by Eden Rose
“I should have told you everything before I got into this with these guys.”
All of a sudden, everything began to make sense. All of the red flags that I have been ignoring and the secret phone calls and meetings that he has been going to. The fact that he didn’t want me to do our taxes this year. The money that was missing out of Olivia’s part of the business. The safe in his office and now the money in mine.
“You didn’t.”
I don’t know why I even said anything because it’s obvious that he has been hiding something bigger than having a child on the side.
At least he has the nerve to look upset about what he had done. His eyes are downcasted in shame and his cheeks aren’t as red as they normally are. “I’m so sorry.”
“How much money are we talking about here?” I ask him and then I shake my head. “Is that why they came to me? Why they were searching my house?”
“Yes. And… it’s a lot of money. I owe them about three hundred thousand dollars.”
If I wasn’t laying down already, I would have passed out from the shock of what he had just said. “Why?”
There has to be a logical reason for him putting the both of us in so much danger. Not just because of money, but physical danger as well. Hell, I had gotten shot a week ago. I’m laid up in a hospital room trying to get better.
“Um,” he begins and then I hear the throat clearing of someone else.
Wyatt steps into the room holding a coffee cup. “Your time is up and I want you to leave. Nothing good is going to come out of you being in here with her. You have done enough.”
Why Wyatt believes that he can dictate our conversation, I don’t know. I’m confused as to why he even left but I’m happy that he did so I could begin to understand why Jerry did what he did.
I look between both guys and then down at my hands that are shaking in my lap. “I want answers.” Bottom line is, I want to know what the fuck is going on and where this all began.
“About two years ago, I had defended a man who was about to go to prison for the rest of his life. The guy that actually killed the man, not my client, had told me that if I throw the case then I would get a big settlement.”
“Why? We have never needed money. You have money and I do as well. There is nothing that we needed that we couldn’t get. What the fuck was so important that you had to risk everything?”
“I’m getting to that, Keeley.”
At this point, Wyatt walks over towards me and lays his body out next to me. It’s an intimate move but it’s showing so much more than support for me. Instead of killing Jerry, Wyatt is showing him that he could offer me something that he couldn’t. And that’s comfort. Wyatt has the ability to soothe me and to allow me to know that he cares about me enough to lay in a hospital bed.
Wyatt places his hand gently on my stomach and squeezes. “When was the last time that you had taken your pain medicine? I remember the doctor mentioning that it’s important to stay above the pain.”
Again, I know what he’s doing and I love him for it. He’s definitely showing Jerry that he cares about me and that he thinks it’s fucked up what happened. “I’m okay, sweetie,” I say with a sweet smile. However, the pain medicine is starting to make me nauseous and I could almost puke.
Knowing that Jerry knows the game, he clears his throat and then gives me the come on look. “Are you guys done? I get that you are with my wife now but you don’t need to act like horny teenagers in order to prove your point.”
Wyatt’s head snaps up and he’s glaring at Jerry to show him that he’s not going to deal with being told what to do and what to say when it comes to me. I already knew that Wyatt felt protective over me and he’s showing that while he’s not even talking.
Before I make my opinion known about Jerry’s impromptu visit, Wyatt leans in and whispers to me: “He knows I could fucking kill him, right? Like I would let someone tell me how I should treat my woman.”
I give Jerry a dead stare because quite frankly, I’m done with this. I want to get better so I can figure out what I’m going to do after this. “Get on with it,” I retort and wave my hand a little in the middle of us. The quicker I can get answers, the quicker he’s out of here.
Have you ever had one of those conflicting moments where you want to know something but then you don’t? Like when you had a pregnancy scare in high school or something. You pee on the stick but then keep your eyes closed as it processes. Uh, you didn’t do that?
Well… Then…
You know what I mean!
“I did my best to defend my client so I didn’t get the bar called on me for neglecting my client. However, I did leave out some important information that could have implicated the man that was trying to blackmail me.”
“Blackmail. In order for a blackmail to be successful, one has to have information on someone who doesn’t want that information spread. What was the blackmail?” I ask him and lean my head into the pec of Wyatt’s chest.
My eyes feel dry and I’m beginning to feel thirsty from all of the medicines that are in my blood. I can’t help but begin to feel out of control with this situation. I can hear my thoughts getting louder and louder inside my own head and I’m trying to quiet them down.
Fuck Jerry! He could piss up a rope or get stung by bees for all I care. Our whole marriage was a sham and I’m not going to let him act as if he was trying to help me or us. No! He’s not the martyr and he won’t be treated like he was one.
As if Wyatt knew how I was feeling, he rubbed his hand down my back gently and then rested it on my ass. With a playful grab, he grabbed a handful of the cheek and squeezed. Have I told you lately that I loved this man? Even though I’m beginning to feel out of control and about to freak out, he’s grounding me.
Jerry takes a deep breath and then rests his elbows on his knees. He places his head in between his hands and takes a deeper breath in order to calm himself. The part of me that once cared for him, urges me to be nicer and sympathetic due to the turmoil that he’s in. However, the other side of me wants blood for all that he has done.
