As it turned out, Byron had a police officer version of the same problem down in New Jersey, so this had been the perfect opportunity for them to hang out.
And as it also turned out, I’d called it right. Byron showed up early, and he and Eric were pretty much at the making out in the corner stage by the time the party was in full swing.
Bernice and I ended up providing host duties, with a grumpy Wayne in the background, eyeing everyone who came as if he was performing a visual pat-down.
Not that I minded playing hostess. It gave me something to do with myself since my flirting skills weren’t nearly as finely tuned as Eric’s and Byron’s.
Also, I’d forgotten how much fun Bernice could be at parties. Judgmental front office clerk and responsible single mother by day—turnt up for what as soon as you got a few drinks in her.
She walked around, dispensing shots, laughing with men she’d never met, and dancing on various tables with more twerking skills than I would have guessed she possessed, given her name and office demeanor. Then soon after Eric came up for air to lead his guests in a faux countdown, she ran to the bathroom to vomit all that party dip and alcohol out.
“This is how I got pregnant,” she admitted as Wayne and I walked her outside to pour her into a rideshare. “Too bad there weren’t Ubers in backcountry Tennessee.”
Another clue! Was the father of her baby from Tennessee? Or maybe Olivia 2 had just been conceived in Tennessee? Maybe I should rethink my policy about not gossiping with Eric about the identity of O2’s mystery father—
Without warning, a surge of adrenaline coursed through me just as Bernice’s Uber pulled away.
Goosebumps—check.
Hair rising on the back of my neck—check.
Crazy fluttering in the pit of my stomach—check.
Sudden urge to runaway—check.
Or kiss the person who was making me feel this way….
Check?
What the heck?
Phantom? Was he here?
No freezing due to the flight or fight decision this time. I turned and whipped my gaze to the dark street below Eric’s walk-up. Looking for him.
Looking for the man who’d been haunting too many of my waking thoughts since Christmas.
But I couldn’t find him anywhere in the shadows. I could only feel him for some reason.
“You alright?”
I didn’t realize I was crying until Wayne asked me that question, his voice gruff. I’m pretty sure a weepy woman was the last thing he wanted to deal with tonight after helping me clean up Bernice and get her downstairs.
I shook my head with an embarrassed smile. “Ever have one of those years that felt like several steps back?”
“No,” Wayne answered in a direct way that let me know why Phantom preferred him over most of the other Silent Triad members.
“Okay,” I answered. “Happy New Year anyway.”
Wayne just grunted—probably because it wasn’t truly New Year's Eve. Just like my engagement with Phantom had only been a game of pretend with sex added in as a bonus.
“We should get you home too,” he said. I think he suspected I was just as drunk as Bernice, and that made me even sadder as I climbed into the back of his Audi. Driving home, I felt even more sober than I’d been before the party.
A couple of days after that, I came down the stairs to find Tom and Wayne with their bags packed and ready to leave.
“So I guess this is it,” Tom said.
Something major must have happened to neutralize whatever threat had caused Phantom to command me to stay in Kentucky. The end of their guard duties was less like a phase-out and more like an abrupt disappearance.
Just like that, those last vestiges of my time with Phantom went away, too.
And I hated it…I hated that I wasted the first couple of days after they left picking up my phone, wondering if Phantom would call or text or maybe stop by.
Especially since he didn’t do any of those things.
Days became weeks, and just like that, the city was covered in Valentine’s Day paraphernalia.
“All this Valentine’s stuff gets worse every year,” Bernice complained as we walked out of our favorite Italian restaurant with Eric. It sat just across the street from the clinic and had already been festooned in red hearts and lights, even though Valentine’s wasn’t for another ten days.
“Agreed,” I said, leaning into the hopelessly single and childless role the universe had apparently handpicked me to play.
“Maybe we should find someplace else to eat lunch until February 15th,” Bernice groused.
“Or maybe instead of being bitter about Valentine’s Day, you two should come to my place for Lunar New Year’s Eve tonight,” Eric suggested. “Byron’s coming over, and we’re going to make Korean rice cake soup and kimchi dumplings.”
“How is watching you two make heart eyes at each other in the kitchen going to make us feel any better?” Bernice asked.
“Maybe it will inspire you to go out and find a man of your own instead of complaining about everyone else’s good time,” Eric answered.
Bernice twisted up her lips. “You didn’t find that man! That was all Olivia! There goes that Korean appropriation again. I see you, K-Pop.”
“Okay, it goes both ways,” Eric shot back. “Your thirty-something skin doesn’t look a day over 21 because you stan those Korean skincare products.”
“Also, because black don’t crack.”
“You two, please let’s not do this again?” I said, rubbing at my temples. With the rise of K-Pop to the world stage, who appropriated what had become their favorite back and forth argument.
