Claiming My Vengeance

by Jessica Blake

  We were inseparable almost from the start and I wanted to do everything right. In fact, I took so long to make a move on her, she practically jumped me one night and told me I was too slow, fucking me with the same energy she showed on the sidelines when she danced around in that sexy cheerleader outfit.

  I was dazzled, and she had me wrapped. This, I told myself in those early days, was the girl I was going to marry. Sweet, wholesome. Hell, I was even thinking about what kind of kids we’d have. I was infatuated to a point just short of doodling our initials in fucking notebooks.

  I had such a perfect picture painted in my head that when Natalie started coloring outside the lines, I’d ignored it for a while. The night she drank too much and tried to hit on Hunter? I told myself she was innocent. Some girls couldn’t handle their liquor. When she’d go a few days without calling me? I didn’t want to smother her.

  Then came the night of the party. It was at a farm outside of the city, a hundred or more college kids packed in a barn, more loitering around outside. Natalie was wilder than I’d ever seen her. Dressed in a miniskirt, cropped top, and heels, she didn’t look anything like an elementary teacher. It was okay, though, I told myself. She had a sexy side. What man wouldn’t have a problem with that? She disappeared outside a couple of times, and came back looking disheveled and wired, but I wrote it off.

  If I’d have known my sweet little Iowa schoolteacher was giving blowjobs for cocaine, I obviously wouldn’t have let her drive my Mustang. But she was, and I did, and she ran us off the road doing seventy around a curve. To give her credit, she was quick on the brakes, but there was little traction and she ended up spinning the car like a Matchbox toy, crushing my leg between the door and a tree before the car ricocheted away, skidding to a smoking stop half on and half off the road.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she’d muttered over and over, her eyes glassy as she gripped the steering wheel and rocked frantically. A very thin line of blood had trailed down her forehead and there was a dark splotch on her bright pink top where it dripped slowly from her chin.

  I was in shock, the excruciating pain in my leg eclipsing everything, my vision graying around the edges. I didn’t want to look at it, childishly imagining that if I didn’t acknowledge the horrific injury, it wouldn’t be real. Kind of like hiding my face: I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

  I remembered staring up at the sky — the top on the Mustang had been down — and watching the stars overhead sway slowly to the right… then to the left. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. And then Natalie’s face blocked the stars, bone white, almost feral looking. A single drop of blood dripped from her chin and landed on my shirt.

  “You need to trade places with me.”

  My brain struggled to process, pain shutting out the meaning of her words until she started pulling on my arm, frantically jostling me until agony speared through my body.

  “Gabe,” she shrieked. “If you love me, get over here. I’ll never be a teacher if this goes on my record.”

  And I’ll never play football again, I said inside my head. But I didn’t say the words out loud. I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

  I didn’t know how I did it. Everything was a blur of anguish. The five-foot-two cheerleader probably used manic, cocaine-fueled strength to pull me most of the way. That white, feral face screaming at me to switch places with her was the last I’d ever see of Natalie. I woke up in the hospital, having already been through my first surgery, a police officer beside my bed. Everything was blurry, but I could make out Gramps in the hallway, looking through the window, his face worried and stern.

  “Son, I need you to tell me what happened,” the officer said kindly.

  “Car accident. Is Natalie okay? The Mustang?”

  “Natalie is fine. Just some bruises. The Mustang, not so much. Were you driving? Natalie says you were. Is that true?”

  The Mustang was gone. Chester would be heartbroken.

  “Gabriel?”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes. I was driving.”

  I could hear him sigh. “Tell the truth, son. The placement of your injuries, the clean breathalyzer, well within the legal limit, even your bloodwork came back fine.” The police officer’s voice hardened a little. “Natalie Hatfield was the one who suggested we check you for controlled substances. She said you’d been on something, acting crazy and aggressive all night before you argued with her and she begged you to take her home.”

  My eyes shot open, and I was already shaking my head in denial until the resulting waves of pain rolling through my body made me stop. “Natalie said that?”

