by Brenda Grate
“Yes?” he said, with the impatient tone of a busy man.
“No, we’re not going to comment. We’ve made our statement. Aja is innocent and there will not be a lawsuit as Mr. Aldridge has no case. The police cleared her, so what does he think a civil suit is going to accomplish?”
“Daddy?” Aja put her hand on her father’s arm, trying to warn him that he was in fact making a statement. He was usually so careful with the media, but his emotions were getting away on him.
He smiled at Aja and said, “No comment,” several more times, then hung up the phone.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have let her get to me.”
“It’s okay, this is hard for everyone. Maybe I should just go away for a while and let the circus die down. The court date isn’t for months…”
“I’m not having you chased away from the protection of your family, Aja,” he said with a stubborn look that Aja had seen many times before.
“No, Daddy, I mean like a vacation. I could use a vacation, don’t you think?”
Her father thought for a few seconds, then shook his head again. “If you go away, we can’t be there to protect you.”
Aja’s face got hot. Why did her family persist in believing that she wasn’t capable of protecting herself? She’d fought off Stephen, hadn’t she?
Sighing, she got to her feet. “Okay. I’m going to say goodnight to The Brothers and then I’m going to sleep.” Aja stretched a little and winced from the pain. She knew it was going to be a while before she could move even a little without some sharp reminder of Stephen’s brutality.
Aja wandered to the guest wing of their massive house. The Brothers’ rooms had been turned into guest rooms and Aja expected to find them hanging out there. Their father had outfitted the nearby entertainment room with a huge television and surround sound. The Brothers had been discussing which movie they would watch that night when they left the dinner table. She looked forward to spending some time with them. She only saw her brothers on holidays and she missed their antics.
Entering the TV room she saw the television was off and The Brothers were not there. Aja went to their rooms and only found Betty making up Orlando’s bed.
“Do you know where Olly is?”
Betty shrugged. “All I know is they went out together and told me not to tell you. I think they’re up to no good, bonita,” Betty said. Aja had always been her favorite. Betty never let The Brothers make her cover for them.
Aja stamped her foot. “Those damn fools!”
Betty’s mouth turned down. “Did you really think your little speech at dinner would make them give up their vendetta?”
Aja dropped onto the freshly made bed. “Yes, actually I did, Betty. How could I be such a fool?”
“You’re not a fool, you just love your family, bonita.” Betty shook her head, looking like a wise old sage.
She knew the family better than anyone. Betty - full name Bettina Flores - had been with them since she’d emigrated from Columbia when she was nineteen. She’d helped Aja through her teenage issues with her mother and comforted her when her first boyfriend dumped her. Betty was a comforting person. Aja loved her wit and insightful comments.
“They’re going to make things worse! What am I going to do?” Aja moaned.
Betty clucked her tongue and continued getting the room ready for Orlando. Of the boys, he was her favorite. Aja could understand why. Olly had always been her favorite, too. He was fun and sweet and could never be serious. He was a real charmer. Judging by the amount of girls he had always had around him, Aja wasn’t the only one to think so.
She jumped to her feet and raced out of the room, without stopping to say anything to Betty. She ran into her parents at the end of the hall. “Did you know that The Brothers are continuing on with their vendetta?” she demanded.
Her mother rolled her eyes. “What did you think they would do, Aja? Let Stephen come after you again?”
Her father had a guilty look on his face. She realized when he asked her to speak to him in the den it was a ruse to keep her out of the way so they could leave the house without being seen.
“You helped them!” she shouted. “What is wrong with this family?”
Aja ran to her room, grabbed her keys and left the house in a fury. The swarming reporters didn’t even slow her down. She pushed her Jetta through the crowd, her lips set in a grim line. Her family was going to drive her insane if she stayed another minute. She decided that Mia would help her to get things in perspective.
Chapter 6
Stephen let out a roar, making it clear to the entire hospital that he was in agony. The nurse’s hands shook as she prepared the syringe that would deal with his pain.
Once the medication kicked in and the pain eased a little, Stephen lay back on the bed and fumed. His member was intact, but the doctor wasn’t sure if he would be able to restore full functionality. The thought of losing his ability made Stephen want to weep like a little girl. That bitch! He couldn’t believe she’d had the gumption to go after him with a knife.
A razor of pain shot through Stephen’s groin and he started shouting and swearing again. A nurse bustled into his room and asked him to lower his voice.
“When is the doctor going to be ready for surgery?” Stephen demanded.
“Soon. He’s getting ready right now. Please, be patient, you don’t want to get yourself agitated before surgery.”
Stephen stared at the nurse. He could feel his blood pressure rise. How could she be so calm when he was in danger of losing a very important body part? He clenched his jaw and his fists and was about to give her a piece of his mind when the curtain moved and a doctor entered.
