by Stasia Black
“Hey.” I lift his chin so that he’s looking at me. “We only do this if you’re completely sure.”
Jackson gives me an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? My video is nothing. You were the one who went to Natasha and made it possible for me to finally put it in the past where it belongs.”
I smile, sit on his lap and gently kiss his lips. Yesterday we took the charter jet to Idaho and I went to visit Natasha, the woman Gentry tricked Jackson into having sex with. I told her why I was there and before she slammed the door in my face told her I was also Gentry’s victim. I shared my story first, right there standing on her doorstep.
She let me in.
She has a good life now. We talked over tea. She has a boyfriend after being single for a long time. Understandably, it took her a good while before she was willing to trust any man. When I finally got around to talking about Gentry and Jackson, she was more willing to listen than I expected.
What’s more, she believed me. I was astonished. Was it because of all that I had told her? I asked.
Gravely, she took a slow sip of tea and shook her head. No, she said. She’d believed for over a decade that Jackson had indeed raped her. It wasn’t until Gentry himself came to her door and said that if the tape ever came to light, he would need her to testify against Jackson. Not in the legal system since the statute of limitations had passed and they couldn’t officially prosecute, but in the court of public opinion. Gentry said he had extensive connections to national news outlets.
When Natasha said she wouldn’t be comfortable with that, that she wanted to leave the past in the past, Gentry offered her a lot of money to do it. An obscene amount of money, she called it. She told him to leave and saw a change come over his face.
“I saw it then,” she shivered. “What I had missed all those years ago in my stupid blind freshman crush. Other girls had warned me about him.” She rubbed her arms up and down like she couldn’t get warm enough. When she looked up at me again, her eyes were haunted. “He’s a predator.”
Luckily, her boyfriend had come home and kicked Gentry out. Natasha said she’d do whatever she could to help us. If Gentry released the video and tried to pass it off as rape, Natasha said she’d tell the truth of what she now knew really happened that night.
And as for my video? The video of those animals raping me. If Gentry’s telling the truth—and I tend to believe he is in this regard—then us making this move against him will cause a chain reaction.
Copies of both Jackson’s video and the video of my attack will be released to the public through a secondary relay, probably along with every other blackmail video Gentry has in his little digital vault of horrors.
I push Jackson’s hands away from the keyboard and pull up Gentry’s email program. I direct the email to the reporting department of the San Jose PD, attach the unedited video of my attack, take a deep breath, and hit send.
Hitting the send button releases a wave of relief so powerful I feel dizzy for a moment. I let out a shaky laugh and Jackson’s arms tighten around my waist where I sit in his lap.
“Callie?” he sounds concerned.
I look at him and blink. “I’m free. He has no more power over me.”
I thought in this moment I’d want to gloat over Gentry. To dance over his tied up body. To revel in the fact that he’s going to prison for a long time for blackmailing and extorting the fucking Department of Defense to get a contract that he had no means of fulfilling. Then to imagine the nightly reaming up the ass he’s likely to get by his fellow prisoners for being such a pretty boy who’s pissed off a hell of a lot of influential people over the years. Maybe to kick him in the balls again and again and shout in his face that I’m no one’s victim.
Instead, all I want to do is throw my arms around Jackson. So I do. “I’m free,” I say again. Tears course down my cheeks.
“We’re free,” he whispers in my ear, squeezing me back just as tightly.
And we are.
Together.
Chapter Twenty-Six
CALLIE
So it turns out when you have a kick-ass legal team that’s actually working on your side and an even doubly kick-ass private investigator who can dig up all kinds of shit on your ex and his shady-ass wife, you don’t even have to go to trial.
You can sit down like civilized people with your two lawyers at a giant table and hate-stare each other down while your legal eagles do some serious shit-kicking on your behalf.