  The officer, an older man, nodded. There was sympathy in his face and complete sincerity. While the enormity of my girlfriend’s betrayal sank in, disbelief slowly iced over into cold, hard fury, embarrassment and incredulity that I’d let myself be taken in by sweet words, a pretty face, and a hot lay. If she wanted me to take this fall for her, fine. But this would be the last time I took a fall for anyone. And God help her if I ever saw the bitch in person again.

  “Whatever she said, it happened,” I said flatly.

  The officer tried to argue with me, but I wouldn’t budge. He left the room, and I saw him talking to my grandpa in the hall, Chester shaking his head and stabbing his finger for emphasis, the police officer putting a firm hand on his shoulder and saying something else. And finally, I saw Chester do something I’d never seen the old man do. He put his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he cried.

  Fuck Natalie, anyway. There was a reason I tried not to think of her often, and only when I needed a painful reminder about what could happen when one person puts complete, blind trust in another.

  Consciously, I made myself relax my grip on the Mercedes steering wheel and take a deep breath, hitting the turn signal for the upcoming exit. I knew, obviously, that Olivia wasn’t Natalie. I wasn’t delusional. The two women were as different as night and day.

  But that feeling of losing myself to someone else, completely giving everything over into their hands… I couldn’t do that again. I’d built myself into a different person. A harder, tougher person. The dick-for-brains college kid I’d been was long-dead, and Gabriel Ainsley stood in his place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Liv

  C. I.

  Christopher Isaacson.

  Isaacson was a building inspector for the city of Chicago, and he’d been getting payoffs from Devlin Cunningham to pass unqualified buildings. It was all right there.

  The payments were funneled through TrePat, LLC, and everything matched up. Those initials next to dates in Devlin’s calendar, payment amounts, everything. It was all there when you knew what you were looking for, anyway. This was what Gabe needed. With this information, he could easily narrow down the potentially unsafe buildings, have the police pick up Isaacson, and put a few more nails in Devlin’s coffin.

  I ran out into the hall, sliding across the cold marble in the socks I’d borrowed from Gabe’s dresser to keep my toes warm, feeling like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. I really needed to take a shower and put on something more than just Gabe’s shirt. Maybe talk him into a late breakfast and a quick skinny dip in Lake Michigan to celebrate, depending on what his neighbor situation looked like and whether he had to get right back to Chicago or not.

  “Gabriel!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the oversized rooms and empty hallways.

  I called him a few more times, feeling dumber by the minute as I realized I was alone in the massive house, before throwing on my jeans from the day before and checking the driveway. No car. I looked for a note. Nothing. I was confused and worried — I’d been at it longer than I thought, but it had only been around an hour. Had something happened?

  A few minutes later, I was pacing the front patio, debating on whether to text him, when a bright blue Honda CRV pulled up in the driveway and a petite woman with flaming red hair got out of the car.

  My first thought was, Oh my god, he’s married. Th
is is his wife. I’m in a bad reality show.

  But the woman who jumped out gave me a friendly smile. She had on a black, v-neck top and black cargo pants that looked like they had enough pockets to shoplift the entire candy aisle at a 7-Eleven. “Hey, I’m Roxy. You must be Olivia. Jason Pierce sent me.”

  “Jason? Gabe’s friend with the security company? Tall, scary, and silent type?”

  “That’s Jason. I work for him. He’s also the reason I’m dressed like the member of a SWAT team.” She laughed and headed briskly to the back of the vehicle, where she pulled out my backpack and the heavy laptop bag.

  “So, sorry, but I’m confused.” I took my gear from her and headed toward the front door. “Did Gabe call Jason?”

  “Yep. He said he was headed back to Chicago and didn’t want you here alone. You want me to look at your shoulder? I heard about your close encounter with a bullet.”

  He’d left without me. I’d been expecting heartache, but damn it all, he just left? Without saying a word to me?