“Mr. Aldridge?” The doctor glanced down at the chart in his hands. “How are you feeling?”
“How the hell do you think I’m feeling?” Stephen shouted at the doctor.
The nurse made distressed sounds and the doctor just shook his head. “We’re ready to take you into surgery, but I wanted to speak to you about the possible outcome.”
Stephen broke in. “There is only one possible outcome, doctor, or I’m suing your ass. I want to be restored to normal.”
“I assure you, Mr. Aldridge, we’ll do our best, but there is never a guarantee, especially with all the nerves…”
Stephen started shouting again and the doctor left the room without another word. He returned with a syringe.
Stephen asked what it was as the doctor gave him an unnecessarily hard poke. Before he could even finish his question, everything went hazy.
Stephen woke to a blur of pain and immediately started yelling for drugs. The nurses in the recovery room rolled their eyes while they moved as slowly as possible to accommodate him. They’d heard how he’d ended up in his particular state and felt no sympathy for him. Stephen noticed their attitude and before long he began demanding a phone so he could call his lawyer.
When he was able to move to the upstairs ward, all the nurses gave a sigh of relief as they watched his gurney leave their area. It wasn’t often that a patient gave them reason to regret their career choice, but he sure came close.
Stephen held state in his private hospital room within a few hours of coming out of surgery. His loving mother was beside him catering to his every whim. He had his cell phone glued to his ear and was arguing with his lawyer. He had every nurse on the floor running to keep him happy, especially after he made it clear that donations from his father kept the hospital in the black.
This wasn’t entirely true, but near enough. Stephen’s father was a shipping tycoon. Many of the cruise ships that entered Vancouver’s harbor were part of Mr. Aldridge’s fleet. Stephen could trace his family line all the way back to the beginning of Vancouver’s shipping industry. He was known everywhere he went, but this didn’t automatically translate into like-ability.
“Get over here, right now. We’re suing that bitch and we need to plan our attack before her father gets his lawyers ready to counter-sue,” Stephen shoute
d into his phone.
“Stephen, please, calm down. You need to recuperate. There will be plenty of time to plan your lawsuit.” Stephen’s lawyer couldn’t quite disguise his sigh of long-suffering. Stephen was exactly the kind of young man to fly off the handle and make unreasonable demands just because he felt slighted. Having his most precious possession nearly chopped off almost unhinged him.
“Darling, please, you’ve just gotten out of surgery, you need to rest.” Stephen’s mother patted his knee and tried to ease the phone out of his death grip. His glare nearly fried her. She stepped back in shock.
“Mother, leave me alone. I’m talking right now. Go get yourself a coffee or something, damn it.” Stephen barked at her, not noticing the tears that sprang to her eyes. Mrs. Aldridge was a sensitive woman, the main reason she had indulged her son. She hated to see him cry. Stephen had learned early on how to get his way with his mother and from that moment he had been the one in charge.
She slipped out of his room just as he yelled again, “Get over here!” He slammed his phone shut and tossed it onto the foot of his bed.
Her last sight of him was Stephen throwing himself backward on his bed and then going rigid as the pain seared through his groin.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Aldridge whispered. But she continued toward the cafeteria. Nothing could have induced her to re-enter her son’s room at that moment. He was being hateful. She understood that he was in pain and angry at what happened to him. But after she saw the pictures of darling Aja that morning on television, she felt conflicted in her heart. Of course she loved her son, of course, but… She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against the wall in the hospital corridor. Only a monster could have done that to an innocent woman, especially one as sweet as Aja. After all, she had given Mrs. Aldridge a wonderful Christmas present last year, and it was one she’d picked out herself. Never had one of Stephen’s girlfriends done something so thoughtful before. She really was a sweet girl, and those bruises…
Stephen’s lawyer arrived full of determination that he wouldn’t show how much he despised his client. He nearly lost the battle the moment he entered the room and Stephen started berating him for taking so long. He had arrived nearly twenty minutes after hanging up the phone. In downtown Vancouver that was a bloody miracle, but you’d never see Stephen Aldridge give someone credit for doing a better job than expected.
“Bob, you’re finally here. Do your other clients put up with such pathetic response times?”
Bob Henderson gritted his teeth. He forced a smile onto his stiff lips. “I got here in record time, man.” Then not giving Stephen time to counter his comment, he said, “Now, why don’t you start by telling me exactly what happened.”
Stephen settled back with a low moan, making full use of his pain now that he had an audience. “That bitch nearly castrated me. She’s damn lucky she didn’t complete the job.”
Bob wrote, ‘Why the hell couldn’t she have completed the job?’ in his notebook while nodding with what he hoped was a suitably sympathetic face.
