by Claire Adams
I got to my crummy office and closed the door, putting my back to it as I depressed the push button lock. It was bad, but I had no way of knowing just how bad. If it was just jokes and the occasional awkward look, I dealt with that on a daily basis most of my life from being overweight. I’d have rather had people whispering snide comments about me landing a billionaire than me being fat, but even as I told myself that, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
None of those people out there knew the first thing about me and Dean. I wasn’t about to explain it to them, but whatever picture they had in their head of a tawdry office romance or “the big boss slumming it” wasn’t reality. We were living together, but in a lot of ways we were still feeling each other out.
Most of our relationship had been about the people extorting Dean and how he/me/we were going to get through it. We’d had our share of beautiful and unique moments, certainly, but easy it wasn’t. We were holding onto one another for survival and neither of us needed the attention of people who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand that.
I went over to my desk, plotting various methods of revenge against Johanna. I knew she was the one who’d spread the rumor. Other interns may have had her envy or her inherent dislike of me—the two seemed to go hand-in-hand—but I hadn’t met one of them anywhere near as brazen as she.
I turned on my computer and waited for it to boot up. There was actual work for me, and so I’d have to muddle through until Luke got in. I figured if I could just stay in my office until I could get some advice, maybe things wouldn’t get so bad.
I was almost ready to give him a quick call to see where he was and why he was late, but that’s when I saw the wallpaper on my desktop. It had gone from neutral-blue-boring to a remarkably clear shot of Dean and I smiling at each other as he led me by the hand into his office. Across the bottom of the picture, just below our hands and their interlaced fingers was the caption “What job security looks like.” That’s the moment I finally lost it.
I jumped up from my desk and threw open the door to my temporary office. That same photo was plastered over the desktops of every computer screen in sight, and it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming right then and there. There was nothing worse I could think of in that office.
Instantly, I had lost all credibility and any possibility of ever getting it back with these people, my coworkers. If I got hired on somewhere down the line, it would be “because I was sleeping with the boss.” If I got transferred to another office or let go, it would be “because I was sleeping with the boss.”
It’s easy to tell yourself you don’t care what the people you work with think about you, but it’s damn near impossible in practice. It was bad enough when they hated me for being Luke’s sister.
I wanted my job. I liked my job. Even if I didn’t, my only other option than coming to that building every day with Dean was to shut myself away in his home, and I was sick of being taken care of and protected. Whatever that smarmy beast’s problem was, I was going to solve it for her real fast.
It didn’t take long for me to find Johanna. I knew she’d want to be on my floor when I walked into the trap she’d set. She was waiting by Marika’s desk outside my brother’s office and I got right in her face. “What the hell is your problem?” I was too angry to even yell at her. Marika had left her desk, but I could feel the eyes of the others on the floor as I stood there, my fists tightly balled.
“I know you were going to try to get me fired,” Johanna said with a scoff. “Now if you do, everyone’s gonna know why.”
“Do you realize just how below my radar you are?” I shot. “I don’t care if you work here or not and I’ve got better things to do than try and sabotage—”
“Oh, you can keep playing the victim, but I know someone trying to skip a few rungs on their way to the top when I see them,” she said.
“That’s not what’s going on,” I told her, feeling my upper lip start to twitch.
“I know exactly what’s going on,” she said. She took half a step back, “I know you only got this job in the first place because of your brother, and I know the only reason nobody’s fired you yet is because you’re screwing the CEO.
“So here’s what I’m going to need for this to all go away: not only do I want to be hired on, but I want a cushy job with a cushier paycheck, and you’re going to have your loverboy put a provision in my contract guaranteeing me seven-figure severance, in case he ever tries to get rid of me.”
“You don’t understand,” I seethed, my teeth clenched, my mouth dry. I’d never been in a fight before, but I had a growing suspicion that was about to change.
“I know this isn’t going to take down someone like Mr. Carrick or whatever, but this is the kind of thing that’s going to make you a running joke on late night television for years. Nobody’s ever going to hire you again, and you’ll have the reputation of dumb office slut for life, so I’d make your case pretty convincing when you talk to your—”
The stress and weight of everything that been building up, all the fear and anger I’d tried so hard to repress and ignore all came out at once and I grabbed Johanna, slamming her hard against the outer wall of Luke’s office.
In a voice I could hardly recognize as my own, I told her, “I have had enough of you and your bullshit. You don’t know the first thing about me, and you certainly don’t know the first thing about Dean, so here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to admit to everyone you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and you’re going to find a rock to crawl under because I never want to see you or hear you or even hear about you ever again, you got it?”
I didn’t even realize I had a hand around her throat until she fought her way out of my grasp. She ran away, looking back to make sure I wasn’t chasing her. I wasn’t. Her face was a deep shade of red and she was crying, though I wasn’t sure if the tears were real or if she was just hamming it up because she knew I’d just gotten myself fired. She went toward the elevators, and I went toward the stairwell. I wasn’t going after her, though. I’d just assaulted a coworker in the middle of the floor where I worked. I needed air.