  Roxy’s smile slipped as she accurately read my changing expressions. “Well, shit. Men. Amiright?”

  “Roxy, you have no fucking idea.”

  She followed me into the house, cautiously looking around. “This place is like a museum.”

  I didn’t answer. Just headed to Gabe’s office. I took screenshots of everything and emailed them to Gabe’s work email. That was it. I’d handed him everything he needed.

  I was done.

  Roxy was standing awkwardly in the doorway, twisting a spiraling red curl around one finger. “Can I do anything?”

  “Nope,” I said grimly. “I’m actually going to change my clothes and then head home.”

  “Yeah? How?” She wasn’t being snarky, just curious.

  “I met a nice Uber driver the other day, and I’ve still got his card.”

  “I’m cheaper than Uber. For you, anyway. Jason’s going to charge Gabe a mint for my services. You want me to drive you and we can ding him for mileage?”

  “You’re going to drive me to Detroit?” I liked Roxy, but I couldn’t believe she’d just —

  “Detroit? Hell, yeah!” she crowed. “Do you have any idea how much that’ll cost him? Let’s get breakfast and lunch too, so we can expense it. Jason just said I had to stay with you. He didn’t say I had to stay here with you.”

  If Gabe was going to pretend last night hadn’t been something deeper, different and amazing, so be it. This was it, then. The end. He hadn’t even paid me the courtesy of an exit scene. Chickenshit bastard.

  “Sounds good to me. Give me five minutes.”

  ***

  I’d lock down everything. Shut off my emotions. Focus on the next step and the one after that. I’d done it before and I could do it again. Emotionally, though, and even physically, I felt like I was slowly being ripped in half.

  Roxy was gifted. It took her less than twenty minutes on the road to draw me out into conversation, sharing my life story and all the sordid details that went with it. She was curious but didn’t come across as intrusive. She was sympathetic but not insincere. I shied away from any direct mention of events between Gabe and me, and she respected that.

  “So, tell me more about these classes that you do.”

  “Self-defense training? It’s just a side thing.”

  “It sounds like it’s a pretty important ‘side thing.’” She threw me a quick look, and I shrugged. It wasn’t something that I liked to talk about, but we still had a long drive ahead of us, and Roxy was a good listener.

  “I started it for a couple of reasons, I guess. After my mom died, I started to really think about the way things had been between her and Joel. As a little kid, pre-Cunninghams, I always remembered her as pretty and fun and ready to try any adventure. Somewhere along the way, she got quieter, and I don’t know, lost her sparkle. I didn’t pick up on it back then, but I think Joel ground her down. She was so carefree, before. After she got married, she started wearing makeup, being very careful about how she dressed. Careful to act a certain way, especially in front of Joel’s friends. Sometimes I could hear them arguing at night. I don’t know if he ever put his hands on her, but I’m almost sure she was abused.”

  Roxy nodded. “I had a cousin who sounds like that. We all suspected, but she’d deny it if anyone asked any tricky questions about her husband. Eventually, she left him.”

  “My mom never got the chance to leave Joel. I don’t believe that she accidentally drowned in the swimming pool. She was a great swimmer. I do believe that she either killed herself or Joel killed her and made it look like an accident. I’d like to think she’d have gotten the courage together to leave him, but just didn’t get the chance.”

  I sighed and looked out the window at the passing scenery. Rows and rows of grapevines and signs for You-Pick blueberry and strawberry farms. It was a sure sign we were in southwest Michigan, but the growing miles between me and Gabe weren’t making me feel better yet.

  “Anyway, I do it because abuse is so prevalent. I do it because my mom probably stayed so I’d be financially taken care of, and if she hadn’t married Joel, I wouldn’t have been that spoiled kid living in a fancy house in Chicago. I’d still be living in Detroit, probably in the same low-income neighborhood, in the same run-down house we had before I turned six. I do it because I feel guilty about having had so much when others had so little. And I do it because the thought of any other woman going through what I did when Devlin attacked me terrifies and enrages me.”

