by Eden Rose
The front of the restaurant is wooden in the downtown area of our city that we live in. It’s on the main strip and I’m sure they get a lot of business due to the fact that it is a historical building. I, for one, love their bread. It has sesame seeds on top but it is delicious.
“Two, please,” Jerry says to the hostess in front of the restaurant. She types in a couple of codes on the computer and then nods at us.
“Right this way.”
We both follow her to the table that is right in the middle of the place and I’m feeling even more exposed. The dining area is full with business people and then those that are here for a date. I’m not sure exactly what Jerry and I fall under. Are we even on a date?
By the time we are seated, Jerry has already ordered our food and our drinks. The waitress leaves immediately and she’s mumbling under her breath how big of an asshole Jerry is. I don’t blame her one bit.
He slides over closer to me and grips my hand in his too soft of one. “I know that something is going on with you, Keeley. What is it? Are you feeling all right?”
I nod my head and then squeeze his middle finger that managed to slip through my fingers. “I’m feeling fine. There was a lot of pressure with that contract.” And the fact that I’m in love with my client.
He shakes his head and cups my hand with his. The light pressure of his hand on mine, sends me into a mild panic. I don’t get why. We have touched plenty of times but for some reason, the thought of him touching me is enough to make me want to throw up.
I muddle through dinner, making small talk about the weather and his current clients. Nothing he’s saying holds any importance to me and I don’t really care what he’s saying. If Jerry notices that I’m not paying any attention to him, he doesn’t make it known. All I’m hearing is blah, blah, blah.
After dinner, he walks over to my side of the table and helps me out of my seat. I’m stupid in the sense that I know he’s doing this to make it seem like he’s not an asshole. I know he is one and I know that he’s cheating on me as well.
“Thanks for coming to dinner with me,” he says as he lightly kisses my lips.
I nod my head and murmur: “Thanks for dinner.”
By the time we get home, I’m feeling disgusted with myself and I need to figure out how I’m going to get out of this marriage with my dignity in tact. The fact of the matter is that Jerry has cheated on me and stolen a lot of money from me.
Not just from our business, but me.
Even though my mother was sick my whole life, I knew that she had money stashed away. Her father, my grandfather, is Antony Michaels. In case you aren’t familiar with Detroit history, he was a big figure in the making of The Big Three. There was over four million dollars that has been hidden in my parents’ house that took forever to find. Not only that, but they had holes dug and buried in the backyard as well.
“Key, I’m going to bed. I will see you in the morning,” Jerry says as he kisses my cheek.
I watch him as he goes to the bedroom and then I walk to my office. After booting up my computer, I slip my shoes off and sit in my chair. My body is still humming from my orgasms from earlier so I have to sit carefully.
I open up my computer program that has all of my financial information stored and wait for it to open up. After it is, I grab my calculator from the top drawer and pound some numbers into it. I review all of my current spending and put it into the formulas to determine how much money I have left after everything is complete.
Huh. That’s not right. I’m missing over twenty thousand dollars. I re-type the numbers into my calculator, and even then- it comes up with the same numbers.
Holy shit. Jerry has been taken money out of my own personal account. There is no other results to where this money went to.
I’m fuming and totally frustrated.
ME: that bastard is stealing from my trust fund!
OLIVIA: are you fucking serious?
SHANA: there has to be some mistake… right?
ME: no, there’s not! The money is gone.
SHANA: how much are we talking?
OLIVIA: yeah… how much?
ME: twenty k
OLIVIA: omg
SHANA: are you fucking kidding me?
ME: it’s all here. I’m crunching the numbers and he’s taking my money. I need to go to the bank ASAP and get them to block him from my accounts
SHANA: KiKi, I don’t like this… he’s going to keep fucking with you. You have to divorce him or figure out what to do
OLIVIA: I’m with Shana on this. You gotta do something. But please be careful. I don’t want him to take this out on you more
ME: how much more can he take? Doesn’t the bank block this kind of activity?
SHANA: not all of the time. Is his name on your trust?
ME: idts
OLIVIA: you need to check into that
I set my phone down and take a deep breath. I’m so frustrated that I’m thinking about chucking it across the room. How could this of happened? I need to go to the bank in the morning and weed through these invoices. Did he take it out all at once?
Chapter 43
Wyatt
Sleep last night had evaded me. There was no point in trying. Over and over again, I see Keeley kiss that asshole. She just told me she loved me but yet she’s kissing him. That’s just… Fuck! It’s not right.
Trust me, I get that she’s married, it’s all I can think about. But after those three words passed her lips, all I can think about is making her mine.
I don’t listen to country music, by any means, but I listened to this song over and over again as I ran. I have become a pussy. It’s a song by this guy named Hunter Hayes, and it resonated with what I’m feeling. I want to make Keeley mine.
However, as I’m standing outside of her office to tell her that I’m ready for her to be mine, I choke. I don’t know how to tell her that she needs to leave Jerry for good and come home with me. How do I tell her that?