“Korean doesn’t crack either,” Eric sniped at Bernice as if I’d said nothing at all. “But there’s a difference between not cracking and making you look ten years younger. And if you don’t back down from this racial argument we’re having in the middle of the street, I won’t tell you about this new YouTuber I found the other day—this black and Thai girl named Erin from Missouri with skin like ‘Oh, my God!’ Plus, she does all these make-up looks and multiracial hair braiding tutorials.”
“Seriously?” Bernice asked, hooking her arm through Eric’s. “Because I need some help, I can’t keep a braid in O2’s hair—wait, is that Garrett?”
We all looked up at her words to find Garrett shivering in a wool coat in front of the clinic’s door.
“Garrett?” I said, crossing the street. “What are you doing here?”
“Livvy,” he answered with a grave look. “We have to talk.”
19
Garrett hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw him at the fox hunt afterparty. Same handsome features, same swooped back hair, same Wall Street suit—no need for much tailoring. Everything fit well on his trim figure.
Yet, he felt like a stranger as we strolled side by side down the street from my clinic with no particular destination in mind.
He’d asked me to walk with him instead of meeting in my office, where it was warm. “This is a private matter, and I don’t want anyone else to overhear,” he’d explained then.
“How have you been, Olivia?” he asked now.
“I only have about thirty minutes to spare before my next patient.” I’d grown a lot less tolerant of small talk since my time with Phantom.
“Always busy,” he said with a wry smile. “I think that’s one of the things that drove us apart.”
Typically, I was all for acknowledging my part in any conflict, but in this case, I had to add. “That and Leighton’s mouth around your dick.”
Garrett winced at my language. But then, instead of defending himself, he said, “You’re right. What I did—what I let Leighton do at that party was unforgivable. And I’m incredibly sorry.”
“Okay.” I think the old Olivia would have been so eager to resolve this conflict; she would have added forgiveness or some sort of validation so the person who’d hurt her wouldn’t feel so bad.
But the ne
w Olivia left it at that, even when the silence stretched out. Garrett was obviously waiting for the accommodating girlfriend he once knew to show up, but she was gone. And all that was left was me, wondering out loud, “Is that why you came? To say you’re sorry?”
“Yes,” he answered, smoothing a hand over his tie. “Also, I wanted to tell you that Leighton is no longer pregnant.”
That softened my shields. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, Garrett. Is there anything I can do for you two? I have a lot of counseling referrals.”
An alarmed look passed over Garrett’s face as if he hadn’t quite been expecting me to respond in this fashion. “No, that won’t be necessary. Perhaps it’s for the best. I don’t want to place all the blame for what happened on Leighton or say that she tricked me, but—”
“Good, I’m glad you’re not saying that,” I answered, my sympathy switch flipping right back off. “I’m glad you’re not the kind of horrible guy who would sleep with another woman behind his fiancée’s back then claim that he was tricked as if he wasn’t there too.”
Garrett opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. “You’re right again. And please believe me that I’m sorry for how things turned out—that I left you hurt and vulnerable. That’s why I so urgently needed to talk to you. There are some things you should know about the man you’re now engaged to.”
A ping of guilt went off in the back of my head. Just like something had kept me from picking up the phone for weeks to tell my father that Phantom and I had broken up, I couldn’t bring myself to let Garrett know that my so-called fiancé and I were no longer together.
“Things like what?” I asked him as opposed to fessing up about getting dumped.
“First of all, he’s dangerous and violent. He had quite the reputation among those who knew him before this current businessman incarnation that he used to woo you.”
I couldn’t begin to say why, but that need to defend Phantom came right on back as it’d never left. “And how do you know all of this?”
“I told you, he asked me to wash his money.”
“And you also mentioned that he said you owed him money because you refused. That doesn’t sound like something he would do. Or logical even.”
Garrett stopped walking and looked from side to side. “Okay, I wasn’t completely forthcoming with you. I have a problem with gambling. A problem that led me down some dark roads after my parents cut me off. I did wash money. For The Silent Triad, the 24K, and a few other outfits. But then I lost big, and I asked a few of my clients for personal loans….”
“What?” I asked, unable to believe he’d kept all of this from me while we were together. “How are you still alive?”
Garrett bristled. “Of course, I offered to pay them back. And I’m doing that. It helps that The Silent Triad cleared me of my debt—thanks to you.”
I shook my head, finding these new secrets hard to process. But most of all, I wondered, “Why are you telling me all of this now?”
A guilty look replaced the defensive one on Garret’s face. “You’re right yet again. I should have told you earlier, explained everything, and why I was so stressed out. Instead, I began making poor decisions—like the loans and Leighton. I realized that almost as soon as I saw you walk into that party with Phantom.”
He grasped my arm, his eyes pleading with me as he said, “I couldn’t believe you’d fallen into his grips because of what I’d done. And I knew then that I had to warn you about him. But you didn’t return any of my texts or calls. And whenever I tried to visit you in person, those Chinese thugs he posted outside your clinic turned me away.”
A bitter cast came over his face. “But I kept on trying. I knew he couldn’t stop me from seeing you forever. And I have to make this right.”