“Okay,” Bob said. “Now, can you elaborate a little? Why did she cut you? She and her father were on the news this morning and she stated that you tried to rape her.” Bob didn’t mention the bruises. That would come later. He could see Stephen getting ready to explode again with just the mention of his former girlfriend.
“She asked for it, Bob. You don’t know how provoking that little…”
“Please, Stephen, could we just keep to the facts. I need to prepare a legitimate case here. For God’s sake, I can’t just stand in the courtroom and tell the judge that she should be made to pay because she’s ‘provoking’.” Bob tried to calm down, determined not to let Stephen get him worked up again. His doctor told him at his last visit that his blood pressure was too high. Bob could have told him the exact reason why, but that reason had made him a very rich man and he wasn’t one to let go of a golden goose, no matter how infuriating.
For the next two hours Bob made notes while Stephen ranted and directed his lawyer on how to win the case. Many of his notes started with, ‘She should have cut his tongue out,’ and similar invectives.
Stephen finally wore himself down, though he would die before admitting it. He’d had enough painkillers to knock out a horse, yet he was still wide awake and fired up. Bob was beginning to doubt his sanity in staying with a client like Stephen when there was a knock at the door.
Bob saw Stephen’s face turn white as three large men elbowed their way into the room. The lawyer saw his chance and bolted into the hall with Stephen cursing him for his cowardice. The shortest one, with curly black hair, winked at Bob and then shut the door in his face.
Bob smiled and leaned up against the door. He had a good idea who these three men were and he was happy to make sure they weren’t interrupted. He just hoped they didn’t go too far and kill him. Bob didn’t want to be charged as an accessory.
There were muffled thumps and yelps inside the room and Bob couldn’t help smiling at a passing nurse. She was a little startled by his grin, but then she smiled back. He figured it wasn’t often she saw smiles at work, especially ones as delighted as his must have been.
After a few more minutes of thumps and bangs, the door cracked open. The same man gave Bob a thumbs-up and then the three of them disappeared down the hall.
It was quiet in the room and for the first time Bob was worried. He hated Stephen, but he didn’t want him permanently damaged. After all, with the amount of scrapes he got into, Bob didn’t need to work for anyone else - he’d been semi-retired for ten years.
“Stephen?” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
There was a muffled whimper from the bed and Bob’s heart leapt in relief. Good, they hadn’t killed the bastard after all. He ignored the small disappointed feeling.
He moved to the bed and examined his client. He figured he could be disbarred for allowing three thugs to beat up his client in his own hospital room. For guarding the door so they wouldn’t be interrupted, even. But, they’d have to prove he wasn’t just afraid for his own life.
“Stephen, man, are you alive?” Bob injected just the right amount of fear into his voice. “I’m so sorry I left, I tried to find help, but there were only nurses and I was afraid to leave you alone too long.” That was a good explanation, wasn’t it? Bob was satisfied with it. Not that Stephen would care. Even if it were the truth, he would still blame his lawyer.
There was another whimper from the still form. Stephen’s eyes were beginning to puff a little and Bob could see bruises forming on his neck. In fact they were very similar to the ones on the young woman Stephen had attacked.
Stephen let out a gasp and opened his eyes, looking around wildly. “Are they gone?” he whispered.
“Yes, do you need the doctor?”
Stephen swallowed and it looked painful. “Yes.”
Bob hurried to find the doctor and explained to him that three men had come in and beaten up his patient. “The shortest one had straight, blonde hair…”
Chapter 7
Stephen threw his glass across his bedroom and felt a small thrill of satisfaction as it smashed against the wall. The nurse his mother had hired poked her head into the room, took in the glass littering the floor and Stephen’s sour face, and left. He didn’t protest. He wanted to be left alone. He was in constant pain and it was making him angrier by the minute. He spent most of his time picturing Aja lying on the floor, while he choked the life out of her. Who would have thought such a mousy little woman could have done what she had done. I’m going to destroy her, he vowed to himself.
Stephen grabbed the phone beside his bed and dialed a number, waited for it to be answered, then barked. “Where are you? Downstairs? Good. Get up here. We need to talk.” He hung up and dropped the phone onto the bed beside him.
The television grabbed his attention. On the news they were discussing what Aja had done to him. Then, to his surprise, Aja herself appeared. Stephen hauled himself upright and lean
ed forward to listen. What is that little bitch saying about me?
The nurse came running into the room when she heard Stephen shouting in what sounded like agony. When she flew through the door, however, she saw him ranting and raving and swearing a blue streak.
“What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” She gasped.
“No!” he bellowed. “I’m furious.” He threw the remote at the television.
The nurse turned to the table and prepared a syringe. She approached Stephen as if he were a dangerous animal.
“Get that thing away from me. I don’t need any medication.”
“You’re upset. This will help prevent you from tearing your stitches,” the nurse said in a calm voice.