Example A:
My lawyer, Alberto, speaking to David’s lawyer: “It has become clear during the discovery process that both of your clients have committed a host of felonies for which we have ample and irrefutable evidence. This evidence is all in the packets provided and includes but is not limited to: tampering with a judge, extortion,” Alberto pauses to look over his glasses at the opposite side of the table where David and his wife Regina sit, “really, extorting her lawyer by paying for his wife to get into an experimental cancer trial, you people are despicable.” He shakes his head.
Regina has the decency to look ashamed but David just stares at me, elbow indolently on the table.
Yeah. The mystery of why my lawyer dosed me with poppy seeds to make me fail my drug test is finally explained and it’s horrible. He’ll still lose his license to practice law. Which he fucking deserves because I’ve been separated from my son for four and a half months. But at the same time, I’m glad his wife is still in the experimental trial. David and his wife already paid for the whole thing.
Jackson squeezes my thigh underneath the table as Alberto flips a page. I glance over at him quickly and give a brief nod. The silent communication is enough. He told me before coming in that this was my show. He’d be here for support but wouldn’t jump in unless I indicated he should. I love that he doesn’t feel any macho need to try to run my life and trusts that between me and the lawyer, I got this.
Alberto continues on, “—conspiracy to commit fraud against the state of California, and you can see the rest listed.” Alberto steeples his fingers. “Now. There’s a possibility that we will not press charges on any of the counts. We simply require that Mr. Kinnock sign this document here,” he produces an official looking paper, “signing the termination of his parental rights.”
David sits back in his chair and stares at me like I just knocked all the breath out of him. “You can’t take away my son.” His eyebrows drop like I’ve betrayed him.
“Oh keep the kicked-puppy act for the naïve freshman and sophomore girls. That’s not me anymore.” I lean forward and stab a finger on the paper. “Sign it or get your ass dragged through the courts. Do some jail time and end up signing it in the end anyway.”
My words are short and pointed. I have no patience for this overly-dramatic asshat and the show he’s trying to put on here. “No judge in a fair courtroom is going to give a child to a criminal like you—”
David opens his mouth to object and I slice a hand through the air and continue, deadly calm and controlled, “—It turns out I learned a thing or two from you and guess what? From the tail I’ve had on your ass for the last two months, I figured out that you barely spend any time at home with this son you claim to care so much about.”
I pull out a piece of paper from the folder and glare at the useless piece of shit in front of me. This pissed me off so bad when Alberto showed it to me, I had to go to the gym for an emergency heavy bag session or I was gonna put a hole through the wall.
“In fact, you haven’t been spending many nights at home at all. Only two a week. What?” My words are cutting. “Trouble in paradise. Again?” I look between him and Regina. “You know what?”
I breathe out to calm myself down. He’s not worth the energy. “That’s not my problem. What I do care about is the fact that you left my son alone with a woman I don’t know, who I don’t trust, and who isn’t kin to him.”
David mumbles something I don’t hear. I always hated it when he did that. I’d be making a point a
nd he’d grumble something under his breath in disagreement. When we were together, I never pushed him on it. Screw that.
“What was that? You have something to say?”
He looks up at me, finally making eye contact. “Our son,” he says passionately. “I said he’s our son, not your son. And who’s this guy?” He gestures at Jackson. “I don’t know who he is and what if I don’t want him around our son? Huh? Did you ever think of that?”
His outburst only makes me cooler and calmer.
“He is the man I love.” I stare David down, seeing him for exactly the small creature that he is. “He is going to be the father you could never fucking dream of being because he knows what it means to be an actual fucking man.” There really is something powerful about cursing when you’re speaking in quiet, neutral tones. It has almost double the punch, though I’ve never noticed it before this moment. I slide the parental termination form an inch closer to David.