I knock on her door and I see her cheeks are red from crying. I walk over to her and she watches me with her careful eyes as I get closer. I brush my hands down her hair and then tangle them in there. “What’s wrong, cupcake?” I whisper.
Keeley shakes her head and then looks down. That’s not going to work for me. “Come on, tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know. I’m just not feeling right. Something is off.”
Yeah, something is off. You are not at my house making it ours.
“I need to talk to you about something. It’s a little hard for me to talk to you about it… But…. I need you to leave him.”
Before she can answer me, I walk away from her desk and then pace to the front of the office.
“You know I can’t do that.”
I circle her desk and then when I get close enough to her, I breathe in her scent. She smells like vanilla and cherries. Keeley smells as sweet as always and it kills me to be this close to her. I don’t know how much more I can stand. I can’t do it anymore.
“I’m out,” I whisper and then walk away from her.
I can hear her heels click on the tile floor as she steps up closer to me. “What do you mean? What happened?”
Her lips are pursed and she’s looking scared. She looks as if she’s a scared little girl and it kills me that I’m doing this. The truth is I can’t be around her and keep this secret from her. She has to know what her husband is doing behind her back. She has got to know that he’s completely a fucking dick.
What Ruth had told me yesterday was horrible. I don’t know how my sister could have gotten herself into this mess, but she did. She sure the fuck did. There is nothing that we can do now that will save her from what she had done. For what Jerry had done.
“How do you think it makes me feel?” I whisper more to myself than to her but I should have known better. Of course she heard what I was saying. Her thick hair spins around in a halo around her face as she looks at me. I take my hand and cup the side of
her cheek. “How you think it makes me feel that even after I kissed your lips that you will be going home to your husband?”
Keeley’s eyes start to water and she looks up at me through her thick lashes. “You, uh, shit. You knew I was married before we even kissed… You knew I was married before you accepted me as your lawyer. Why is it a problem now?”
I take my other hand to cup the other cheek. Once I have her face secured in my hands, I squeeze. “Are you serious? Why is it a problem? I’m going to tell you exactly why! I fell in love with a woman who is married to an asshole and she’s too blind. How do you think it makes me feel that after I have kissed these lips that you go and kiss that fucker? Keeley, you can not be that stupid.”
The tears flow down her cheeks and she looks down and then up at the light blinked furiously. She tries in vain to control the tears that are flowing from her eyes. Nothing is working and it’s killing her. I can tell. Hell, it’s killing me that I’m the one that has made her cry.
“I just can’t. I promised myself that I wouldn’t make you choose but I’m breaking it. I need you to make a choice. Either you come home with me, or you go home to him. Make sure you choose wisely, because there is no coming back from this.”
Keeley’s chest rises and falls and she cries harder. “Don’t think about anything else but right now. I need you to think about this moment. What we have is real and you don’t have this with Jerry.”
At the sound of his name, her eyes clear and she shakes her head. “You bastard. Is that what you like to do? Do you like to confuse married women? I was happy before you came-”
The sting of her open palm as she slaps my cheek is what makes me jerk back. However, the sting from the slap is nothing compared to the feeling of her saying that bull shit. “You are so dumb.”
I walk out of her office before I say anything I’m going to regret. Like telling her about all of the money that Jerry has stolen from her or the fact that he’s living a double life. Or telling her that he’s not the honorable man that she thinks he is.
Jerry is going to have to own up to what he has done and only then can Keeley be mine. Completely and one-hundred-percent mine.
By the time I make it to my brand new SUV, I climb into the driver’s seat and stick the key into the ignition. Once I jerk it over to start, I pull away from Keeley’s office building. I make the mistake of looking behind me to see her standing on the step looking for me. She watches me drive away and then I see her fall to her knees.
I need to get away.
Chapter 44
Keeley
“You are so dumb,” Wyatt whispers to me after I slap him and then he walks out on me. He walks away from me as if he has all of the time in the world and I let him. I let him walk away because I know that there is nothing that I can do to soften it.
I know I hurt him but there is nothing I can do. The damage is done and it’s done to me as well.
I feel panic as it takes over my chest. The air is restricting in my throat and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe and I run out of my office like the clowns are after me. Once I’m outside, I spot his car driving away and I can’t help it. I watch him drive and I fall to my knees from the lack of oxygen.
The sides of my vision starts to blacken slightly and I’m gasping in the air as quickly as I can. I feel my chest expand to gather it and send the air where it needs to be sent as fast as it can but it’s not enough.
My vision goes blurry and I feel the rush of the air as my head falls onto something sharp and a splintering light flashes.
Part Two: Overtime
Welcome to Score’s sequel! Things are just starting to heat up and it’s only going to get even crazier.
Prologue
Wyatt
I remember waking up all sweaty from a night of tossing and turning why convincing myself to sleep through the hunger and light pouring through the dirty window. With a quick glance at the clock through the window of our studio apartment, that is illuminated at the liquor store across the street, I see that it’s two in the morning.