I got to the stairwell and just started climbing. Nobody tried to stop me, follow me, talk to me, anything. It occurred to me that thanks to Johanna’s earlier efforts to embarrass and discredit me, my coworkers probably thought I was headed to the roof to jump. I was headed to the roof, all right, but as messed up as my life was, I had no intention of cutting it short.
As soon as I got to the roof, though, I realized I was trapped. I couldn’t go back to my floor. I couldn’t face those people, not after what Johanna had done to me and what I’d done to her. If I was lucky, she wouldn’t press charges.
As I paced back and forth, tugging on my own hair as a primitive form of self-punishment for letting Johanna push me over the edge, I wasn’t feeling very lucky. I’d gone up there to get some sort of clarity or repose, but ever since that door had closed all the way and I went into panic mode, heights had become even more difficult.
After another minute, the door to the roof opened. Whoever it was, I didn’t want to talk, but when Dean walked out onto the roof, I knew I had no choice.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Let me guess, you heard I went all crazy on Johanna and you’re up here because you think I’ve totally lost it, right?” I snapped.
“No,” he said. That high up, it’s always windy, but even though he had to raise his voice a little so I could hear him, his voice was still gentle. “I heard what she did. It’s unforgiveable. I am so sorry.”
“I thought you said never to apologize,” I scoffed. “You know what? Maybe I am losing it. This is bullshit. I didn’t sign up for all this. What am I supposed to do now? I can never come back from this—not here. Not at this stupid company. If she presses charges, my whole life is screwed.”
“It doesn’t have to be that bad. I’m going to have a third party talk to Johanna, and w
e’re going to get this all straightened out, all right? There’s just one thing, though,” he said. “I do have to fire you. A lot of people saw you put her up against that wall, and I can contain the situation, but not if you’re still an employee here.
“This doesn’t mean anything’s going to change between you and me. I care about you, Marcy, and I know the kind of stress you’re under. I know that doesn’t help, but—”
“I get that. Maybe I’m not a mega-genius like you, but it doesn’t take one to know you can’t choke a coworker and come back in to work the next day. I’m not an idiot.”
“I don’t think you are one.”
“I’m not going to be one of those people who just lives off of other people all my life, though. I know I can’t work here, but how the hell am I supposed to find a job after this? You think you can contain this, but you can’t. Johanna’s probably downstairs calling reporters as we speak. Today at work, I ruined my life and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“You haven’t ruined anything,” he said. “This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to have my guys take you home to my place, and you take a few days off. I have to run the company, but that doesn’t mean I absolutely need to be at the office, so I’ll work from home the next few days and keep you company.
“Then, after the dust has settled, we’ll both just start coming in earlier than usual and you can stay in my office. You won’t be there as an employee, but that way, you’ll always be right where I can protect you.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“The wheels are already in motion, so why don’t we get you home and we can go from there.”
If Dean had managed to calm me at all, that progress had evaporated. The world was closing in on me, and he wasn’t helping. “Maybe it’d be better if we just came to our senses and realized that this is never going to work between you and me.”
“Marcy—”
“You’re a caviar and mob-conflict kind of guy, and I’m a meat-and-potatoes, assaulting-people-at-work kind of woman. I don’t know how I’ve managed to live in this ridiculous fantasy, and I’m even more confused that you went along with it, but I have nothing to offer. As long as we’re together, I’m just a liability, someone for them to put in the trunk of a car.
“So just tell your mob buddies that I’m out of the picture. Tell them it doesn’t matter what they do to me, you don’t care anymore. Either they’ll hurt me or they won’t, but that’s no different from any other time since we met.” With that, I stormed off toward the roof door.
Before I got all the way through the door, I could hear Dean behind me calling, “I know you’re upset right now, but you need to think this through!”
It was going to be a long walk down, but I didn’t want to deal with anyone, so I made my way from the roof of the building, down the stairs all the way to the ground floor. While I walked through the lobby toward the exit, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Luke’s number. He didn’t pick up, but I still had my key to his place. I called a cab.
Chapter Sixteen
Engagement
I called Luke’s office from the cab, figuring he had to be at work by then, but Marika said he hadn’t called or come in at all. She didn’t say anything about what happened with Johanna.
Knowing my brother, he was probably out golfing or at a bar. He didn’t play hooky from work as often as he used to back in high school, but it was still his favorite game as far as I knew. I tried his cellphone just to cover my bases, but he didn’t answer that, either.
The cab pulled up in front of Luke’s place, and I was a little surprised to see his car parked in the driveway. I paid the driver and got out of the taxi. Luke had other cars, but it wasn’t like him to leave one of them out in the open like that. He’d gotten a garage the size of a gas station so he could keep his “beauties” neatly corralled and away from covetous eyes.