“Now sign this paper,” I continue, my voice as calm as a glassy lake on a windless morning, “or I swear I will make it my life’s fucking mission to pin every one of these charges at your door. And you think I’ll do it discreetly?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Oh no. I’ll make sure to email every student journalist at Stanford. Just imagine the headline: Deadbeat Philosophy Professor Extorts Lawyer of His Ex-Student (Ex-Lover, Current Baby-Mama).” I shake my head, “That reads more juicy than an episode of Jerry Springer. I bet it will go over so swell. You know what my crack team here also informed me of?”
I lean even further across the table into David’s space and if possible, my voice gets icier. “I learned that tenure doesn’t mean your ass can’t get fired. You can still be dismissed for violation of policy or law. And guess what? That lovely little list that Alberto here just read off a moment ago? That means you’ve violated both, multiple times over.”
I lean back and stare David down. “The Dean is just a phone call away.” I lift my cell phone out of my purse to make the point.
If there’s one thing David values above all else, it’s his profession. He’s nothing without it, at least in his own eyes. He admitted as much to me one night when he got drunk and maudlin and spent the next week avoiding me because he was embarrassed about opening up.
Well, he says he loves his son. Let him prove it. I’m only asking him to give up everything for him. I grab the pen in front of me and slam it down on the papers of paternity termination. He can say no, tell me to fuck off, face the consequences of his actions, and fight for a relationship with his son.
After all, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do or give up for Charlie.
David takes four whole seconds fidgeting uncomfortably in his chair before he grabs the pen and signs his name.
I wasn’t expecting the stab of disappointment.
It’s not disappointment for myself. Fuck knows I have no shred of affection left for the man in front of me. But for Charlie. That his father was willing to give him up with so little hesitation. Yes, the ultimatum I gave him asked for everything and I knew what choice he would make.
“We did the best we could.” I glance up in surprise to see Regina finally looking at me. These are the first words she’s spoken the whole time.
“I did the best I could.” Her hands are white-knuckled as she grips the edge of the table, tear-tracks visible on the thick makeup caked on her cheeks. “Maybe I can see him sometimes. I mean—” she chokes out. “I know you have no reason to— I have no rights, I know.”
She swipes at her eyes and her nose drips. “But I love him. I love him.” Her eyes beg me. They’re a mother’s eyes.
I grab the paper David signed and hand it to Alberto. I frown as I look at Regina, the woman who’s been mother to my son for the past four months. I quickly do the calculation. He’s so young, the months she’s spent with him are almost a seventh of his life. I think of how emotional he was last time I saw him. Can I really just cut another mother figure out of his life?
At the same time, she was also an evil bitch to me. I cock my head to the side, taking in the huge diamond earrings that are weighing down her earlobes. “How much?”
She swipes at her eyes, eyebrows dropping. “What?”
I cock my head to the side. “You’re very rich and I’m tired of being poor. How much is seeing Charlie worth to you?”
“You can’t—” their lawyer starts to say but Regina cuts him off.
“Anything. Everything.” There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation to her words and her eyes are wide with hope. She scoots her chair back and stands. “We’ll go right now and add your name to my bank account. Whatever I have is yours.”
And just like that, she passes the test that David failed. From everything I know of this woman, her wealth is her life. I push my own chair back. “Keep your money. We’ll see about visitation, with me there, on a trial basis.” I make sure to emphasize the last two words. She’s still been part of some super shady shit. “Maybe we can all meet and play together in the park. Someday.”
She nods over and over like a bobble-head, hands clasped.
“And I’ll call you, not the other way around. Got it? You pull anything, any stalkerish shit, and it’s done. No second chances. And I don’t want to see him.” I point in David’s direction without looking at him. I don’t need that man fucking with my little boy’s heart. He starts to make some objection but Regina talks over him.
“I won’t, I promise. I won’t let him near.” More tears pour down her cheeks as she shakes her head. “I won’t do anything to screw it up. I just want to see him.”
“Fine.”
Without one last glance at David or Regina, I look to Jackson.
He holds out his hand to me. “Let’s go get our son.”
We clasp hands and the world is righted.