  “Damned good reasons,” Roxy affirmed. “Do you think you’d be willing to help me start a program like yours in Chicago?”

  “I don’t have any kind of program,” I protested, not wanting her to think what I did was bigger than it was. “I just kind of put the word out through people I know. Call around to community centers and churches in rougher neighborhoods with high crime rates that might make women likelier targets. You could do something like that easily.”

  “But what if you did create a program,” she pressed, and I could sense her growing excitement. “Open up a gym. For women or folks that identify as women. You could have fitness equipment, give classes, teach Taekwondo, self-defense.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” I said with a laugh, but she kept right on rolling.

  “Make it something cool that everyone will want to do. Maybe bill it as a women’s fight club and then charge a sliding scale based on the person’s need or income. You could even hold support groups, specialized classes—”

  “Are you always like this?” I teased, surprised that I was actually getting a little excited too.

  “No,” Roxy said, throwing me a grin. “You should see me when I’ve had some caffeine.”

  We stopped for lunch in Kalamazoo, at a little bar and restaurant off I-94. At Roxy’s insistence, we ordered appetizers, main courses, an expensive glass of microbrewed beer, and two desserts each. “I don’t care if you eat it all or not. This gets billed to the client, remember.” She winked, pointing a soft pretzel covered with beer cheese at me.

  The time passed quickly, but we were still a half-hour from my place when Roxy decided she wasn’t driving home that night. “It was that second piece of flourless chocolate cake that has me feeling so tired, I’m sure. Just gonna have to rent a nice little hotel room for the night,” she said in mock-sadness. “And since Jason hasn’t called me to come back yet, we should probably get a nice little suite at a nice little place with a pool. Any ideas?”

  I tried to get into her revenge spirit. “How about the MGM Grand? They’ve got a fitness center and an infinity pool that I hear is pretty cool.” The MGM, where Latrisha worked at the front desk and I’d confronted Gabe in his hotel room what felt like years ago. I was a glutton for punishment.

  “Infinity pool, huh? I think we should add bathing suits to the tab. And workout clothes for the gym. You think they sell them in the gift shop? We’re definitely going to have to check out the gift shop.”

  I sho
t her a look, concern worrying in my stomach. “This won’t get you fired, will it?”

  “No,” Roxy replied, her smile growing even brighter if that was at all possible. “I slept with the boss.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, it was like forever ago, before I worked with him, and we’re totally platonic now, but I didn’t hesitate to use that one awkward, drunk sexual interlude to get the job, and I won’t hesitate to use that one awkward, drunk sexual interlude to keep it.” She winked at me, her blue eyes sparkling. “Oh! I need clothes too. I didn’t pack anything because I wasn’t planning for an overnight.”

  “Would it do any good to ask you if you want to stop at my place and borrow something, or would that steal all of your fun?”

  “You’re an Amazon woman and I’m a Smurf. Thanks, but this treat is on Gabe.”

  “Is it too soon for me to tell you I love you?”

  Roxy threw back her head and laughed. “Not at all. I was wondering why you’d waited so long.”

  I hadn’t had a close female friend since high school, and I was almost sorry I’d met Roxy. Yeah, there were ways to keep in touch with people, but she lived in Chicago, and I didn’t plan on going back there anytime soon — or ever — that was for damned sure.

  One step at a time, I reminded myself. One foot in front of the next.

  At the MGM, Latrisha wasn’t at the front desk. I was partly grateful I didn’t have to face any follow-up questions from her, but mostly, I was worried. Had Gabe called hotel management after all? Had he ever actually said he wouldn’t, or had he just implied it?

  As Roxy was checking us in with one front desk employee, I waited for the other to finish with his customers. “Excuse me,” I asked after the older couple in front of me had moved away. “Does Latrisha Jones still work here? I’m a friend of hers. Olivia Redmond.”

  The young man behind the counter looked uncertain. And new. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m supposed to give out any personal information on our employees.”