I let out a shaky breath. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that the guards were also responsible for keeping Garrett away from me.
But I also had to remind him, “There is no making this right. You lied. You’ve been lying to me about the state of your finances the entire time we’ve been dating. And then you cheated on top of that.”
His lips twisted in an ugly sneer. “Do you think he’s any better? He obviously would have said anything, done anything to get what he wanted. I was just doing little jobs for the Russians when he approached me ten years ago. He’s the one who introduced me to all the Triads I’m now in trouble with—he said that he knew I needed money, and he didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Wait a minute, he mentioned me?” I asked. “Ten years ago?”
Garrett jerked his head back. “You didn’t know that our connection was through you? When he swooped in right after our break up, I assumed he was an ex who never got over you….”
Garrett considered me with a new light in his eyes. “But maybe this was his plan all along. He and his partners had already acquired VIP Bai3 by then. I supposed he could have plotted to build a legitimate alcohol business and use you to pluck up Glendaver. And now…”
“He’s gotten exactly what he wanted,” I finished for Garrett. My stomach rolled, and several events began to click into place—including him dumping me as soon as my father agreed to the sale.
After all, Phantom didn’t know that I’d confessed everything to Dad and that he’d given me the final decision.
“My father called to tell me that your father had decided to take VIP Bai3’s offer,” Garrett said as if he were reading my mind. “That he’d chosen you over Leighton.”
“It wasn’t a choice between Leighton and me,” I insisted.
“You really think that? Everyone knows you’re his favorite. All he talks about is his doctor daughter and those Uganda trips. It was stupid of me to think Leighton could close the deal, even with a baby.”
Garrett’s bitter look made me realize something else. “Was Leighton ever pregnant in the first place? Did she really have a miscarriage?”
“She would have been. We were working on it,” Garrett answered.
More sick feelings rolled my stomach. “I can’t believe you would sink this low, use people like this, just for money. You’re a monster.”
“We can't all be like you, Saint Olivia,” Garrett said with a nasty tone, grabbing my arm again.
I ripped it back and started walking toward the clinic.
But Garrett called after me. “And if you think I’m a monster, what does that make your current fiancé? He’s the biggest monster in this story.”
He’s the biggest monster in this story.
Garrett’s words echoed in my head as I conducted my next appointment. Luckily it was just a third-trimester growth scan for one of my older deaf moms. Everything looked great, and I gave her and her wife a cheery goodbye, knowing I probably wouldn’t see them again until it was time for the baby to be born.
After that, I’d planned to work on a job description for the third OB I’d decided to bring on for the clinic. But instead of returning to my office, I asked Bernice to cancel the rest of my appointments for the day.
It was time. Time for me to go home and call my father and tell him about the break-up.
Garrett was horrible but technically right. Phantom had been playing me all along.
Let me in.
An embarrassed heat rushed through my body as I remembered the desperate way he’d taken me after he’d shown up at my door.
Mind games. That was all that was.
I should feel nothing but used and violated.
Yet, as I thundered home on the subway, one thought kept swirling around my mind. But what about his grandma?
I’d seen her fall with my own eyes. She’d held onto my hand and refused to let me go until her grandson arrived. There was no way Phantom could have orchestrated that. No way.
The tinny voice overhead announced my stop, but I didn’t disembark.
I kept going. I kept going and switched trains to get off at the stop right underneath Chelsea Sinai.
All my life…
All my life, relationships had
been something that happened to me. I’d had crushes at my mostly white private school, but I’d been so afraid of rejection that I’d never pursued them or let any of the boys I liked know.
How many times had I been jealous of Eric’s ability to spot a man he found attractive and level up to kissing before the hour was through? Or Bernice’s secret superpower of being able to talk to any guy she wanted after throwing back a couple of drinks?
I’d never been able to do that. Every guy I’d ever dated had made the first move. And my relationship with Phantom had been the same. He’d appeared to give me the decision of accepting his proposal at the party. But he steered every inch of it, then jumped out of the driver’s seat and left me to crash into a wall.
But what about his grandma?
The question kept ringing in my head as I walked up to the emergency room’s front desk and asked to see the nurse who attended to Phantom’s grandmother the day of the accident.
No more letting life happen to me, I decided.
It was time for me to take back the wheel, demand answers.
And by demand, I meant politely ask the nurse to look up the address record for the old lady who came through the emergency room on my birthday. I made up a story about picking up her day planner but having only found the time to return it today.
Yes, I was willing to break several HIPPA laws if it meant finally getting some answers.
Fortunately, the nurse was extremely busy. She just gave me the information I wanted without any further questions.
And about a half-hour later, I found myself standing outside a mixed-use apartment building in Chinatown.
Phantom’s grandmother pushed open the red security door from the other side before I even got the chance to find her unit on the call-up box. As if she’d been waiting for my arrival. Her entire face lit up with a gummy smile when she saw me.
Phantom: Her Ruthless Fiancé: 50 Loving States, Kentucky (Ruthless Triad) Page 14