“The man followed me shortly before the trial started and then began looking into our financial history. It started off slowly at first and then progressed into something way worse. By the time I realized how far this man had went, he had drained our bank account and then began to dip into the business accounts leading us to be broke.”
It took me a minute to fully understand what he was saying but as it clicked I understood. “What the fuck did he find you doing that you felt the need to hide it from me?” Obviously, it’s something he had hid from me that he didn’t want me finding out about. What, is a different situation all together. I don’t know he would actually tell me why he would do this.
Why he would put all of us at risk like this, but he had.
At least he has the common decency to look distraught over what he has done. “I swear to you, I’m so sorry. It only happened a few times… I was so mad at you for lying about being on the pill. For you lying about taking those crazy medicines. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me.”
“The man caught you cheating on me. Didn’t he?” It’s the only logical explanation for why he feels so guilty. And if that’s the case, according to our prenup, he is not entitled to anything.
“Yes. It was only a few times… I gave a couple of them money to keep them quiet, though.”
Wyatt
Listening to this man talk to my girl about how much he cheated on her, is not something that I wanted to listen to. In fact, this is the opposite of what I would like to do with him and my fists curl and uncurl at the thoughts of kicking his ass.
Keeley’s body is tight and coiled up but I know that she’s ready to strike. It’s only a matter of time before she breaks and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for Jerry. He made his bed and now he’s going to probably die in it.
How could someone cheat on Keeley? She’s a gorgeous woman, strong willed, intelligent and just pure fu
cking amazing. I wish I had been given the chance to have gotten to know her earlier in her life so that I could show her how a real man takes care of his wife.
“A couple of them?” I ask. “You mean my sister that you knocked up and paid off? How much money did you end up fucking giving her to keep quiet?”
Jerry’s head jerks back in the sense of showing me some sort of grief. I don’t believe him at all. “Anyway, they found out about it and threatened to tell you. That is what they had on me. I didn’t want them to taint our relationship or make you feel bad or anything.”
Keeley’s nodding her head as she takes it all in and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “You mean to say, you didn’t want me to find out because then you wouldn’t be entitled to anything in my trust fund. Is that what you mean?”
Holy shit. “Trust fund?” She has a trust fund? How come she never mentioned it to me? Granted, I really don’t care if she has money or if she doesn’t have money. I would take care of her regardless.
Again, I’m ignored. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. I’m sorry, Keeley. I’m so sorry things got messed up. Fuck me, I’m so sorry.”
I feel as if this conversation shouldn’t include me in it. However, I’m not willing to leave because I want to figure out how they are going to solve this. Bottom line is, Jerry’s cheating got Keeley shot.
“Key, I’m so sorry. All I wanted was to make sure that you didn’t find out and then Wyatt over here has to fucking research me and find shit out. I was going to tell you… Eventually. It just never came up.”
“It never came up?” Keeley asks sardonically. “It never came up that you drove our law firm into the ground. It never came up that you were cheating on me and then trying to get me pregnant. It never came up that you hid things from me. You’re right. It never came up. How the fuck could you say that to me? I took a chance on you and let you in and this is what you are going to do to repay me?”
“Repay you?” Jerry screams and then launches out of his seat while storming over. “Look here, you little bitch. All you are is just a crybaby with a crazy mother. I know all about you and you being crazy as well. Are you a psychotic as your mom? Are you going to kill your family members too? Or are you just waiting to off me?”
“Fuck you!” Keeley screams in my arms and then tries to push off of me. “Fuck you and your stupid ass. I know everything that you have done and to think I thought it was for an actual purpose. But you are just like the lying piece of shit that I thought you were. Fuck you! I hate you! You are just like my father!”
“Man, am I glad I didn’t get you pregnant. Fuck. I’m happy that those pills that I swapped out of your birth control pack didn’t work. You are one crazy bitch!” Jerry is spitting the words out of his mouth.
That is one thing that you never call a woman. You never call them a crazy bitch even when they are acting like one.
Keeley is jerking in my arms but I slide her off of me quickly and run over to where Jerry is snarling and showing his teeth to prove that he is bigger than I am. He may have the education and the upbringing that I didn’t have. But I have something that he doesn’t have and that’s the ability to handle business without blinking.
My fist connects with his jaw first and he slides to the ground. I felt my knuckles as they cracked a little under the pressure of the punch that I just delivered.
Without giving him any time to get off the floor, I jump on him and start punching him in the face over and over again.
“Wyatt! Stop! Please!” Keeley is yelling at me to stop but I am a man possessed.
“If you ever fucking say something like that to my girl again, I will kill you. I don’t give a fuck if you are some damn lawyer or whatever the hell you are! You are a thief and an adulterer. You fucking dumb ass!” With one final punch, I feel his cheek bone give way under the pressure of my fist.
Only briefly do I stop and consider the damage that I could have done to myself or to Jerry. Fuck basketball, I will just deal with the pain of having a broken hand. The only thing that I remotely care about right now is ensuring that Keeley doesn’t hate me for doing this.