Epilogue
CALLIE
“Mom, check out our sand castle!”
I grin as I get up off the shaded umbrella chair where I’ve been lounging and reading. I walk the few paces to where Jackson and Charlie sit by a sandcastle that I have to admit, kicks all the other sandcastles’ asses.
We’ve set up camp in a small area on Capitola Beach about twenty feet away from the surf. Well, we used to be twenty feet away. More like ten now. A wave crashes and the surf washes up far closer than it was when we first lay out our beach blankets and chairs a few hours ago.
I take a moment and soak it in—the sun warming my skin, the perfect cloudless sky, the crash of waves to my right. I didn’t think perfect days were a thing people actually, like… got to have. I mean, maybe celebrities and really rich people and… okay, Jackson and I are pretty rich, but the happiness that settles all over me doesn’t have a thing to do with what’s in our bank account. We’re on a public beach—there’s noise and people all around us. My boys staked out a little piece of beach for their own to build on after we all swam and picnicked earlier. It’s just… perfect.
My boys. My family. My life. I grin so wide I’m sure it’s about to split my face.
Fucking happiness. Who knew?
“Mom, come on. Why are you just standing there? Take a picture. I wanna put it on my Instagram account!”
My eight-year-old has more Instagram followers than me. I am officially old. Yeah. I don’t fucking care.
I laugh as I pull out my phone. “Say cheese.”
Charlie rolls his eyes but then smiles anyway before I snap the pic. I stare at it for a moment. Jackson sits beside my son, laughing and still as chiseled and fucking gorgeous as ever at almost forty. That thing we always complain about where dudes manage to look hotter the older they get? Yeah. Not really minding it over here.
“Take another. Well, wait a sec till I fix this and then take it,” Charlie’s eyebrows furrow as he maneuvers a popsicle stick to perfect one of the turrets. Jackson just shakes his head and grins at me.
Watching them build the thing was freaking adorable. Jackson was trying to teach Charlie about engineering prin
ciples. Charlie was half-listening and half more interested in playing with seaweed along the surf. But toward the end, as it really took shape, Charlie got seriously into it. They’ve bonded so much over the past five years. Charlie was Jackson’s mini-best man at our wedding two years ago. Talk about adorable Instagram pictures.
Charlie pulls the popsicle stick away. “Okay, ready Mom.”
“No,” Jackson says. “I think it’s missing something.”
Charlie’s eyes narrow in concern, searching over the castle. “What?”
Jackson pops to his feet and in one bound, he has me lassoed around my waist. “We’re missing the most beautiful woman on the beach.”
Charlie rolls his eyes and makes a gagging noise like he always does when we’re PDA-ing.
I laugh and screech a little when Jackson sweeps me off my feet, literally, and swings me in a circle before depositing me behind the sand castle. His long arm easily holds the camera out to get all three of us and the sand castle in the picture. I can see on the little screen that Charlie’s making goofy faces instead of smiling so I tickle him.
Jackson snaps the shot right when Charlie’s caught in an open-mouthed laugh, showing off his biggest gap-toothed grin. Jackson and I frame him on either side, me laughing with Charlie, and Jackson looking at the both of us, his eyes so full of love.
We pull into the beach house around sunset.
“How was the beach today?” calls Regina as we tumble into the house.
“I swam in the ocean!” Charlie calls. “Like really out in the ocean. We went past the crashing waves part and then Dad held me up and we’d jump when the ocean would go like this.” Jackson looks over Charlie’s head at me. He told me once that it still gets him every time Charlie calls him Dad.
Charlie rolls his hand to mimic the swoop and swelling motion of the ocean water coming toward us before a wave crested. “One time it almost got over my head, but Dad lifted me up and we jumped—” Charlie jumps to demonstrate, “—and we just barely missed getting smashed by the giant wave. And there was seaweed everywhere and it was yuck, we were always pushing it out of the way and—”