps stomp past the living room and down the hall toward me.
“You’re good?” he asked, the worry evident.
I nodded, smirking a little. He hadn’t even acknowledged the woman before coming to make sure I was okay.
“I’m good.”
“I’ll be back in one minute to explain everything,” he said and turned back around, his words clipped and rushed. For her part, though I couldn’t hear everything, she was pleading and pitchy. A minute later, true to Declan’s word, the door to his apartment slammed shut, knocking a frame down somewhere in the living room. The glass shattering must have made Declan laugh because his chuckle was clear in the hallway.
He stood in the doorframe again, holding the key in his hand and dangling it in the air.
“My mother,” he said by way of explanation.
“Not a fan of me?” I asked, pretty sure that was the truth.
“Not a fan of anybody but herself, baby,” he said and walked over, crawling up the bed toward me, ready to make his apology. I wasn’t even mad at him, but I’d let him apologize anyway.
***
Other than a crazy ex-girlfriend with a key to his front door, the next few days were uneventful, other than my father’s first surgery coming off as a smashing success.
“It was smaller than they thought,” my mother cheered into the phone. “He still needs a round of a new trial medication they think will help, but it’s nothing like chemo or radiation. The prognosis is really good!”
I nearly melted into the floor in relief. “How’s he feeling?”
I was walking toward Pop’s office to grab JJ’s keys from him. He’d called me earlier this morning and told me that he was leaving town for a few weeks and didn’t want the keys sitting around the office. I played along with him like I didn’t know he was probably on the run from the Duffys or whoever else he was messing with.
“Much better. He should be able to talk to you in a couple days. They already have him up and walking. He’s sleeping right now. How are you?”
“Perfect,” I said, feeling like I was lying less and less every day. “And I’m so relieved Pop is okay. I’ve been sick with worry.”
“I know, sweetheart. And I know you wished you were here. But it really is less stressful this way. Your father doesn’t have to pretend to be strong or anything like that.”
It hurt, but I understood. “I know. Just give him a kiss for me, will you?”
“Of course, darling.”
After our goodbyes, I wiped a tear away. Maybe it was best that I wasn’t with Mom and Pop. Here, I didn’t have to pretend to be strong either.
Sniffing hard, I composed myself before reaching for the doorknob of the office. Inside, I expected to find JJ at his desk, only it wasn’t JJ in the chair. My brother, in fact, was in a heap on the floor.
“There you are,” the old asshole from my nightmares said. He had his feet on the desk and was leaning back, looking like he belonged there. “Your brother here was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it, or if we were going to have to cut off a finger for every minute you were late.”
I went a little dizzy.
JJ was on his side, bound by his wrists and gagged. One eye was swollen shut, and blood poured from his nose, which was clearly broken.
Shit. I’d just walked into a trap they’d made JJ set.
Without thinking it through, I spun and tried to retrace my steps to the door, to get out on the street and get as close as I could to someone, anyone, who could call for help. But in my rush to get inside, I hadn’t looked in the back corner and somehow missed the two other men in the office. One stepped in front of the door just as I reached for the handle and the other grabbed me by the shoulders and roughly spun me back toward the man at JJ’s desk.
“Name’s Tim, in case you’re wondering, Amelia,” he said, all bluster. “I work for Mr. Duffy, and it turns out your brother’s a damn thief and a liar. He owes us a lot of money, and it seems that the only way Mr. Duffy’s going to get his investment back is by using you as bait. No hard feelings, right?”
I didn’t panic. Not yet. Instead, I screamed for all I was worth, hoping there might be someone outside, maybe walking their annoying little dog on the sidewalk who might hear me and at least call the cops.
I didn’t have long though. As soon as I started, a large hand wrapped around my mouth and pain exploded at the back of my head, and I didn’t remember anything else.