I went up to the door and knocked. No answer came. I rang the doorbell, but there was no response to that, either. It felt a little weird letting myself in, but after all, he was my brother and it was his job to forgive me for stuff like that. When I got the door open, though, my heart all but stopped dead in my chest. The place had been torn apart.
There was broken glass on the floor and in the carpet. Do I call the police? Do I call Dean? Do I just get the hell out of here? I can’t explain the logic now, but at the time, the only thing I could think to do was try Luke’s cellphone again.
They’d gotten to him. They must have. They couldn’t get to me so they went after my brother. I told Dean he couldn’t cover every angle of attack. Any remaining hope started to drain as I heard Luke’s ringtone coming from somewhere deeper in the house. I prepared myself as best I could, but how do you prepare yourself for finding your brother’s body? I didn’t have time to come up with a game plan, though, as I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
I spun my head toward the motion as I instinctually backed away, but as soon as I saw who it was, I stopped. “Luke,” I said. “Oh my God. What happened?”
Luke had come around the corner holding a baseball bat. One of his eyes was swollen shut. His nose was bleeding and he was hunched forward as he took awkward, uneven steps forward.
“Is anyone with you?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“No, it’s just me, Luke. What happened? Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?” he returned, lowering the bat. “Where’s Dean? Why aren’t you at work?”
“Is that really what we need to be talking about right now? Who did this to you? Did you see their faces? We’ve got to call the police.”
“No!” he demanded in a broken yell. “No, you know what’s going to happen to us if I bring the police into this. You need to get out of here. It’s not safe here.”
“But when did this happen? You’ve got to at least let me take you to the hospital.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, lowering himself onto the nearest chair like a man with arthritis in every joint. “It happened…I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I know it was dark. Seriously, just get out of here. I don’t know if they’re coming back or not, but I wasn’t the one they really want to get their hands on, Marce. Besides, I already talked to Dean and he’s sending over a doctor and a few guys to sit on the house to make sure if they do come back, they can’t get in.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Are we really going to do this right now?”
“Just tell me what happened.”
Luke took a breath and lifted one leg by the knee with both hands and crossed that leg over his other. “There were at least two of them. There might have been more, I guess, but I can only be sure about two of them. They got into the house last night. Have you ever woken up to someone beating the shit out of you? It’s quite the experience. I don’t recommend it.”
He leaned back, reaching in both front pockets, pulling out a lighter with one hand, his pack of cigarettes in the other. He put a cig in his mouth and lit it.
“I can help you outside if you want.”
“After the day I had, I think I’m okay.”
“So they just beat you? Did they say anything?”
“They didn’t say anything for a long time,” he answered. “They dragged me out of the bed and even when I started be—asking for them to just stop, to tell me what they wanted, they still didn’t say anything. One of the guys left the other to make sure I couldn’t get to my feet so the first could go around my house, breaking everything worth anything. God, this place is such a mess.”
“They didn’t say anything?”
“Right before they knocked me out,” he said. “They told me ‘tell the boss we’re not going anywhere. He knows what we want and what we’re willing to do to get it.’ Everything went black after that and when I came to, it was starting to get light outside.”
“We’re going to stop these people, Luke,” I assured my brother, though I had no idea how to even begin.
“We’re going to figure this out, okay? They’re not going to get away with this.”
The doorbell rang, effectively freezing my heart mid-beat. Luke started to get up, but I put a hand on his shoulder. I picked up the baseball bat from the ground at his feet and I slowly approached the front door. The air was thick and it was hard to breathe. I didn’t expect the magnitude of what was coming when I opened the door.
There were four black SUVs out front: one in the driveway, three on the street. Over a dozen men were descending on the house. Some were approaching the door while others set up a perimeter.
“Ma’am, my name is Jack Mullen. Mr. Carrick sent us. Would you mind moving out of the way so we can get our equipment in there?”
“Fine,” I agreed, “but where’s the helicopter?”
Part Three:
Necessity
Chapter Seventeen
Full Disclosure
I was grateful to Dean for his men and especially for sending a doctor along with them to take a look at my brother’s wounds. But the other men, the two or more that had attacked my brother, in a way, Dean had sent them, too.
Neither Luke nor I went anywhere that first night after his attack, and the next day, I was only able to make a quick run to the store after agreeing to have three of Dean’s guys go with me.
Dean may not have personally ordered those men to do what they did to my brother, but I couldn’t pretend like it wasn’t his fault they were there. I understood that people sometimes grow up in terrible situations, and that sometimes they have to do terrible things in order to survive. That’s just reality, and while it’s not pretty, it makes sense in an instinctive kind of way.
Dean, though, he sought out those people well after he knew what kind of people they were. My brother already paid a high price for Dean’s mistake, and if the three of us weren’t careful, the toll would only grow.
My phone rang on the hour every hour, but I didn’t answer it. I knew it was Dean calling, and even if it had been someone else, I had nothing to say to anyone—except maybe the police, who my brother still forbade me to call.