“Nurse!” She yells at the top of her lungs. “Security! Someone, please help!”
“It’s only a matter of time before she turns crazy on you, too! Ask her about hiding her birth control pills and the hiding of her medicine. Her crazy fucking medicine! Go on, and ask her.”
Before I can think, I feel hands gripping my arms and pulling me off of Jerry. But, I’m not done yet and I still have vehemence in my body to deliver. He’s not finished getting the ass kicking that he deserves and I don’t know if he will ever be while he’s still breathing.
Keeley
My brain snaps off and before I can even stop myself from ripping the IV out of my arm, I’m out of the bed and stomping towards Jerry. What he said to me is beyond heinous and I can’t believe that he would say things that hurtful towards me.
He’s the one that started this. He’s the one that started the fucking cheating on me and then paying someone off so I wouldn’t find out. If he would have told me from the beginning what he was doing and everything, then I wouldn’t have been shot.
Jerry is still spouting off at the mouth about how I’m disgusting and how he’s happy we are done. “It’s only a matter of time before her slutty ass fucks around on you, too. I bet you didn’t even know she was such a whore. Did you?”
My fist forms and I punch him in his mouth repeatedly. I don’t stop until it goes numb and then I kick him.
Barely, I recognize the fact that Wyatt delivered a very fantastic ass beating, I make sure to kick him in the ribs. The past few years of worrying about our relationship had taken it’s toll on me and I just didn’t give a fuck anymore.
I feel a set of hands grip my shoulders lightly to pull me off of him and I stop what I’m doing to go rigid in their arms.
“Shh, cupcake. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
Twenty minutes later, after I’m patched back up and placed back in bed, I see the cops poking their heads in.
Wyatt was taken off to the security office along with Jerry and I missed Wyatt more than I could ever admit to him. I wonder if Jerry knew I hadn’t taken my medicine the past few days so it makes me feel a little spaced out. The worst part about not taking my medicine is that I feel out of control. Impulsivity is scary especially in a hospital where there is a whole bunch of stuff that I can get in to.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Officer Garcia asked as he sits in the chair that is next to me. He’s a cop that has been on the force for a long time but he’s actually one of my friends. With his balding hair and thick bushy eyebrows, he looks like he would be a nice man.
I pat my stomach with my free hand. “Well, I’m sure you already heard that I was shot.” I waited for confirmation from him and he patted my hand that is on my stomach. “Yeah, Jerry has been screwing around on me and he must have pissed some people off. That’s why I got shot. He came in here and wanted to come clean about everything. I didn’t want him to tell me too much because I knew it wouldn’t change anything.”
“Why was this Wyatt in here?” He asks me as if he’s my father or something. It’s kind of cute how he wants to know these types of things but it’s unnerving how he could look through me like he is. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good cop.
I shrug and then wince from the pain. “I think we both know why Wyatt was in here.”
Garcia writes some stuff down and then gets off the chair. “Well, I sincerely hope you know what you are doing because Jerry is going to play nasty. Good luck to you.”
Before I could respond, he had left the room and I was staring at the muted television.
Wyatt
I kicked Jerry’s ass and I’m more than willing to do it again. However, what I was not expecting was being arrested as well. Actually, I was detained until the hospital released footage about what happened.
The funny thing is, for being a l
awyer, Jerry was pretty stupid. As soon as he started talking, Keeley flipped on her phone in order to record everything that he had said. The most important factor about it all is the fact that he’s going away for a while.
When the officer came in, I knew he was going to side with me because he was looking at Jerry with disgust. Everyone knew the kind of bull shit that he pulled on Keeley and that is why she got shot. Sure enough, he was arrested and hauled off in front of me.
I wanted to cheer or punch him in the face again. However, my hand was still kind of numb from the beat down that I delivered him earlier.
*
I spend the next two weeks with Keeley in the hospital trying to get her comfortable enough to discuss everything with me. I want her to know that I don’t care about her past but I do care about our future together.
“I don’t see why you can’t leave tomorrow. Now something that I do recommend is that you stay with someone who can be with you at all times,” the doctor says to Keeley.
I can see the cogs turning in her head as to how she can get out of here quicker. “No problem. I will definitely have someone to take care of me.”
The doctor looks over at me and then at my girl. He shakes his head and writes something down before handing it over to me. Once it’s in my hands, he nods his head. “I want this prescription filled for her and she needs to stay on top of the pain. Also, she needs to be away from high stress situations. Due to her high blood pressure, I’m extremely concerned about her.”
I take the note and shove it in my pocket. “Don’t worry. She’ll be with me and I will take care of her.”
Again the doctor shakes his head and mutters something underneath his breath before looking at me quizzically.
The good doctor and I are standing in the middle of the hospital room while Keeley’s off getting final tests.
There is some part of me that is wondering if it’s a good idea to have Keeley come live with me while I still have Ruth and Luke there. Would it be a constant reminder of the time that Jerry cheated on her? Would she be able to accept my family for what we are and what we are is a family? I really hope so because I love Keeley.