Groaning, I roll back over and force my eyes to close so the lights can’t keep me awake. There’s no use.
The crashing in the living room is what woke me up from my self inflicted sleep. I say that, because I’ve been forcing myself to sleep through the hunger pains for the past few years.
“Who’s there?” I call through the short space.
“Wywy?” My distraught sister says.
I jump off of the blankets that are on the bed that I call my space, and race over to see why Ruth is coming home so late. By the time I get to her, I notice that she’s covered in bruises and she’s holding the side of her face. “What happened?” I demand.
It’s normal for her to come to me since our mother is always working. I know that she’s trying to make enough money to get us into an apartment that is safer than this one that we are in. However, it’s hard on me trying to get some money on the side and go to school.
Plus, I haven’t told anyone this, but I have been scouted by the NBA for playing ball on the courts outside of town. Apparently, this recruiter doesn’t like going to schools and likes those that play on the courts better. I don’t know if that makes me a better ball player or not, but I’m not going to tell him no.
“Jose… I told him I was pregnant and he freaked out on me.”
Her words stab me in the chest. “What the fuck do you mean that you are pregnant?” I demand and then regret the harsh tone of my voice when she begins to cry. “Like we aren’t strapped for cash now and you go and get pregnant?” I yell at her.
I’m working my ass off trying to get her to graduate from high school and I’m trying to get drafted right now. I can’t afford to take care of her being pregnant.
She bursts out in tears and then covers her face. I’m towering over her short frame and I’m trying to break it down for her that we can’t afford for her to get pregnant. “I didn’t mean to…”
“What do you mean you didn’t mean to? Did you have sex knowing that this could happen?” I’m demanding these answers because quite frankly, I don’t understand how she could be so careless.
She shakes her head and then turns it to the side to show me that she’s embarrassed. “I was raped. I’m so sorry! Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”
I place my hands on her shoulders and then begin to shake them. “What are you saying? Did Jose do this to you?”
Ruth nods her head and then cries harder. “I’m going to kill him,” I state calmly. Before she could say anything to me, I have spun on my feet and go towards my drawer that holds my guns and spare cash.
One of the problems with working in the field that I have been drafted into, I can’t draw attention to myself. I can’t allow the cops to catch wind as to what I’m into because that would implicate a lot of different people.
“No! Wyatt! You can’t do that!” Ruth demanded.
I shake my head and holster my gun in my waistband of my basketball shorts that cost me too much money. If I want to be taken seriously, I needed to buy some shorts that cost some money. I spent over a hundred dollars on these damn shorts.
“It’s too late. He’s fucked with the wrong family. Make sure you lock this damn gate!” I say to her as I storm out of the apartment.
I can hear her crying harder and harder as I have left her but I don’t want to hear it. She couldn’t have expected to tell me that she was raped and then got pregnant and then got the shit beat out of her by the same guy and not get some retaliation against that asshole.
I stop by the apartment that is on the bottom floor of the complex that rivals an abandoned looking school. I scan the open doors and the curtains that are meant to be doors and I can’t see anyone lurking around. The problem with this area, there’s eyes everywhere.
“What the fuck do you want?” Comes from inside the apartment.
“Deke, it’s Wyatt. I need your help.”
A grunt comes from inside the apartment
and then the curtain opens a little. “What the fuck do you want?” He demands again. I can see his fucked up face; as there’s a scar over one of his eyes and then that side of his face, the left side, is scarred up.
There’s only rumors as to what happened to his face and I’m not going to be the one that asks me what the fuck happened. “I need your help. Deke, it’s my sister.”
Deke’s one of those people that gets things done. He knows how to make people disappear and I need his help with this.
“You know what this means?” He asks me through the curtain.
I know exactly what this means. I have just signed my soul to the devil.
Not only did I just make a deal with the devil himself, that was also the last time that I had ever seen my mother. She was in Deke’s apartment shooting up.
***
Keeley
It’s been a week since Callie has died and my mother is beginning to panic. She’s pulled me from going to school and anything else that I might have been signed up to do. I don’t know what she thinks I’m going to do, but I’m pretty sure she’s worried that I will tell on her or something.
She’s killed my sister and she’s been bragging about it on and off this week. One moment, she will be crying and then the next she will be laughing about it. The woman has gone crazy.
“Keeley, you better not tell anyone what you think you fucking saw. If you do, you will end up like your sister.”
I cry myself to sleep more often than not and I don’t know what else to do. Do I call the police? Do I run away? The thoughts of what my mother would do to me makes me nervous and scared.
It’s Wednesday, and normally that is not a day that sticks out but today is something totally different. Normally that wouldn't be a day that would standout however today is the day that everything has changed. Today was the day the police came to ask my mother why Callie hasn't been in school.
“Mrs. Standish, why hasn't Callie been in school yet?”